Or even just not have it sitting and waiting outside for him, double-parked on New York City streets, for an indefinite amount of time. It certainly seemed as if his limo was the only one there, and I doubt that the CEO wouldn’t have had a car to take him home, so there was something weird going on that allowed Michael to sneak back in after running from the shareholder meeting.

But either way, this was a rather weird and off-the-wall episode. So let’s pull it back for a moment and start at the beginning. Is it Earth Day? I didn’t think so, which confused me at first, and then I noticed the little green peacock in the corner of my screen. And then I realized that The Office is the first show I watch on NBC all week. As well as the penultimate one, so I have no idea what that was about. But a cold-open with Dwight as Recyclops, surfing through the years (and receptionists) was truly back to form. I can’t believe they brought in Ronni (Dale Raoul) just for that! But was Ryan at the desk in the right chronological order? Read the rest of this entry »

Folks, I’m a bit surprised at you. Here we are giving away free swag, courtesy of NBC Universal and The Office, and you’re just not responding. Couldn’t you all have waited to shed the materialistic shackles of your life until after the giveaway was over?

For those of you who haven’t given up all your worldly possessions, you still have two days to sign up for the Subtle Sexuality giveaway. For those of you unfamiliar with the previous statement, Subtle Sexuality is the singing duo of Dunder Mifflin’s Kelly Kapoor and Erin Hannon. It’s also the newest Office webseries. And, to celebrate its release, as well as Subtle Sexuality’s new song “Male Prima Donna,” we’re giving away a “Subtle Sexuality World Tour” T-shirt and a CD of the song.

All you need to do is go to the original Webisode Clack post and tell us what your favorite Kelly, Ryan, or Andy moments are. Submit your entries to this giveaway by Friday, November 20th, at 5 PM ET. We will pick one person at random to receive the package, and alert the commenter after the giveaway ends. Only one entry per person, and you must have a valid U.S.-based mailing address. Not following these guidelines voids your entry.

Or, put another way, is there only so much funny out there in TV land that if another success story shows up, or something already on the air gets better, everything else is destined to get worse?

Maybe it’s that as individual viewers we’re only allotted so much laughing in a week. I don’t know which is the case … all I know is that, week in and week out, some of my favorite sitcoms are consistently falling flat. Read the rest of this entry »

After the dramatic entrance of V last week, there were no similar big splash stories to lead things off this week. Then, as I was perusing the year-ago numbers, something occurred to me. It’s quite possible that FOX could improve both Monday and Thursday at 9:00 if they swapped Fringe and Lie To Me. If you look back to the initial Fringe run, it had a lot of success following House. In fact, while the House numbers are virtually unchanged from Tuesday to Monday, Fringe was holding much more of the House audience on Tuesday than Lie To Me currently is on Monday.

Example:
11/18/08: House (13.03m/5.5), Fringe (9.36m/4.2)
11/09/09: House (13.31m/5.3), Lie To Me (7.41m/3)

And that was against very similar competition. Both faced DWTS on ABC, which was pretty much a wash. NBC was greatly improved against Fringe with Biggest Loser (7.84m/3.3), as opposed to Trauma (5.35m/1.8). And CBS was mixed, with The Mentalist (15.83m/3.5) trailing the Men/Big Bang hour (13.62m/4.6) in the demo.

Now we look at where we are this season. Fringe did manage something of a rebound this week, finishing with (5.91m/2.2) on Thursday. That’s still a distant fourth place, and should find the show on the hot seat at the end of the season. It would, obviously, do better on Monday following House. The question is, would it do better than the (7.41m/3) that Lie To Me is currently offering? I think it would.

On the other side of that coin, while I’m not quite as confident about the move of Lie To Me to Thursday, I do still see the potential for it to outperform the current Fringe numbers. That bar has been set, after all, rather low. It would likely take a  hit in the move, but the end result would be that Thursday at 9:00 is stronger as well. Just something to think about. The usual numbers junk is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll take “people we got an earful from this week” for two hundred!

I was going back and forth through the quotes submitted by our writers this week, and I couldn’t quite understand why the haul seemed so light. Then it dawned on me: ABC didn’t air its new Wednesday night comedy lineup this week. Can you believe how quickly those three shows (sorry Hank!) have entered our pop-culture? Yowza.

30 Rock

“Alright hosers: I want all 12 of us fighting for every meter on all three downs. And we’re gonna make this a Boxing Day the Prime Minister will never forget.” – Danny, in his Canadian football movie

“I feel about as useless as a mom’s college degree.” – Kenneth, on his problem with Danny Read the rest of this entry »

Today we’re going to offer you, the tried-and-true CliqueClack reader, a two-for-one special. Not only will we be reviewing the latest set of webisodes from The Office, but we’ll also be giving away a sweet package, courtesy of NBC Universal Comcast (sorry, got ahead of myself there).

For the latest round of Office webisodes, the creators have taken a page from the continuing surge in everything musical, and whipped up a small story — a behind-the-scenes look, shall we say — about a music video produced at the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of Dunder Mifflin. Not a video by one of the hottest bands of today, like Bon Jovi or Ace of Base. Rather, this video was directed, written, and produced by two members of the D.M. staff.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Kelly Kapoor and Erin Hannon; otherwise known as the duet Subtle Sexuality.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m still not sure what to make of this episode. On the one hand, I think the fate of Dunder Mifflin is an interesting plot twist that could do wonders for The Office, as it has in the past. On the other hand, as Michael as it was, ignoring something so serious and instead playing an infantile game? Really?

I think most everyone who watches this show has hit a Michael wall at one point or another. For a lot of people, it was the golden ticket thing last season. But me? I’ve never really felt as if Michael was too much of a caricature, too childish, or too anything else negative. But this time I’m not sure there are any two ways about it, because eventually even kids need to face reality, as harsh as it may be. The last thing that the office should have done is put up blinders — nor should they have been frozen by fear. With no information, they should have simply gone about their day. Read the rest of this entry »