Premiere Week '08: The Office

The Office:

"Weight Loss"

How sweet was Jim's rest stop proposal to Pam (complete with quite the hot kiss)? It's a testiment to this show that it can offer up some of the funniest material on television one minute and then conjure up a scene of real, genuine emotion the next. And its sweetness is never forced or heavy-handed (like Ugly Betty's premiere episode was).

This wasn't the funniest episode of The Office ever ("The Injury"), but it still had plenty of great moments:

• Ha! They're purposely eating lots of food before the contest starts so that they'll have more weight to lose.
• Jim can't believe that Michael doesn't say "That's what she said" after Dwight said "Hold it in your mouth if you can't swallow."
• Wow! Look at young Stanley!
• For an HR rep, Holly's not very politically correct, what with her lesbian jokes and all.
• I love that Holly still thought that Kevin was mentally challenged and got all upset when Angela called him an idiot.
• Michael: "Do you know what the number 1 cause of death in this country is?"
  Dwight: "Shotgun weddings."
• Jim: "Beer me five!" (That was a blast from the past.)
• Angela demanding to get married in a 1,000-year-old church in the continental United States.
• Andy is being soooooooooooooo sweet to Angela. Why? Why? Why?
• Kelly: "I swallowed a tapeworm last night."
• Ryan! I thought he was in jail. Ahahaha! He's the new receptionist!
• Jim's insistance on pointing out that Ryan's new-found devotion to community service is court-mandated.
• Andy: "This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I haven't had a very hard life!"
• Ryan: "I wanted to saw I'm sorry for how I treated you the past two years. I was in my mid-20s...I don't think I ever really processed 9/11..."
• Oh no, the guy from Mad Men is kind of adorable... Don't stray, Pammy!
• Oscar and Dwight doing the Michael Klump impression too.
• Michael: "What makes her beautiful?"
  Ryan: "Everything. She's perfect." (I have never heard Ryan say anything so sweet!)
• Andy: "Andy Bernard does not lose contests--he wins them...or quits them because they're unfair."
• Oh no--Angela not accepting Andy's college a capella group performing at the wedding is a deal breaker!
• Stanley: "I'm going to take five days off anyway."
• Gasp! Toby! He broke his neck! Oh nooooo, poor Toby! He just can't catch a break.

Premiere Rating: 7.0/10

(photo: nbc.com)