"The Office" is sagging and it is a conundrum to which there is only one real solution: fire Michael Scott. Or Steve Carell. Whatever it takes.
Early on, taking after Ricky Gervais' David Brent on the original British version of the show, Michael was a catalyst for misbehavior and ill will. He was difficult, verging on unlovable; you almost had to shield your eyes watching him, so great was his capacity for awkwardness.
But as the American version has aged, evolving beyond the structure of its predecessor, the expectation that Michael will occupy the same amount of space as he did during the show's earlier seasons, when his gaffes were more gratuitous, has become burdensome.
And exhausted too. Carell can't quite play him as the simp he once was: His shoulders are slightly squarer, his hair slightly better, his uncertainty a little more certain. It's as if the show no longer believes in the character's wacky potential.
Instead, in order to breathe new life into Michael, he has become something that was virtually impossible in earlier seasons, given the naive arrogance that motivated his behavior: sympathetic. Many of the show's recent episodes have been dragged down by Michael's depression in the wake of his split with Holly Flax (Amy Ryan).
Formerly incapable of seriousness, he's become something of a sad sack, ill-equipped to grapple with his pain. Of course, no one around him is much inclined to help. Scorn is central to most of the relationships that the show's other characters have with Michael, and little has happened to change that. He's still incompetent, foolish and blinded by his inanity, but now he's needy too, an emotion that has no place here.
His impromptu lonely-hearts party a couple of weeks ago just felt tragic; he never once subverted his own sadness, the trait of his that has long made his character distinctive, if grating. Typically, the show has been able to rely on Jim (John Krasinski) and Dwight (Rainn Wilson) when Michael became unbearable, but both of those characters have also eroded of late.
Jim has become smug and self-satisfied -- not even his engagement to Pam (Jenna Fischer) redeems him. Where his fourth-wall-breaking looks into the camera were once befuddled, now they're withering, making him less a hapless bystander and more a conspirator. And as Dwight, Wilson has injected a confidence that has made the character less shocking.
