Stars: Ricky Gervais, Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook, Lucy Davis, Stirling Gallacher, Oliver Chris, Patrick Baladi, Robin Hooper, Ralph Ineson

Director: Ricky Gervais

Summary: Another series of the spoof documentary which follows the day to day goings on in the Slough branch of Wernham Hogg. David and his team are joined by employees from Swindon following the merger of the two branches. Much to David's dismay he has a new boss, Neil, who is very popular with the others. Features all the episodes from the second series of the popular television comedy.

The second series of the multi-award-winning fly-on-the-wall comic documentary THE OFFICE kicks off with the Slough and Swindon offices merging. Brent has new faces to impress and bosses of his own to contend with. The Swindon staff are a more professional group than his own, one is black and another is in a wheelchair. They inevitably fall victim to his naive and thoughtless prejudice.
Episodes:
1. Tim is now Sales Manager, and new Swindon girl Rachel sparks competition between Tim and Gareth.
2. Staff Appraisals bring some revelations, Brent realises he's not as popular as he thought and hopes to win people over with a lunchtime drink, and Rachel and Tim are hitting it off, much to Dawn's discomfort.
3. Trudy gets some sex-toys for her birthday and headhunters for a public speaking agency offer Brent 1200 an hour (why

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It feels both inaccurate and inadequate to describe The Officeas a comedy. On a superficial level, it disdains all the conventions of television sitcoms: there are no punch lines, no jokes, no laugh tracks, and no cute happy endings. More profoundly, it's not what we're used to thinking of as funny. Most of the fervently devoted fan base watched with a discomfortingly thrilling combination of identification and mortification. The paradox is that its best moments are almost physically unwatchable. Set in the offices of a fictional British paper merchant, The Officeis filmed in the style of a reality television show. The writing is subtle and deft, the acting wonderful, and the characters beautifully drawn: the cadaverous team leader Gareth (Mackenzie Crook); the monstrous sales rep, Chris Finch (Ralph Ineson); and the decent but long-suffering everyman Tim (Martin Freeman), whose ambition and imagination have been crushed out of him by the banality of ! the life he dreams uselessly of escaping. The show is stolen, as it was intended to be, by insufferable office manager David Brent, played by codirector-cowriter Ricky Gervais. Brent will become a name as emblematic for a particular kind of British grotesque as Basil Fawlty, but he is a deeper character. Fawlty is an exaggeration of reality, and therefore a safely comic figure. Brent is as appalling as only reality can be. --Andrew Mueller

The second series exceeded even the sky-high standards of the first. Indeed, it ventured beyond caricature and satire, touching on the very edge of darkness. Ricky Gervais is once again excruciatingly superb as David Brent, but in this series, Brent's to-the-camera assertions concerning his management qualities and executive capabilities are seriously challenged when the Slough and Swindon branches are merged and his former Swindon equivalent Neil (Patrick Baladi) takes over as area manager. To compensate, Brent cultivates his pathologically mistaken image of himself as an entertainer-motivator-comedian whose stage happens to be the workplace. Meanwhile, Tim, who can only maintain his sanity by teasing the priggish Gareth, continues to wrestle with his yearning for receptionist Dawn Tinsley (Lucy Davis), a sympathetic character persisting in a relationship with a man about whom she still maintains unspoken reservations. As ever, it's the awkward, reality TV-style pauses and silences, the furtive, meaningful and unmet glances across the emotional gulf of the open-plan office, that say it all here. As for Brent, his own breakdown is prefaced by a moment of hideous hilarity--an impromptu office dance, a mixture of "Flashdanceand MC Hammer" as Brent describes it, but in reality bad beyond description. Then, when his fate is sealed, he at last reveals himself in a memorable finale to perhaps the greatest British sitcom, besides Fawlty Towers, ever made. --David Stubbs

The brilliant and devastating comedy of The Officeis brought to a satisfying conclusion in The Office Special, originally a two-part Christmas special on the BBC, set three years after the end of the faux-documentary's second season. The former office manager David (Ricky Gervais) now ekes out a desperate existence as an oblivious quasi-celebrity, making awkward, humiliating visits back to the office staff he still believes loves him. Gawky Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) has risen to manager and become a petty tyrant, while the sweet but snide Tim (Martin Freeman) continues to pine for former receptionist Dawn (Lucy Davis), who fled to Florida with her fiance. When the documentary crew pays for Dawn to return for the holiday party, an unpredictable reunion looms ahead. The Officefuses scathing humor and genuine empathy, turning excruciating social discomfort into inspired satire. Fans will find this special rewarding in all respects. --Bret Fetzer

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Out Takes, Video Diary, Deleted Scenes
Year:	2002
Release Date:	October 20, 2003
Runtime:	220 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	B B C D V D 1300
Keywords:	Comedy, General, Series, Office, Second, Tv, Complete
Genre:	Comedy