Garden Party Review

Ah, my poor show.  It’s definitely gone over to silly sitcom land.  But it’s season eight, so I suppose that was inevitable.  At least it’s still entertaining.  Still, I sorta miss the somewhat groundedness that it used to have.    The episode reminded me of Viewing Party in away.  Maybe there was more of a plot in this one than Viewing Party, but that odd, semblance of people for no real reason and wavering plotline makes it comparable. 

I did like the episode,  but I have two major complaints.

Andy and his parents and the whole family drama.  Okay, first of all, total recon of his parents from season 4 when they were dorky weird people just like him.  I feel like they made his parents douchebags just to be douchebags.    And how overly cliché is the whole my rich, snobby parents don’t like me and favor my brother?  Gah!  Plus, the five minute musical interlude was kinda boring.  They could have at least picked a more interesting strong.  At least Josh Grobin and the dude from 7^th Heaven didn’t stick out that much like guest stars tend to do on this show.  Ah well, at least hopefully, now that we realize why this means so much to Andy, we can back off the Andy heavy plots and move on to other people.

Second complaint: Robert California.  God, I hate that name.  Spader himself doesn’t bug me that much, he never really has screen time and he doesn’t really do anything.  But the sucking up has GOT to stop.  I’m really getting sick of everyone’s reaction to the guy is to bow down before his feet.  They didn’t do that to Jo or David Wallace.  (Man, I miss Wallace).  So, why this guy?  It’s like some unnecessary ego trip.  I didn’t even mind the toasting portion, which had a few good one-liners.  But STOP with the blatant sucking up and give the character an actual plotline if you’re going to use him.  I feel like the only reason Spader is there is for posterity’s sake. 

Everything else, I liked! 

First of all, Schrute farms is always a riot.  And great use of Dwight the episode.  He was very much entertaining.  And Mose!  It wasn’t much, but I loved it.  Mostly because it felt old school.  Also, loved Jim’s prank on Dwight—also felt old school.  Sometimes I feel like this show is torn in half, between the old dynamics of the original characters and the shoehorning, sitcommy ways of the new characters and direction.  Maybe I’m wrong about my assessment of the show being able to last longer than this year.  This show, while entertaining, is definitely not made for the original audience. 

The b-cast shined as well.  I mean, there were some fantastic one-liners (with the exception of Gabe.  They should have dropped this character all together.)  Only Creed was missing with his normal hilarious line, though I’m sure there’s something in the deleted scenes. 

There was some cute stuff with Jim and Pam.  Glad we got to see Cece again, because part of me wondered if, now that she’s older, they’d stop showing her.  And Andy interacting with her was adorable.  I liked that.  The Angela/Pam nameoff was, well, okay, I guess this pregnancy stand off is an arc, but I’ll go with it.  It’s obvious that Jenna is limited on her time, though, and it makes me miss Pam as more of the action.  I hope that they get to do another year, with all the characters just so everyone has a full season to say goodbye with.  Anyway, also, how many more names are the Halpert family going to steal form my own.  Holy dear, I laughed out loud at that coincidence.  Anyway, JAM was cute and it’s nice to see them showing a little affection, which the writers don’t give us all that often.  So, score there. 

Grade: C+ I mean, it’s not a bad episode by any means.  And I get the impression that season 8 is going to end up like a lot of these episodes.  While I like the little bits here and there, it didn’t round out completely to a great whole.  And while I’m still okay with Andy as manager, I’m getting tired of the extreme focus.  And Spader…just stop writers.  Find him something to do or just stop.