The Office: The Complete First Series Written and Directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant BBC America (2001) DVD $29.98 Available at Amazon.

Comparisons to the crowning achievements of British comedy -- namely Monty Python's Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers -- are inevitable, but off-base. Whereas Python revels in absurdity and Fawlty Towers is farce's finest hour, The Office is rooted firmly in reality -- specifically, the reality of verité TV and, to a lesser extent, Christopher Guest's mockumentaries (A Mighty Wind, Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show). Though it's tightly scripted, the program seems utterly spontaneous -- there are no furtive winks at the camera, no gratuitous or contrived situations, and no breaking of the fourth wall, other than behavior (i.e. the individual on-camera "confessionals") that is accepted as part of the show's loose documentary format. This rigid adherence to concept seems to confuse more literal-minded viewers (on both sides of the Atlantic), who've grown used to comedies that carefully signpost their laughs.

If you're not familiar with the show, here's a précis. The Office follows the day-to-day goings-on at Wernham Hogg, a paper merchant located in the dull, grey town of Slough (outside of London). Wernham Hogg is staffed by people a lot like the people you know -- some of them could be your best friends, a few are complete assholes. Several have resigned themselves to dead-end careers, and many of them are less than satisfied with their lots in life. If you've ever had an office job, you've met people just like them.

Central to the Wernham Hogg pantheon is Regional Manager David Brent (series creator/director Ricky Gervais). Brent is an inspired creation -- a frustrated entertainer and would-be comedian who sees himself as the perfect boss/best friend, but lacks the sensitivity, common sense and awareness of personal boundaries necessary to do so. Always ready with a practical joke or a jibe when it's least needed, Brent may well be the ultimate nightmare boss because he's impossible to truly hate. He's not a bad man, after all. He's friendly, he's well-intentioned and sometimes he really is as funny or entertaining as he thinks he is; it just so happens that he tramples his employees' feelings while attempting to raise morale, and gives voice to horrendous, overly detailed sexual and racial slurs while attempting to condemn such things. Additionally, as is the case with many middle managers, Brent's ultimate loyalty is to himself. He's concerned with preserving his job and scoring a promotion, even as his employees face the prospect of layoffs (Wernham Hogg's upper management plans to close either the Slough branch or the Swindon branch, and this underlying tension drives the series). He is also, of all the Wernham Hogg staff, the most aware of the camera's presence and its impact on his image (a trait you'll also encounter in second- and third-generation reality shows). If Brent says something "on film" that, he realizes, shows him as anything other than a saint, he takes great pains to back-pedal and spin, desperate to establish himself as something other than a villain. He is earnestly PC, but goes about it so ineptly that he's infinitely more offensive than the most loutish of office boors. Simply put, Brent craves constant and complete attention, but can't be trusted with it -- so the camera, the very embodiment of attention and validation, acts as a sort of personality accelerant.

We meet many of Wernham Hogg's Slough branch employees over the course of six episodes, but three are central to the show's dynamic. Gareth Keenan (Mackenzie Crook) is the office toady -- a man so desperate for, and undeserving of, authority that he clings desperately to the slightest implication of privilege or seniority. This includes his business cards, which incorrectly list him as "Assistant Regional Manager" rather than "Assistant to the Regional Manager"; he also makes much of being "Team Leader", although it's uncertain what team he leads and who, if anyone, is on it. One of The Office's best running jokes involves the fact that Gareth is a former lieutenant in the Territorial Army (kind of like being in the US Army Reserves, only with the sad bastard factor of Civil Air Patrol), so he's ghoulishly obsessed with tactics, covert operations and killing -- very creepy. He's also complete crap where women are concerned, though he fancies himself a sex machine.

Gareth's office nemesis is Tim Canterbury (the brilliant Martin Freeman), a clever, albeit sad-sackish sales rep who delights in torturing his co-worker. Most male viewers will identify with Tim, but he's a flawed hero at best; over the course of six episodes, he turns thirty years old, remains single, continues to live with his parents and is stuck in a dead-end job that he hates -- but when he's given the opportunity to change his situation, he chooses safety, familiarity and an inflated title rather than taking a chance. While Tim gets in a number of good jabs at Gareth -- badgering him with abusive cell-phone calls, building a wall of files between their desks, luring him into a series of childish but funny homoerotic double entendres and, most notably, repeatedly sealing Gareth's prized stapler in a large block of gelatin -- he also takes his lumps. He's left shoeless and utterly desolate after a quiz night altercation on his 30th birthday, and he constantly embarrasses himself in his attempts to court Dawn Tinsley, the office's receptionist.

Dawn (Lucy Davis) is another interesting and familiar character. She's engaged to Lee (Joel Beckett), who works in Wernham Hogg's warehouse, though she seems to want to escape the relationship, and it's obvious that Lee's plans for their married future (which involve living with his mother for a while, after which Dawn can begin pumping out babies) don't thrill her. She's clearly almost as interested in Tim as he is in her, but unable to act. This is a shame, as the pair are presented as soulmates. Like Tim, Dawn fears change -- or perhaps she simply fears Lee. She also, quite rightly, fears David Brent; she's the recipient of some of his most boundary-breaking conversation (see Episode One, in which he tells her of a recent "scare" -- discovering a lump in his testicle), not to mention his worst practical jokes (including a mock-firing, also in the first episode). Dawn also dislikes Gareth, and sometimes helps Tim torment him.

Add to this mix a handful of brilliantly-sketched secondary characters -- including a borderline-catatonic accounting clerk, a randy intern, and assertive-but-thuggish sales rep Chris "Finchy" Finch -- and you've got a recipe for observational comedy so sublime, so accurate, that some viewers just won't get the joke. There are no catch-phrases, no larger-than-life characters, no zany situations; reality may be fine-tuned on a few occasions for comedic effect, but nothing happens that couldn't happen in a real office. Thats part of the reason that many of The Office's funniest scenes may require a few viewings to "click" -- these are situations so palpably uncomfortable, so excruciatingly possible and real, that until you know what's coming, you may not be able to distance yourself from them enough to laugh.

What this means, in plain English, is that you'll watch The Office again and again until you've learned every line.

If there's one place that The Office falls down, it's in DVD extras. The set follows the recent BBC America trend of lumping all the bonus bits together on an otherwise-superfluous second disc. Other than a handful of deleted and extended scenes, the highlight is a documentary, How I Made The Office, featuring Ricky Gervais and his writing/directing partner Stephen Merchant, as well as interviews with Martin Freeman, Lucy Davis and Mackenzie Crook. As part of the background to the series, we're treated to bits and pieces of the original short film that inspired The Office (much of which was rejiggered into the first episode of the series proper). We also get the distinct impression that, while the David Brent character is a truly impressive bit of comic innovation, he's not all that far removed from the real Ricky Gervais. It's obvious that Gervais has better social filters, and can dial his personality down when needed, but...well, not that much.

Still, any extra time with The Office and its characters should be treasured. Series two is already airing on the BBC America cable channel, and after those six episodes come to DVD, all that remains of The Office and its inhabitants is a couple of Christmas specials. As hard as it is not to watch all six episodes of The Office: The Complete Series One in a single sitting, you may feel as if you're squandering something precious...

Then again, as the BBC has recently demonstrated a renewed willingness to return to its best ideas years after the fact, we might see The Office: Series 3 in 2018. I can't say that I'd mind.

-- George Zahora