Dwight's plans should not be allowed to work

Last night on The Office, Pam and Jim had a baby. It was an hour-long episode, and although I understand the temptation to allow more time for the special event (and pull a bit more on ad money through a second half-hour), the extra-long episodes of The Office tend to be baggy and uneven. It was the same with “The Delivery” – while the episode up until the baby’s birth was well-paced and funny, after that point, it felt pretty directionless.

I also have some problems with the way Dwight came off, and it’s an issue that rests on how plausible his character can actually be. The Office is at its best when its characters are bizarre and ridiculous just up to the point of believability, but as soon as they become too crazy to be real, the show loses all the awkwardness that makes it work so well. Michael and Meredith and Andy are all pretty good at playing with that line without crossing it, but Dwight is the most consistent offender, and this episode was an interesting showcase for watching him move from one side to the other. For the first half, Dwight was absurd in a way that’s consistent with his character. Of course he’d try to do something stupid in order to increase his sales, and of course Angela would be willing (and find it reasonable) to write up an elaborate contract on child-bearing. And escorting Pam and Jim to this hospital was a brilliant little moment for him, where he got to talk about the time he started an escorting service, he got to pause to tell Michael about that time he saw a deer, and best of all, the cop who pulls him over for impersonating a police officer yells “Don’t make this difficult, Dwight!” on the bullhorn.

Things take a turn for the worse, though, as soon as Dwight breaks into Pam and Jim’s house. Even for Dwight, the idea that he would completely destroy and then re-install their entire kitchen is beyond reasonable. Dwight is a guy who talks about doing crazy things, but whenever he tries them, they go awry. See: trying to pull a coup on Michael, leading Ryan out into the beetfields to frighten him, his relationship with Angela, etc., etc., etc. His character is built on the ludicrous plan (for example, the baby contract with Angela) that gets foiled. So watching him actually taking a sledgehammer to the kitchen is silly, but then watching him actually re-install all of their cabinets makes the whole thing preposterous.

Dwight’s outrageous behavior is not going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for The Office, but I do hope this season starts heading in a more focused direction. I have been relying on this show to demonstrate a new way of building characters and relationships, and in its six seasons, it’s been so good about punching through the will-they-won’t-they wall, playing with and then overcoming all sorts of classic jump-the-shark situations. I’ve been confident that the baby will be another one of those interesting obstacles that it figures out how to hurdle, but it will require creative work for everyone in the office, Dwight included. The show needs some strong, long-term stories for Michael and others in the office, it needs some outside pressure that hangs around for awhile rather than just dissipating (which Sabre certainly has), and it probably needs to find something other than just adorable missteps for Andy and Erin. I know that The Office can do all these things. I’m holding out hope that it will.