So here's my issue with THE OFFICE...

It's fake. Real human beings don't remotely act the way Steve Carell and most other characters do. There's a glimmer of a real workplace situation with 2 or 3 characters -- I'm thinking Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski and that uppity blonde (who's MOST amusing in real life on talk shows...a new Bonnie Hunt) -- but most are like cartoon characters, like some insipid SNL sketch. A shining example of what I mean occurred 2 episodes ago when Carell deliberately drove his car into a lake because that's what the GPS told him to do. Again, he DELIBERATELY DROVE HIS CAR INTO A LAKE. Now i've bitched about the idiot public's reliance on these systems before, so there's definitely room for satire here. But in MY universe...if I was the one writing this show...the person in the PASSENGER seat would be insisting on the genius of the GPS, and I'd be screaming profanities at him...something like "so there's NO fucking road here, dipshit...you want me to drive into the lake? Is THAT what you fucking want? OK, fine, we'll go into the lake...the GPS MUST be right!" Then at the last minute, I wouldn't go into the lake as maybe the passenger started screaming "NOOOOOOOOO, OK, OK, I believe you...you're right, you're right!" That's how NORMAL people would act. They wouldn't ACTUALLY drive into a lake. It's idiocy. And it's why I find this show ridiculously overhyped. The British version is MUCH more like REAL LIFE. It's the same reason I never got into WILL & GRACE...Karen and Jack...have you EVER met real people like them? And when you don't buy people, you don't have genuine affection for their characters. You JUST don't care. Give me REALITY, please. You can be "out there" or a complete idiot and still be relatable as a human being.