The Office's Most Inconsistent Moments

On Thursday, May 16, the final episode of The Office will air on NBC, bringing to a close my favorite sitcom of the last decade.

After it stepped out of the shadows from its UK predecessor, The Office became the most clever, edgy, heartwarming, and hilarious show on network television. Dare I say its second and third campaigns still stand up as two of the greatest sitcom seasons of all-time? Seinfeld made us laugh, but never made us cry. Are you telling me you didn't reach for a Kleenex when Jim finally asked Pam out on a date?

(above: Some of the following moments are worthy of a classic Jim Halpert smirk.)

Many will tell you the show has slipped over its nine seasons, but episode for episode The Office is still thoroughly entertaining. And in fairness, where do you go after you create two of the best televisions seasons ever?

Because I hold The Office in such high regard, it always stung me—much like Roy probably felt after getting a face full of pepper spray from Dwight in Season 3—when the show would veer from its tight production, direction, and writing.

Sometimes it was easy to take a leap of faith (like Michael’s replenished hairline starting in Season 2, because c’mon, who wouldn’t want to look good for the cameras?); sometimes it wasn’t. Here is a list of The Office's most inconsistent and inaccurate moments:

10.) A Dumpy Green Screen

In Season 6, Sabre sends Michael a stack of sales leads, which promises to both fatten the wallets and egos of Dunder Mifflin’s sales staff, who are being treated as corporate’s chosen ones.

In an act to bring humility to the office, Michael distributes the leads to everyone else except the sales team, even going as far as hiding them in the trash. It makes you wonder why the revered sales squad couldn’t just call corporate themselves and receive another copy of the leads? That scenario doesn’t make the list, but the use of a green screen seen later in the episode—during Michael and Dwight’s back-and-forth in the city dump—does.

The Office always gave the believable appearance of a documentary taking place at a paper company in Scranton. The wobbly handheld camera shots in front of a green screen—made to look like a garbage dump—feel so phony it’s difficult to pay attention to the dialogue.

This was the first time the production of The Office ever felt lazy, and taking shortcuts was never part of the show’s DNA.

9.) Ryan’s Re-Hire

Michael has some managerial pull, but hiring Ryan back as a temp after he was arrested for fraud and costing Dunder Mifflin a considerable amount of money in legal fees, not to mention all the bad press—including an embarrassing YouTube video—is not believable…at all. The plot line is seemingly glossed over until you see one of the deleted scenes, where over the phone, David Wallace rips Ryan a new one while Michael pleads to keep him. Astonishingly, he gets his wish.

Michael, Pam, and Ryan getting re-hired by Dunder Mifflin in Season 5—after creating a rival paper company—is believable; this is not.

8.) Everyone Going To Everything, Really?

We love The Office because it’s relatable; we’ve all worked with a Creed, Meredith, Oscar, and Kevin, and have done our best to leave some of them far out of our memory when we hit the punch clock. In earlier seasons of The Office a spattering of co-workers could be found at afterwork functions. Not everyone attended every party, which made the show that much more believable.

Later in the series, this rule was broken, as mostly everyone seemed to attend everyone else’s functions, including Andy’s musical and the baptism of Jim and Pam’s child Cece.

In TV you need to use your cast, but in real life—as we’re led to believe this is—you expect your co-workers to flake out often, like most of them did when Pam had her art show in Season 3.

7.) The Senator's Kid

You may remember that Angela first met State Senator Robert Lipton during the children's harvest festival organized by Dwight. Robert was joined by his young son, and through a flirtatiously friendly conversation revealed that his wife had passed away.

This was the first and last time we ever heard from the senator's son.

In Season 8, when Dwight organizes a family portrait day—one where even Meredith's son shows up—Robert's eldest child is curiously missing.

(above: Don't blink, this is the first and last time we ever see the senator's son.)

The writers probably swept him under the rug in lieu of storylines about the true paternity of Angela's baby and the affair between the senator and Oscar. It might have been interesting though to see an episode or two of Angela as a stepmother.

6.) Robert California

People are hot or cold on James Spader's lone Office season, portraying the brilliant/sex-obsessed Robert California (aka Bob Kazamakis). Whatever your opinion on the character, his rise to the top of Sabre was always quite baffling.

Here's how it happens:

Robert interviews for the vacated manager position. Once he's hired he decides that he doesn't want to be with the folks in Scranton, travels to Florida, talks CEO Jo Bennett out of her job and becomes the company's new #1.

He then, surprisingly, spends most of his time in Scranton.

If he was so eager to leave, why would he be so quick to return, commuting now from a much farther distance? Even for an eccentric like Robert California it doesn't seem to make any sense.

Later in the season, the CEO title creates all kinds of ambiguity, especially when Robert is at the mercy of Jo's best friend Nelly—who assumes the role of manager at the Scranton branch by simply showing up one day—and is in the dark when Jo liquidates the company and sells off Dunder Mifflin to David Wallace.

It seems like all of this could have been taken care of earlier in the season with a few quick tweaks to the script.

5.) Dwight E. Coyote

The character of Dwight has always been cartoonish, but because I actually know people like him, I was usually able to rationalize his random acts of bizarreness. In the latter seasons of The Office, however, Dwight’s actions more closely resemble those of Wile E. Coyote than an oddball Pennsylvanian beet farmer.

Secretly sculpting an army of Macy’s-window-ready snowmen; driving a bicycle—attached to a printer—atop a high-wire; installing a sophisticated “doomsday” computer program that tracks human error; dropping bug bombs; and injecting Stanley with bull-tranquilizers, covering him in bubble-wrap, and essentially rolling him to a meeting, all felt more Hollywood than Scranton.

Jim’s not innocent either. In Season 8 he somehow managed to publish a hardcover book on etiquette—under the penname James Trickington—which Dwight managed to read and study, before hosting a garden party at Schrute Farms.

4.) Rehearsal Dinner

Jim and Pam held their wedding in Niagara Falls—many, many miles away from Scranton—to discourage any of their co-workers from attending. Some time off of work, promised by Michael, made the long road trip more enticing to the staff, who are then inexplicably invited to the rehearsal dinner, which is traditionally—like the simple, middle-class folk that Jim and Pam are—only intended for the immediate family and wedding party.

Jim and Pam spent many years coming up with excuses why they couldn’t hang out with Michael outside of work, so it wouldn’t make much sense to have him present at their wedding rehearsal dinner where toasts are always welcomed and the revelation of Pam’s secret pregnancy is at stake.

I should also point out that gifts are usually collected at the wedding reception, not the ceremony, like they were in this episode, which I’m sure was done to expedite some extra gags.

3.) The Painting

The true treat of buying a season of The Office on DVD—rather than streaming it on Netflix—is getting to see the deleted scenes, which are always consistent with the main thread of the plot…with one exception.

In Season 6, while Jim and Pam are on their honeymoon, there's an episode where the staff at Dunder Mifflin creates a non-existent rivalry between their former receptionist, Pam, and their new one, Erin.

Erin tries her best to brush it off, but to no avail. During one of the deleted scenes—in what seems like the biggest middle finger to Pam, but in actuality was an innocent accident—Erin attempts to clean the glass of Pam's painting, the centerpiece of the office lovingly purchased by Michael at her art show seasons earlier.

Erin's bad day continues as the Windex seeps through the glass and agonizingly bleeds through the watercolors. The situation gets worse when Kelly attempts to correct it by painting in a rainbow.

(above: Fortunately, Erin's blunder was erased from existence.)

In subsequent episodes, Pam's painting can be seen hanging in the office in its original condition.

Because the picture has become so iconic, not to mention marking a very sweet moment between Pam and Michael, I'm assuming the writers opted to pretend Erin's screw-up never happened.

2.) Pam The Volleyball Star

In the finale of Season 5 Pam comes out of the athletic closet, so to speak, revealing that she’s got some mad skills on the volleyball court (thanks to summers spent at volleyball camps and a spot on her college team). We later find out that her stellar athleticism is a major plotline in eventually finding out about her pregnancy. When Pam twists her ankle, Team Corporate tells her to immediately get it examined, where she’s then given the precautionary pre-X-Ray pregnancy test, and viola, you’ve got your exclamation point on Season 5.

There’s only one problem though: The series never foreshadows Pam’s interest in sports; it actually does the opposite. In Season 4 when visiting her old high school gym for a job fair, Pam tells the camera that she pretended to have PMS to get out of playing volleyball in gym class.

A volleyball phenom doesn’t turn down an opportunity to spike a ball down her opponent’s throat does she?

1.) Pam's Mom

In Season 2, Pam's mother visits Dunder Mifflin, and throughout the entire episode Pam excitedly awaits her arrival. Though their shared screen time is brief, it's obvious that Pam and her mom are best buds. When Pam's fiancé Roy leaves for the day, Mrs. Beasley even whispers to Pam to point out Jim. (You may even remember that Pam confides in her mom during the emotional first-kiss happenings of Casino Night in the finale of Season 2.)

(above: Pam's best-friend-mom went missing after Season 2.)

Fast forward to Season 6 where not only does a different actress play Pam's mother, but her character drastically veers from best friend to cleavage-bearing-cougar-mom. This incarnation of Pam's mother opened up more storylines for the writers, but her mom in Season 2 would have never had a love affair with Michael Scott, let alone kept anything concealed from her daughter.

Like the makeover of Pam’s mother; a meek, conservative, soft-spoken Kelly Kapoor and Andy’s giddy, supportive parents—making a special trip to watch him propose to Angela—are also drastically re-imagined from one season to the next.