Bingeworthy TV: The Office

The Office, based upon the BBC series of the same name, brings us the antics of a paper company called Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  While the show initially featured Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer and B. J. Novak as the main cast, towards the end of its run there were numerous changes to the ensemble. I have to thank The Office for introducing me to the delightful Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?) who, along with B. J. Novak, was also a writer and producer for the show.

The Scranton branch, for some reason, is the subject of a documentary about office workers.  Through nine seasons we get to see the everyday lives of these workers.  What goes on in this office is absurd, and you often wonder how any of these people still have jobs.  The employees take their cue from the top. Michael Scott is perhaps the world's worst boss (but he thinks he is the world's best boss).  He is socially awkward, has terrible people skills and no filter, and is really not very intelligent. Just about everything he says and does is offensive; people tell him he is being offensive, but he is just completely clueless. Dunder Mifflin is Michael Scott's life and he thinks of most of the employees as his friends and family.  He does stupid, inappropriate, ridiculous things, but he does it out of love for his job and the people who work there.

Much of the series also focuses on the rivalry between the sales people, usually Dwight and Jim. One day Comedy Central was running a marathon and I happened to see one of my favorite episodes: Dwight is using one of those exercise ball chairs and being...well...Dwight.  Jim, his desk mate, gets seriously annoyed and punctures the exercise ball with his scissors.  Every time I see that episode, I laugh-out-loud.

To simulate the look of an actual documentary, the show is filmed in a single-camera set-up without a studio audience or laugh track. The documentary crew films confessional style interviews with most of the office workers and this allows us to see what they really think and feel about what happens in their place of work. Additionally, the characters often look directly at the camera, especially during the antics of Michael or Dwight. 

The day-to-day life of a paper salesman should be pretty uneventful unless of course you happen to work in an office full of Michael Scotts, Dwight Schrutes, Jim Halperts and Pam Beasleys.  Though The Office is at times politically incorrect (purposely so, I think) and many of the characters can be annoying, it is still one of my go-to binge-watching shows.  

~Amy, Adult Services

Staff Review: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

My first review for this blog, back in 2015, was of Celeste Ng’s debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, which impressed me with its architecture and language but left me wishing for more sympathetic characters. In that review, I wrote: “Upon [a] tragic foundation, Celeste Ng builds an intricate structure of aftermath and backstory, deftly weaving characters and events . . .  into a tight and increasingly oppressive and dysfunctional framework."

Which is exactly what she does in her new novel, Little Fires Everywhere, although it’s all backstory this time. The novel opens with an expensive house burning to the ground. We then move into the past to see what led to the fire and, since it’s arson, whodunit. Ng is even more skillful this second time around. I found several characters more likable too if not fundamentally deeper. Ng’s work has a heavy cultural component so in the process of discovering who burned down the house, we grapple with thought-provoking subjects like social class, race, and adoption.

Little Fires Everywhere is set in the affluent Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, where a very comfortable and locally rooted family, the Richardsons, with several teenaged kids, rents out a small cottage to an artist and her 15-year-old daughter. The relatively free-spirited renters represent the very opposite of conventional, rooted, and rich; they live a Bohemian lifestyle and what they own fits into their old VW Rabbit. The relationships and interactions between the Richardsons and their unusual tenants make up the bulk of the story.

The plot is far from simple and includes compelling subplots too, featuring a custody battle and a deep, dark family secret, which makes this novel a real feat of engineering -- and a riveting read. It’s set in the 1990s and Ng, who was a teen through those years, nails the details of that decade, right down to the AltaVista search engine and the appalling Jerry Springer, that harbinger of so much cheesy reality TV to come.

I think it’s fair to say Ng is as much an architect as a writer. With her first two novels, I envision just as much time going into the planning as into the execution. Her plot strategy runs the risk of becoming formulaic, but for now it still seems a marvel.

 - Ann, Adult Services

Bingeworthy TV: Call the Midwife

Recently I've needed a gentle, upbeat escape in the evenings, so I started watching Call the Midwife. This historical drama about a team of young nurse midwives and Angelican nuns in the late 1950s takes its inspiration from the memoirs of Jennifer Worth. Worth served as a nurse midwife in an impoverished neighborhood in London's East End where she encountered both great hardships and a supportive community.

The characters do face enormous challenges. Pregnancy and childbirth still pose a medical danger to this day, but sixty years ago there were even more unknowns and fewer medical interventions possible. One of the most frequent tasks undertaken by the midwives in this program is to visit the homes of expectant mothers and ensure that the environment is suitable for giving birth. It's only in later seasons that hospital births become an option.

A good part of the optimism and good cheer of Call the Midwife comes from the fact that the characters are taking an active part in improving the health care for their patients. There are frequent reminders of just how much more grim things were a generation ago (even without taking the Blitz into consideration). New tools, new techniques, better hygiene, cutting edge medicines, and a talented and dedicated staff all work together to create a better chance for happy endings in each episode.

~Sarah, Adult Services