[quote name='Strell']You know, I think that is what makes Office so great.
It does an unbelievable job of showing a wide range of emotion for each character.
Micheal is the perfect example. He's annoying and crass 99% of the time, but that 1% of the time when he's geniunely upset and shows it outwardly, you feel incredibly sorry for him. 'Cuz you know he's just trying to be as friendly with his employees as he can, and he never wants them to be mad at him. He's so incredibly fragile on that front that when it manifests, you just sort of know.
I don't think many other shows can pull that sort of thing off. Especially comedies. Office solicits empathy and sympathy so effortlessly and subtly. Like when Pam and Jim both look at chairs next to them during meetings, and it's either empty, or Ryan shoots back "What are you looking at me for?"
I think that is one of the undersold abilities of the show. It is able to convince me that the characters are multi-dimensional.
Otherwise, no one would feel bad for Roy, but as can be plainly seen, some of us do, and I'm willing to bet the majority of the audience does at this point. And that is something that you couldn't have convinced me of at the end of last season.[/QUOTE]
I watched the entireity of Season 2 in like 2 or 3 days on DVD because of this reason... the characters are so amazingly fleshed out that you actually feel sympathy, anger, sadness, happiness right along with them.
I mean, I was pretty sad when we found out that Kevin might have had skin cancer... that was some crazy stuff, he went from being the dopey kind of slow guy to "wow, he might not even make it".
The Office is one of the very few comedies where you really care for the characters... Seinfeld was funny but I didn't really feel any attachment to any of the characters. The Office seems to be going more into a comedy / drama thing and I think it works out excellent like this.