The Office (UK) "Work Experience" (2001)

This second episode mainly focuses on David and Gareth as they investigate a pornographic photo that has been e-mailed around the office featuring David's head on a woman's body. David finds this photo at the worst possible time: he is showing Donna (Sally Bretton), a new employee around the office. She is the daughter of some friends of his and he has hired her in spite of the fact that he should be looking for ways to cut costs around his branch. David is quite understandably upset regarding the photograph but tries to play it off as his resentment for pornographic photos that degrade women so his employees won't think that he can't take a joke. He sets Gareth out to discover who made and distributed the illicit photograph and the sycophant begins a systematic but grossly inept investigation which turns out to finger the incorrect party. Jennifer returns to the office to find out what measures David has made to prepare for the merger of the two branches and the rest of the office spends most of the day goofing off while David assures his boss that his branch is the more efficient of the two and shouldn't be downsized.

We see that David is completely incapable of doing the dirty part of his job in managing the office. He doesn't want to do anything that may anger his employees (outside of his usual offending behavior) for fear they will take their anger out on them and won't like him for it. He spends almost the entire episode trying to keep his employees happy while also lying to his boss about the cutbacks he has made. He tells his employees that there will be no layoffs and that everyone's job is secure. He then lies to Jennifer and says that he is planning on layoffs and has fired a warehouse worker already. His frantic attempts to appease both sides ends in utter disaster as Gareth's investigation names Tim as the culprit and after a dressing down from Jennifer about how he is not man enough to do his job decides to make an example out of him by firing him first. The whole affair blows up in his face since his best friend Chris Finch was the responsible party and he has done the complete opposite of what he set out to do at the beginning of the episode. His employees, who rally around Tim as David blames him for the e-mail, end up angry with him anyway, and still don't know about the potential layoffs, and Jennifer has seen how inadequate of a manager he is of his employees. It's hard not to sympathize with David as he does have to walk a very fine line and there is a great amount of unpleasantness in his job. This is compounded by his personality and just serves to make him exact opposite of what he truly wants to be: a good friend/boss (in that order).

Gareth takes on the more comical storyline as he allows the tiny bit of power that David has given him go straight to his head. He turns the meeting room into his personal office and spends more time assuring people of his authority rather than doing any actual investigative work. The poor bastard can't even convince Donna that he is her supervisor and is constantly shot down in any attempt at a power play that he makes. He also allows this need for power to cross over to his flirting with Donna and ends up repulsing her and dashing any hope for a relationship. He is so annoying in this regard that we don't take pity on him for the pranks that Dawn and Tim play on him. The running gag of Tim calling his portable phone, which is a gun-like shoulder holster, just to tell him that he is a cock, serves as a constant reminder that no one takes him seriously and that he just invites more and more disrespect from his co-workers by acting even more like a jerk. It's sort of a endless feedback loop.

I hope to see more scenes with the other cast members as we were mainly treated to David and Gareth in this episode. The Dawn/Tim storyline was barely touched other than a scene where Tim does Dawn's hair and another where Dawn shoots a glance over to where Tim and Donna are chatting. The mutual attraction is much more subtle in this version of the series and it comes off as more realistic as you wouldn't make a display to the camera that you are infatuated with someone. Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking the US version. I am continually impressed with John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer's non-verbal acting talents which largely account for why it does work there. But I also admire the UK version for taking a more subtle and real approach to the characters.

Favorite moment: Dawn and Tim's double interrogation which just serves as utter humiliation for Gareth. The whole exchange is hilarious with both Dawn and Tim proving they both can successfully get under his skin:

Gareth: Was it one of you two?
Dawn: Yes. Christ, you're good.
Gareth: Was it?
Dawn: No.

Gareth: In this room I have special-
Tim: Needs?
Gareth: No, I am a special-
Tim Needs child?
Gareth: No, and that's not even funny. All right, I won't have you fired because-
Tim: You couldn't.
Gareth: Right, that's all.