User blog:Dwide Schrude/The Office: The Banker Review

Here's the review for the January 21, 2010 episode, "The Banker":

January 22, 2010 - The Office can now go down in the television history books right next to some of the greatest and longest running shows of all time, not necessarily because of any artistic or comedic achievement per se, but because it has now officially been around long enough to fill an episode with clips of past exploits. That's right, the latest episode of the sixth season, "The Banker", resorts to that time-tested and old reliable ploy shows have been using to fill a season episode order since the dawn of serialized television: the clip show. What did you think of The Banker? Awesome Great Good Okay Bad Terrible

Cynical viewers, especially those who suspect the show might be running out of steam, may take this as a reaffirmation of their suspicions that it's time for the series to pack it in. Devout, unwavering fans will surely derive a fair amount of entertainment out of reliving some of the show's funnier moments. If you're like me, though, and find yourself somewhere in the middle of these two camps, you might just find yourself asking if it would have been more worthwhile to spend these twenty-two minutes watching an entire re-run of a classic episode.

Like most clip shows, the episode frames its numerous montages with brief sequences of new material tied together by a thin storyline. In this instance, Dunder Mifflin's prospective buyers send an investment banker to check up on the Scranton Branch's inventory and personnel. Michael being Michael, of course he takes this opportunity to try and needlessly impress the banker with his office's forward-thinking ways, appearing on a Segway to greet him at the door, pretending to have a state of the art, talking computer information resource called the Comp-U-Tron (it's Dwight on a speakerphone), and replacing Stanley with a younger, better looking model.

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