Friday, October 19, 2012

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Funny F*ckin' Friday
****
Ted's employee record is mistakenly erased, causing chaos as his staff try to function in a world without him.

The review for "Win Some, Dose Some" can be read here.

His devotion to the company finally tested, Ted (Jay Harrington) finds himself, for the first time, actively working against the wishes of his employers. In an interesting twist, Linda (Andrea Anders,) who has been shown with an intense dislike for everything the company stands for, reacts to Ted's situation by mustering up a new found level of enthusiasm in order to solidify everyone's positions in the workplace and bring Ted back into the fold.

The technical formalities of Ted having to reapply for his own job are absolutely ridiculous, but while they make no sense they also seem completely accurate to the greater business world. Due to this strange glitch in the system, Ted has found himself unemployed, and in fighting for his job learns that his act of reapplying for a job he never lost has caused even more complications, in effect convincing his bosses that, while he is the most qualified and best choice for the position, it would be more cost-effective to higher someone brand new and let Ted go. This is a brand of incredulous humor that's very difficult to pull off, but this series does so with ease.

Linda's ability to lead her co-workers in creating a plan to save Ted's job is a side of her that we haven't gotten to see before, and it's fantastic. Her reasoning that she's able to excel at these projects if it's something she cares about, in this case keeping Ted in the workplace, is absolutely true for many people, and makes sense in Linda's case. Were it not for her friendship with Ted she likely would have left the company already due to her disagreement with their business practices.

Deleting someone's employment record form the system shouldn't be as easy as it was made to seem, as that's incredibly inefficient, and shouldn't even be possible for tax purposes. Also, taking an application from someone shouldn't make the system think that there's a position readily available, as, if that were the case, more people at this company would be fighting to keep their jobs.

Ted's halted anger seems strange to me; he should have been angry immediately, but instead took everything in stride as Lem (Malcolm Barrett) might have done. It's out of character for him to be so relaxed about his world crashing down around him.

The actors all do a great job in this episode, but the standouts are the minor characters of Maz Jobrani's Dr. Bhamba and Carla Jimenez as Patricia, who help Ted get his employment record reinstated. Patricia's unrequited crush on Ted lends itself well to her mild antagonism of Linda and a nice moment where Ted's daughter Rose (Isabella Acres) tries to get between Patricia and her father in order to protect him from her advances. The chemistry between everyone involved here is excellent, no exceptions.

Director Paul Lazarus does a great job of balancing differing tones, creating what should be an intense mood and undercutting it with something absolutely ridiculous. Bhamba's statement that tricking the system will be a challenge is nicely balanced by him simply knocking the camera with a broom, and Linda's attempts to seduce and distract the security guard are nothing if not hysterical.

Becky Mann and Audra Sieleff write a good caper in this episode, but the minor characters they create steal the show. Janet (Patricia Belcher) in human resources is fantastic with her nonchalant attitude and determination that the system would never make the mistake that it is currently in the process of making, and Patricia's insistance that everyone is likely dead if they're either late or missing is a funny running gag for her character.

The expansion of the cast through these minor characters is very interesting and could lend to many more stories in the coming episodes. Personally, I would love for Patricia to consider herself a genuine romantic rival to Linda in attaining Ted's affections, and seeing Dr. Bhamba's repeated attempts to screw over his co-workers would be great as well.

The review for "Get Happy" can be read here.

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