Arrested Versus The Office

PopMatters has a nice comparison of Arrested Development and The Office. When I first read the premise (Why is Office so popular while Arrested could never find an audience?), I had an easy answer: relatability. I thought I was smart for coming up with that so quickly.

Of course, then I read the column and realized the answer was pretty obvious.

Many fans felt the network hadn’t given [Arrested] a fair chance: it was moved around too much, it wasn’t promoted enough. But the show’s writers offered a different explanation for its demise. The third-season episode “S.O.B.s”, in which the family throws an elaborate “Save Our Bluths” party, offers a spoof of sitcom tactics to draw viewers: parades of guest stars, a death in the episode, even a bogus live feed at the end. Narrator Ron Howard goes so far as to exhort viewers, “Please tell your friends about this show.” The climax of the episode is a fancy dinner at which Michael delivers this speech: “We’ve been given plenty of chances, and maybe the Bluths just aren’t worth saving. Maybe we’re not that likable.... We’re very self-centered.” The show’s writers seemed to be suggesting that even with a combination of fantastic writing, talented actors, and innovative direction, the main element a comedy needs for success is characters and situations viewers can relate to.

When it comes to relatability, The Office has it in spades. Though The Office has sharp dialogue, a wonderful ensemble and an unusual setup, the settings and characters are far more conventional and comfortable for American audiences to watch. The show also has more obvious hooks for the network to promote than Arrested Development had. The whole premise of The Office is to depict something almost everybody knows: what it’s like to work a lousy job with a clueless boss. Even those Americans who don’t work in offices know what it’s like to have to defer to a foolish authority figure. Also, it showcases another familiar scenario: a conventional love triangle between Pam, a receptionist, Roy, her warehouse worker fiancé, and Jim, a slacker sales rep who attempts to woo her mainly through office hijinks that torment Dwight, the know-it-all and office sycophant.

The screen time devoted to the romance between Jim and Pam increases significantly in The Office's second season, with their constant looks at one another and looks at the camera building tension. Unlike Arrested Development, in which all the romantic relationships are either taboo (George Michael and his cousin Maeby), adulterous (Lucille and her brother-in-law Oscar), or bizarre (Buster and his mother’s best friend), we are obviously expected to take this romance seriously and sympathize. The love triangle clearly fits in with traditional sitcom tropes.

I’ll say this right out front: I love(d) both shows. The Butterfly and I catch a lot of Arrested reruns on one of the HD channels, and it still holds up (she never fails to ask “Why was this show canceled again?” at some point during an episode). And while both have gained some sort of cult following, and both seem quite offbeat compared to other sitcoms, the reason Office succeeds so much more than Arrested (other than “great timeslots”) is that it packages all of its weirdness into a very standard, presentable package. And you can relate to the characters as much or more than you can during a family sitcom. It’s standardness (is that a word?) makes it palatable for a large number of viewers, and its brains sets it apart.

I love Office considering just how painful it is to watch—Steve Carell has what my parents call a “Frasier moment,” where you know he’s going to make something painfully awkward and you can’t do anything to stop it, and it physically hurts to watch it, on a weekly basis now). Whereas if you missed an episode of Arrested, it would take you about 6 episodes to get back into the loop (not to mention the fact that you were exhausted at the end of 30 minutes), you could miss an entire season of Office and catch up in 10 minutes (and you could watch an entire season in one sitting without wearing down...well, I could anyway). The characters are steady, reliable, relatable, and crazy--not Bluth crazy, but relatable crazy--and you grow to care about them. Whereas you watched Arrested to see what was going to happen, you watch Office to see what happens to the characters, and that's really the main difference.

That, and I don't remember Fox selling Arrested bobbleheads or Bluth Company T-shirts on their website.