My Think space Blog
NBC’s The Office (US) has become one of my favourite tv shows. Originally broadcasted on the NBC back in 2005, the show follows Michael Scott, a quirky and immature manager of a paper company titled Dunder Mifflin, whose goal in each episode is to satisfy his desperately longing for approval which can get him into a lot of situations, being both uncomfortable for him and the audience. We also follow the characters of Jim, Pam and Dwight, all employees under Michael’s management with Jim and pam’s platonic relationship colliding against Dwights authoritative nature towards the company. There are a total of 9 seasons with around 200 episodes all up, with season 5 being my personal favourite. At the time, it was a unique filming style as it was developed more like a documentary (mockumentary) with in-show character interviews and recognition of the camera crew. It deviated from other comedy shows which implemented multiple cameras in a half-made interior set with focus on witty dialogue and punchlines to drive the humour of the plot. Although it was the standard and some shows had great dialogue, The Office and its British predecessor decided on a free hand camera to navigate through the complete office setting, implementing a sense of realism to its fictional production.
Image: The Office (U.S.) Main Cast. Sourced from NBC (www.nbc.com)
My Overall consumption of media consists of a combination of television, social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram and media YouTube has to offer. With television, my preferences are most often based on fiction material as it can be a great escape from reality, which is around an hour a day depending on what i decide to watch. Scrolling through Facebook and Instagram is the bulk of my intake of non-fiction material as most of the pages i follow tend to post about today’s activity and take around 2 hours to scroll through my feed. YouTube is also where i go to watch both fiction and non-fiction media which takes up the most of my screen time at around 5 hours a day, I tend to watch review videos or stream plays when i have free time or sometimes when I’m doing chores/work, i also watch some before bed. My choices in the types of media i consume comes down to my level of enjoyment and what fulfils that emotion, I find that laughter from a well written joke is an indication that someone is enjoying the moment with the setups and payoff of the writing found in shows such as The Office, Friends and Seinfeld. With that said, i also do enjoy dramas and crime (fiction) such as the critically successfully TV series Breaking Bad and it’s prequel series Better Call Saul which also has amazing writing between the two as both protagonists within the shows have to plan around their illegal deeds without attracting attention from authorities, which can provide a lot of tension and suspense.
Image 1: Walter White and Jesse, BB. Image 2: Saul Goodman, BCS. Sourced from AMC https://www.amc.com/
A story I had recently started but did not end up finishing was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire novel, I was enjoying my time reading the story and was surprised on how much content was cut out of the movie, but a part of the story i was glad got skipped over was Hermione’s S.P.E.W campaign. This part revolved around Hermione’s goal to free the house elves working as servants and chefs at Hogwarts. It wasn’t interesting, did not contribute to the story or didn’t even make sense at all as the elves had no where else to go and enjoyed doing their work and Hermione’s actions did not match her forward thinking nature.
References
Daniels, G. (Show-runner). (2005-2013). The Office (U.S.) [TV series]. NBC. Gilligan, V. (Producer). (2008-2013). Breaking Bad [TV series]. AMC Gilligan, V. Gould, P. (Producers). (2015-present). Better Call Saul [TV series]. AMC Rowling, JK. (Author). First Published (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [Novel]. Bloomsbury. Recent Publication (2014)