Half of 'Christening' could have been very strong - but ended so poorly that it ruined the first half for me. The Michael storyline started off as all 'Michael is out of the Office' stories do, with the audience pre-cringing at the idea of Michael ruining whatever event he's attending. Instead, Michael became infatuated with the nice way everyone treats each other at this church, and told the others off for mocking these nice people(*). I liked the idea of Michael getting his family vibe from a group of happy Christians. Instead of what could have been an interesting learning experience for Michael, Andy got on the bus with him(**), and as soon as Andy got on the bus, I knew this was going to turn into a farce where they both got cold feet and had to get off. The good thing about shows like 'The Office', as opposed to serialized shows like 'Lost', or 'Fringe', is that you have a break inbetween seeing these characters, where they can get up to anything, so Michael could have gone away for a couple of months and then come back deciding he didn't like Mexico etc.
(*)Seriously, how f**king horrible were the Dunder Mifflin bunch this episode? I know they've been prone to bitching, but they were just as bad as Scones-cider lady and I hated all of them. Not a nice side to these people, I gotta say, and one I don't look forward to seeing again.
(**)It's about time they crapped or got off the pot with Andy and Erin - what started out as a gentle parody of the Jim/Pam storyline has now become a really irritating drag that always finds a way to squirm it's ugly self into an episode. Ed Helms can do a good sad face, but if this relationship is going nowhere then please, just let it die.
However, I'm glad at least they didn't do another episode where Michael just embarassed everyone. It would have been so, so easy to just have Michael do another 'Phyllis' Wedding'. I think making Jim and Pam admit he's not CeCe's Godfather fight away was a great move, as well as funny. So often, the people of the office are embarassed by Michael's behaviour, and it makes sense that by now they had figured out a way to shut him up and to control the behaviour. It's just a shame the rest of that storyline fell completely flat. Jim and Pam as the ones freaking out is rarely funny - except when Jenna Fischer is allowed to just run with it (see: The Lover). They're supposed to be the calm ones - as Oscar mentioned last year, they're the ones who help keep the crazy down to a minimum by being the rational ones. When they freak out it throws off the balance. If the writers weren't aware that this makes terrible episodes I could sort of forgive it but they've quite clearly shown they understand that Jim and Pam losing it doesn't make for the funny.
*sigh* I'm going to have to drop some shows when my workload at College gets heavier (and I'm not dropping Parks and Rec), and if this show hasn't picked up by Christmas I'm worried it's going to be first for the chopping block. Which is a shame, because I've loved this show for several years now. But maybe I should quit while I'm ahead - this show is already a shadow of its former self and I don't really want to see it get any worse.
Bummer.
What did everyone else think?
