What I’m Watching: The Office

The Office: Season 7, Episode 9 “Wuphf.com” (B+)

Well, it’s a relief to be back in the office (mostly, at least), and though this episode wasn’t spectacularly funny, it did include a few important plot developments. For the second week in a row, we have Michael being childish for the extent of an episode, he ultimately ends up being mature at the end and realizing that he needs to be smarter about how he deals with people. With Erin, he knows that she looks up to him. With Ryan, however, he knows that he’s a bad friend and doesn’t respect him, and he just tries to tell himself it’s not true. I enjoyed the somewhat random assortment of investors in Wuphf as well as Oscar’s arguments against why the business model doesn’t make sense. With Dwight out of the office, it’s good that Jim found a new person to prank. I thought he was going to pull a Pam and rearrange Jo’s words to change the rules about commission limits, but making him suffer through the same unbearable boredom is a fitting punishment for his adherence to corporate policies. While Dwight’s hay stuff was all very strange, it was great to see a bored Angela strike up conversation with an extremely Dwight-like individual, played by Jack Coleman, best known as Horn-Rimmed Glasses on “Heroes.” Maybe the formerly serious patriarch does have a funny bone, and it will be interesting to see how much of a role he plays on the show, especially considering the relative absence of newly hired traveling salesman Danny, played by Timothy Olyphant (he’s on the road, I’m sure.).