I Watched (Nearly) Every Post Super Bowl Show IV: The 2000’s!
I’ve made my stance on the inaugural decade of the 21st century fairly clear, both in this space and in real life. On the whole, the 2000’s were a fairly uninspiring and creatively bankrupt ten years: trashy, cheap reality television really got cooking , and party girl celebrity culture was in vogue, thanks to an increasingly out-of-control tabloid media that was too happy to pass cruelty off as entertainment. Oh, and I guess there was that 9/11 thing, a devastating event that fueled the desire for cheap entertainment in the first place. Yes, there were plenty of cultural milestones to go around; the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and “Mad Men” seem to get better with age. But we have all memory-holed a lot of bleak shit.
I get to say this because I was there. The 2000’s were probably my formative decade, starting it as a preteen and ended it as an official young adult. I should have a lot of nostalgia for everything I grew up with. But I’m not sure that I do. I tell you this so that you understand I am not a 00’s apologist.
That said, the eleven Super Bowl lead-out programs that aired between 2000 and 2009 are actually fairly strong, proving that maybe there’s a lot of good stuff we tend to forget about. Okay, maybe I tend to forget about them. I’m kind of a cynical person. I’m…I’m working on it.
Alright, here we go! Post-Super Bowl shows of the 2000’s!
SUPER BOWL XXXIV
Show: “The Practice”
Episode: “New Evidence (Part 1)” (Season 4, Episode 12)
Aired: January 30, 2000
Network: ABC
Special Guest Stars: Anthony Heald, Clancy Brown*
*Maybe neither of them are really big names, but they’re both special to me, dammit!
Although I had never seen an episode of “The Practice” before this project, I was familiar with the show it eventually became. There was a period of about a year and a half when spin-off “Boston Legal” was in my regular television rotation. I was always curious to know what its original incarnation was like, but seven extra seasons worth of a blind watch always felt a little much. Yet the urge always remained.
Based on this episode, I can see myself maybe making good on that promise one day. “New Evidence” isn’t the most brilliant hour of television ever made, and it’s not exactly subtle (this is a David E. Kelley joint, after all), but it’s satisfying in an old-school kind of way. Our team of Boston lawyers, led by Bobby Donnell (Dylan McDermott), are headed to California to help defend a murder suspect who is facing the death penalty. They are saddled with his defense mostly off of a gut feeling Lindsay (Kellie Williams) has about his innocence, much to the chagrin of everybody involved. It’s an uphill battle the entire way for our leads, as witnesses get nervous, stories change, and new evidence emerges.
I think the funniest thing about the episode is how hilariously hostile it is to the state of California. The entire theme of “New Evidence” is how everyone in Los Angeles is a rude and unhelpful asshole, as if somehow courtrooms in Boston are magnanimous and noble tributes to teamwork. Anthony Heald’s judge talks on and on about how “maybe this is how you do things in Massachusetts”, like California is some swamp bayou hamlet. I’m not offended, per se, it’s just such a buck-wild point of view. Like, David E. Kelley is telling us how he really feels on this one.
This does actually lead to one of the hour’s bigger flaws: the judge is so over-the-top irrationally evil that he quickly goes from a character you love to hate to just an annoying cheap source of conflict. He forces people to be on the jury that should obviously be disqualified, he forces the Practice team to defend this man even when they end up having pretty good reason at that point to drop the case. Also, it’s vaguely subpar work from Heald, a guy I normally like! He keeps hitting the word “Massachusetts” the same slimy way, which has a ton of impact the first time, but loses its power with each repetition.
That said, I had a good time watching this and I was sad I didn’t have time to move on to see how this story would resolve itself. Luckily, the next episode’s plot description on Amazon took care of that for me: “Lindsay gets [her] client freed when she determines that the defendant’s wife and the victim’s husband were having an affair and conspired to kill the victim.” Gotcha!
SUPER BOWL XXXV
Show: “Survivor: The Australian Outback”
Episode: “Stranded” (Season 2, Episode 1)
Aired: January 28, 2001
Network: CBS
I missed the boat entirely on the still-ongoing “Survivor” craze, but at its peak, it was completely unavoidable even if you weren’t watching. As I proceeded to not watch the first season, I still managed to find myself abreast of all the dastardly naked machinations of Richard Hatch, and was aware of the intense speech given by Sue Hawk in the finale. I even somehow found myself browsing the premier “Survivor” fan site in the world, a website called SurvivorSucks (an early harbinger of how 21st century fandom would conduct itself, perhaps). So, yes, when the next season got slated to premiere after the Super Bowl, I knew this was a big deal. Continued to not watch it! But I knew it was a big deal.
Watching “Survivor” now, nearly twenty-five years later, it becomes immediately apparent why the show was such a hit, and forever altered the landscape of reality competition: it’s one of the all-time great premises in television. I don’t know that I really need to pore over the famous set-up of “everyone is formed into tribes and play challenges; winning team gets supplies, losing team votes somebody out. Last person standing gets a million bucks.” The format is simultaneously tribalistic and individualistic, forcing all contestants to have genuine social skills as well as an elite poker face. It’s instantly compelling television.
Of course, the perils inherent to the format of this project is that I have to just watch the one episode then move on. It’s double-rough because it’s the first episode of the season. These types of things get more fun as you have folks to root for or against; the first episode of any reality game show is usually tough because there are so many people, you don’t know who to focus on yet. The closest I came to bonding with a contestant was the guy who threw up on the plane getting in and is physically ill the entire time (he’s just like me frfr). Naturally, he comes very close to going home in the first week, which is real “me” type of shit. As much as I’d like to see when he actually gets the ax, I must move on. The tribe has spoken!
SUPER BOWL XXXVI
Show: “Malcolm in the Middle”
Episode: “Company Picnic” (Season 3, Episodes 11 & 12)
Aired: February 3, 2002
Network: FOX
Special Guest Stars: Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Stephen Root, Tom Green, Cristina Ricci, Susan Sarandon, Patrick Warburton, Heidi Klum, Magic Johnson, Bradley Whitford
Like all millennials, I definitely had a “Malcolm in the Middle” phase, although mine didn’t last as long as others. I think I probably faithfully watched, like a season and a half? Anyway, I hadn’t seen it in ages, and I was eager to revisit the show that first launched Bryan Cranston into the bigger pop culture conversation.
So the good news is that, even at a full hour’s length, “Company Picnic” is pretty funny all the way through. I had forgotten how well Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek play off of each other, and I had especially forgotten how well Cranston does with physical comedy (he’s crouching down, running around and freaking out like a goddamn pro the whole time). But the three main kids are the real revelation. Obviously Frankie Muniz holds everything together as the titular Malcolm (the middle child), but I was stunned at how polished Justin Berfield (as oldest child Reese) and Erik Per Sullivan (youngest Dewey) are in their roles. Per Sullivan in particular provided me my biggest laugh (his sugar-induced freakout).
The…not bad news, necessarily, but definitely the thing most out of step with how I remembered “Malcolm in the Middle”: just look at that guest star list! How the fuck did they land Susan fucking Sarandon? More importantly, and I don’t say this lightly….did they need to get Susan Sarandon? Did we need Magic Johnson in the most half-assed drag I’ve seen in a while? I completely understand that this is a post-Super Bowl ep, and that means snagging big guest stars. But “Company Picnic” has no fewer than ten, a number I have to imagine won’t be beaten anytime soon. At best, it’s distracting and at worst, it’s madness-inducing.
At least it made me want to go through “Malcolm in the Middle” again some time, especially sincere…ah yes, there’s a Disney Plus revival on the way. Better cram it in now before its value is lessened!
SUPER BOWL XXXVII
Show: “Alias”
Episode: ”Phase One” (Season 2, Episode 13)
Aired: January 26, 2003
Network: ABC
Special Guest Star: Rutger Hauer
You would think that being such a big “LOST” guy would have made me an equally big “Alias” guy. Alas, “Alias” is a show I got burned out on relatively quickly. At its best, its twisty, espionage-driven narrative was loopy genre fun. After a couple of seasons, though, it became clear that the show was too willing to throw any sort of established character or plot truths in the trash can in order to pull the rug out from under you. After the millionth reveal that X character was actually Y and working for Z, it just got exhausting. If anybody can be anything at any time, you question what the point is in getting invested at all.
“Phase One”, though, captures “Alias” in its absolute prime, and illustrates what made it special. It is an absolutely buck-wild choice for a Super Bowl episode, though. I’ve always been curious how this would have played to a completely neutral, first-time audience. After all, this is the one where, right in the middle of Season Two, “Alias” decides to just take its arm and slide every piece off of its elaborate chess board onto the cold floor. By the end of the hour, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) and her father Jack (Victor Garber) are finally revealed to their enemies as double agents. The dastardly Syndicate, run from the inside of SD-6 by the equally dastardly Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin) has been defeated, or so it seems. It really is a finale-level of plot, the impact of which presumably only holds weight if you’ve watched the season and a half that came before. I had a hard time imagining a half-drunk audience walking into this cold and being super into this.
Here’s the thing: I think “Phase One” actually weirdly works for a newcomer? For all of the show’s narrative knots, the stakes are usually pretty clearly communicated: here are the good guys pretending to be bad guys, here are bad guys pretending to be good guys. Sydney and her coworker Vaughn (Michael Vartan) are in love, but can’t show it. Sydney has friends, and one of them is a young Bradley Cooper. And…go! To some degree, having no prior investment in the Bristow clan or her compatriots at either SD-6 or the CIA probably plays to your advantage on this. Admittedly, the Syndicate suddenly being completely crushed kinda comes out of nowhere when watching this in conjunction with what came before and after. But here? You’re kinda just watching a successful mission playing out.
Yeah, there are some fairly obvious “this is for a wider audience” plays, none more famous than the opening “Back in Black” slow-mo shot of Garner in lingerie (funnily, it may be the most famous moment in all of “Alias”, a show that to my recollection didn’t really revel in sleaze otherwise). You also get more “characters explaining who they are and what their relationship is to others” kind of talk than you would usually get. We also get a big ol’ guest star in Rutger Hauer, who’s great as newcomer SD-6 head Geiger. It’s clearly not a normal episode.
But “Phase One” ultimately succeeds through its performances, none better than the one we get from Carl Lumbly as Marcus Dixon, Sydney’s SD-6 co-worker who gets blindsided by the news that he’s been working for the very bad guy he thought he was working against. As he silently decides whether he wants to blow his entire life up by submitting to Sydney crucial information that will bring everything crashing down, you can almost literally see every thought run through his mind. It’s an astounding, quiet, character-focused moment that sells the whole hour, in my opinion. For all its glitz and adrenaline, when “Alias” succeeded, it was off the back of its characters and cast. “Phase One” is a plot-heavy episode that still manages to prove that.
Unfortunately, due to some bad luck with the broadcast (including a too-long trophy and post-game ceremony that included, for some reason, a performance by Bon Jovi), “Phase One” didn’t begin until after 11:00 pm on the East Coast. Many viewers simply went to bed, and the ratings were the lowest the spot had ever pulled since the NBC Nightly News in 1975. Not “Alias”’ fault, but other networks took notice all the same.
SUPER BOWL XXXVIII
Show: “Survivor: All-Stars”
Episode: “They’re Back!” (Season 8, Episode 1)
Aired: February 1, 2004
Network: CBS
My initial instinct is that potentially jumping blindly into an All-Stars season of any competition series is setting yourself up to fail; the novelty of returning favorites falters if you’ve never seen them before. On the other hand, the second full season of “Top Chef” I ever watched was their All-Star year and I loved it, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about, I guess.
What stuck out to me immediately about this kick-off episode of “Survivor: All-Stars” is how quickly the game shifted. With everyone having played before and (for the most part) gone pretty far in their initial seasons, there are no obvious weaklings for more savvy players to feast on. I also thought it was smart for the show to ask back several winners, potential Survivor Hall-of-Famers who have to operate with targets on their backs. Because all of these contestants are playing an elevated game, I found it more intriguing than the first episode of the Australia season we covered just a little bit ago.
As a “Survivor” newcomer, this also felt like a quick way to catch up on these iconic names and figures from the show’s early canon, when (again) you really truly couldn’t avoid chatter about it if you were clued into pop culture at all. I finally got to see the villainous Richard Hatch in action, and I got to fall in love with Rupert Boneham twenty years after everyone else in America already did. Oh, look, there’s Sue Hawk! And that brick shithouse Rudy! And Boston Rob (I could tell which one he was, because his name was Rob and he had a Red Sox hat on)! Reality is not a genre I dabble in too much, so this felt like dipping into a completely different universe. It’s fun enough that I would consider diving deeper into “Survivor” if there weren’t forty-eight fucking seasons worth of it. Vote me out!
SUPER BOWL XXXIX
Show: “The Simpsons”
Episode: “Homer and Ned’s Hail Mary Pass” (Season 16, Episode 8)
Aired: February 6, 2005
Network: FOX
Special Guest Stars: LeBron James, Yao Ming, Tom Brady, Michelle Kwon, Warren Sapp
Where 1999’s “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday” was a snapshot of “The Simpsons” at the end of its prime, “Homer and Ned’s Hail Mary Pass” captures the show fully out of it. It’s mostly concerned with quadrupling up on celebrity cameos, which is perhaps befitting an episode airing after the Super Bowl. But would it be too much to ask for the cameos to at least be functional? The whole crux of the episode is Homer developing a career in training athletes in the art of elaborate celebrations. This sort of makes sense with football, a sport that was really having a moment with showboating in the 00’s (Randy Moss had fake-mooned the Green Bay crowd one year prior). But basketball doesn’t make as much sense, especially not with Yao Ming, who to my knowledge wasn’t that much of an asshole on the court. I suppose they could have gone with fight choreographers; after all, Ron Artest was available for V.O. work in 2005. For the record, figure skating makes even less sense in this context. What is a celebration dance in figure skating, exactly?
Still, it’s not all a wash. I think the made-up touchdown dances are all pretty funny; I especially like the one where the ball is cooked on a barbecue griddle. And Yao gave us one of the most hilarious half-assed voice performances I’ve ever heard on a professional broadcast (I think “shut up….kid. I gotta good thing. GOING. Here.” to myself more often than I’d care to admit). But, this episode from twenty years ago served as a sign that the “Simpsons” heyday was firmly in the past.
Show: “American Dad!”
Episode: “Pilot” (Season 1, Episode 1)
Aired: February 6, 2005
Network: FOX
Special Guest Star: Carmen Electra
At the time of its release, I sort of felt like Seth MacFarlane’s follow-up project to “Family Guy” was doomed to fail. Its hyper-specific jabs at Bush-era politics and paranoia seemed like it would get old fast, especially since it aired IN THE MIDDLE of Bush-era politics; I was sick of it in real life, why would I run to go watch it in fiction? I also wasn’t sure the various characters in the Smithe household made a lot of sense together; I know that adding an alien and a talking fish were there to kind of replicate the template of the Griffin family, but there’s a cohesion in Quahog with the “talking baby” and “talking dog” at least being members of a typical nuclear family. Roger and Klaus being results of CIA experiments and missions always felt like a bit of a stretch.
Naturally, “American Dad” became the superior show to “Family Guy” over time. As always, I know nothing.
Still, the pilot is fairly rough, with very little of what would make the show special visible there. This isn’t to say it isn’t funny, just one-note. Stan is an alpha male! The son is a horny teenage boy! The daughter is a liberal! Imagine the trouble her and her dad will get into, eh? It even relies fairly heavily on the famous “Family Guy”-style cutaway gag, something it moves off of fairly quickly, to my recollection. Not terrible, but also not terribly indicative of the show to come, either.
SUPER BOWL XL
Show: “Grey’s Anatomy”
Episode: “It’s the End of the World” (Season 2, Episode 16)
Aired: February 5, 2006
Network: ABC
Special Guest Stars: Christina Ricci, Kyle Chandler
I’ve always kind of had a chip on my shoulder about “Grey’s Anatomy”. Although it was the third to arrive of the trifecta of megahits in the 2004-05 season that turned ABC from a joke to the dominant American network (the other two being “Desperate Housewives” and “LOST”), it was the only one I didn’t watch. Naturally, it was easily the most popular amongst my high school campus. I also think “Grey’s Anatomy” being tapped for the big post-Super Bowl time slot felt like a slap in the face to “LOST”, my then-favorite show AND one that would have absolutely crushed the occasion, had the opportunity been provided to them (although the relative failure of the “Alias” post-Super Bowl episode probably spurred this decision more than anything else).
I also always got the impression that it was a heavily soap-ified version of “ER”; the constant references to a guy called “McDreamy” just kind of made my back teeth hurt. Couple all of this with the fact that I was a teenage/early-twenties guy in its heyday and there likely could not have been a show more specifically created to be my enemy.
So I watched “It’s the End of the World” with no real context to anything before or after with no real intention of having a good time and…um, it’s terrific? Like, it’s one of the best episodes I’ve gotten to watch in this project? I know, I’m devastated, too.
It’s not that this particular episode showcases the most unique and tightly drawn characters I’ve ever seen on TV. Everyone is young, quirky and horny, and they frequently talk in what I can only describe as “quirky millennial speak”, Meredith Grey herself being the worst offender (“she’s got my McDreamy, she’s got my McDog….she’s got my McLife!”). You often wonder why everyone has enough downtime to be sleeping with each other so much (it’s not clear from this episode what Izzie Stevens actually does around here). The medical cases on display here are not terribly grounded to anything resembling reality. The main thrust: a WWII reenactor has accidentally blasted himself with a bazooka, and the only thing keeping the shell from blowing him (and the entire hospital) up is the inserted hand of a very green EMT (Ricci, in her second Super Bowl episode in five years). You know, that old story. Also buzzing around Seattle Grace is a very-pregnant Dr. Bailey and, unbeknownst to her, her husband, who has suffered a car accident and is currently having surgery performed on his brain. It’s all a lot, the horrible day that Meredith predicted at the top of the episode.
But. But. BUT. The power of this episode (and I sincerely hope for peak “Grey” in general) is its elite ability to steadily work all these different plotlines and stitch them together in the exact right way at the exact right times to make “It’s the End of the World” such a fun hour. And it seems fairly evident that the show understands what both their main and guest cast can do so well, and tailor the material to maximize them. Katherine Heigl’s exasperation and TJ Knight’s anxiety flies perfectly against Isaiah Washington’s stoic coolness and Patrick Dempsey’s aloof heroism. Ricci is wildly affecting as a girl who’s in far too deep, both literally and metaphorically. By the time Kyle Chandler shows up with ten minutes to go as the bomb squad guy, I think I literally hollered. It all just kinda works.
I know, I know, I’m stunned. I don’t know that it’s going to inspire me to watch the 437* episodes I’ve missed, but I’m more than willing to extend an olive branch to one of the longest-running shows in American history. I now fully understand why all the girls I knew in high school were addicted to this fucking thing. Sorry for being a dick. Kinda. “LOST” still better, tho. I think.
*That sounds like a sarcastically huge number, but that really is the episode count minus one as of this writing.
SUPER BOWL XLI
Show: “Criminal Minds”
Episode: “The Big Game” (Season 2, Episode 14)
Aired: February 4, 2007
Network: CBS
Special Guest Star: James Van Der Beek
At the time of “Criminal Minds”’ premiere, I remember there being quite a bit of hand-wringing in the media about its constant violence and depressing criminal situations. And, look, I’d be a hypocrite if I were to take any swipes at the show for that; after all, I was deep in the thralls of “24” at that time, and there, Kiefer Sutherland was fucking pulling knives into people’s eye sockets. But I do get how watching a bleak serial killer get caught in the nick of time every week could start to affect your mental health, even if it’s fictional.
“Criminal Minds” clearly won the argument, though, almost certainly due to it tapping into the same large audience that would eventually migrate over to true-crime podcasts. Accounting for a two-year hiatus in 2021 and 2022, it’s still on the fucking air, having aired its 344th episode last summer. It may appear to now be a Paramount Plus exclusive, and is technically a revival called “Criminal Minds: Evolution”, but Wikipedia has kept up the season count, so I am forced to consider this all one big run. For those who are curious, Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen from “Friday Night Lights”) plays the current Big Bad. (Sort of) broadcast television, everyone!
Needless to say, I had never seen an episode until now, and “The Big Game” seems to serve as a decent introduction. If you’ve ever seen a criminal procedural before, you know all the beats of this thing. A deranged killer played by a recognizable guest star (in this case, James Van Der Beek) commits a brutal murder, and it’s up to our FBI squad to find him before he strikes again. Our team consists of a beleaguered lead agent (Mandy Patinkin), a handsome man of action (Shemar Moore), a cool woman in a suit (Paget Brewster), a brilliant young autistic guy (Matthew Gray Gubler), and a brassy tech gal who knows everything (Kirsten Vangness). Together, they will almost save the day until you realize, oh fuck, this is a two-parter.
The plot will also be familiar if you’ve ever seen the movie SE7EN, although there is a nice twist towards the end that I probably should have seen coming, but didn’t. The cast is comfortable with each other, although I was surprised that Brewster had just joined the cast a mere five episodes prior (she was great; Paget Brewster is always great). Gubler is probably best left to the tumblr contingent to fawn over, and I was shocked at how checked out Patinkin seemed to be. But the episode’s script serves as a functional nasty mystery. I give points to its totally arbitrary Super Bowl connection right at the beginning; the first pair of victims were watching it on TV. Cool promotion!
“Criminal Minds” is the type of big, broad, slightly bullshitty, but undeniably slick and competent style of network television that was already starting in 2007 to look a little out of date to people my age. Most of my contemporaries were starting to flock to the exciting stuff happening on cable; this was the same calendar year where “Mad Men” would premiere and “The Sopranos” would conclude. “Breaking Bad” was a mere year away. Yet, “Criminal Minds” was a massive hit anyway essentially from the jump. It was a Top 20 show in America throughout Obama’s two terms. I’m certain this is the beginning of the schism between CBS and anyone under Social Security age. They’re the old-man network now, but it pulls outrageous numbers off the back of that. Really makes you think.
SUPER BOWL XLII
Show: “House”
Episode: “Frozen” (Season 4, Episode 11)
Aired: February 3, 2008
Network: FOX
At this point in the project, it’s worth asking if FOX overall has done the best with the “post Super Bowl show” assignment. Admittedly, they didn’t start broadcasting Super Bowls until 1997, completely sidestepping the “flashy pilot” era that is fucking up every other network’s average here. But, every show they’ve aired up to this point have been extremely popular, generally well-made television programs: “The X-Files”, “The Simpsons”, “Family Guy”, “American Dad”, “Malcolm in the Middle”, and now, “House”. Not bad! They’re no “MacGruder and Loud”, but still not bad at all.
Speaking of “House”, it was a treat to revisit it! It was always a show that was secretly just a star performance and winning formula that pretended to be a prestige medical drama, but it’s worth nothing that both the performance and formula are really fucking good. Hugh Laurie was heavily nominated for his portrayal of Dr. Gregory House over its eight-year run, yet he still somehow seems underrated. There’s flat-out no show without his grumpy, foul-mouthed, deeply wounded lead role here. And the format of “House” (House and his differential diagnosis team must help solve a series of mystery symptoms from a patient, typically a major guest star) can sometimes make it a bear to binge, since every episode is the same. But, when taken in small doses, “House” is soooo fucking satisfying. Watching brilliant, but abrasive, characters bounce off each other to solve a mystery is what television is all about.
In “Frozen”, our major guest star is Mira Sorvino, with the added gimmick of her not actually being treated in House’s hospital. She’s stranded in the North Pole, and must get treated for what appears to be a mysterious auto-immune disease via telecommunication. “House” predicts the future! At first, you worry this saps the show of its unique advantage: letting Laurie spar with another major celebrity. Yet, somehow, he and Sorvino manage to develop chemistry without ever even being in the same room together. The added twist of Sorvino being a psychiatrist, aka the exact kind of person House wants nothing to do with, adds a lot of back-and-forth between them.
No worries, “House” also contains all the grody details seemingly necessary for any big network show in the 21st century. Drills get put into people’s heads, urine is drunk, major broken bones get gruesomely reset. However, all of this is offset with a hilariously low-stakes subplot of House doing everything he can to get cable reinstituted in the hospital. The moment of the night for me was his decision to, in response to hearing how much money cutting the cord has saved the hospital, find a way to waste the exact same money to even it out (he begins by dumping a container of tongue depressors on the ground).
It should be said, too, that I don’t think I ever got all the way to Season Four on my initial watch, so it was fun to see the cast now include Kal Penn and baby Olivia Wilde. The whole running arc of House trying to put together a new team is the only aspect of this that feels a little unexplained to a prospective new audience. There’s an end-episode twist where Robert Sean Leonard is now dating a recently fired candidate, and I had no clue who it was supposed to be. Still, I think it can all be forgiven when the stand-alone aspects of the hour were otherwise strong.
SUPER BOWL XLIII
Show: “The Office”
Episode: “Stress Relief” (Season 5, Episodes 14 & 15)
Aired: February 1, 2009
Network: NBC
Special Guest Stars: Jack Black, Jessica Alba, Cloris Leachman
I got on with the American version of “The Office” late.
I was a fairly serious devotee of the UK original, and I was one of the many who thought the US version was a cheap faxed copy of the initial paper-company-set original. I assumed the truncated Season One would be the end of it, and I promptly stopped paying attention. By the time I realized, “hey wait a lot of people I know really like this…did ‘The Office’ get its act together?” it was already a couple of seasons in and I just stubbornly refused to jump on board, fretting that I’d be two years behind on the story.
Then, Super Bowl XLIII happened, and I noticed the episode afterwards was “The Office”. And, I dunno, something came over me. “Stop being weird!” I thought. “It’s a network sitcom, not the fucking ‘Wire’. How much continuity do you think there’s going to be?” So I watched “Stress Relief” and had a blast. Then the previews for next week ran, and the episode was all about Michael reconnecting with someone named Holly, someone we had met a season or two prior. “Blasted continuity!” I panicked to myself before continuing to not watch it week to week. And there my “Office” story would have ended, had I not ended up dating an Office superfan that I could binge the show with. Sometimes, things work out.
Anyway, “Stress Relief” is certainly in the running for “Best Super Bowl Lead Out Episode” in terms of pure laughs. It alone contains three signature Office centerpieces: the fire safety cold open, the CPR training, and the Michael Scott roast (as well as his belated responses the next day). For a sitcom episode double the length of a regular comedy, it contains something like 25 of the best Office moments, a feat no doubt helped by its relative stand-alone status. There’s a subtle, but very real, “introduce the characters again” feel, with a heartfelt Jim-and-Pam subplot in order to show off to potential new viewers everything that fans loved about the show.
The only downside to it is that Jim-Pam storyline, where watching an illegally downloaded film with Andy somehow serves as a metaphor for issues Pam’s parents are having. The plot itself isn’t so bad, although it forces us to believe Jim might have said something nasty to her dad, which is a little silly. It’s the film they’re watching, MRS. ALBERT HANNADAY, which is supposed to be a parody of a typical Oscar-bait film. The problem is that it doesn’t really feel like one; in fact, it doesn’t seem like any movie anybody’s ever seen.
Oh yeah, this is also how they incorporate their special guest stars. I suppose the reason for this is that they wanted to preserve the grounded reality of ‘The Office’ by not bogging it down with celebrities playing characters. What makes that funnier is the direction the show would eventually take, with Will Ferrell, Kathy Bates and James Spader all playing characters down the line. Alas!
Still, we’ll always have ‘Staying Alive’. “Staying Alive.’ Ah-ah-ah-ah…