The Office: Trivia

What Happened, Yo!:

-As the end of the quarter has arrived, Andy finds himself just over 800 dollars short of reaching the office's target of doubling sales. He tries to get Oscar to fudge the numbers, but Oscar is going to a bar trivia contest in Philadelphia and can't do it. When Andy learns the prize money for winning the contest is 1000 dollars, he convinces the office to go to Philadelphia and try to win the money so they can buy their own paper and reach their goal.

-They split into 3 teams: An A-Team (Andy, Jim, Daryl and Ryan), A B-Team (Stanley, Phyllis, Cathy, Creed) and a just have fun team (Kevin, Meredith, Erin, Kelly). As the game goes on though, the just have fun team do better than both the A-Team and the B-Team and wind up in the finals against Oscar's team (Aesop's Foibles), and a team called the Queerstein Bears (It's a gay bar). Once again they start off rough, but they quickly catch up and Kevin winds up beating Oscar in the final question about French Cinema, winning the contest.

-Meanwhile, Dwight has gone to Florida hoping to get a job as manager of the Northwest Printer Division. Robert California is unable to listen to him and tells Dwight he'll be meeting with the COO but he tells Gabe (Who works in Florida a couple days of the week) to listen to Dwight and then reject him. Dwight catches on and gets Gabe to take him to Robert's Florida condo, where Robert tells him that no his talents would be wasted on that job and he wouldn't like Florida anyways, but he'll let Dwight know if something he's right for comes up.

I Liked This: Season 8 of The Office came back to a strong start with Trivia, which was very funny. The trivia contest story was very simple and really just an excuse to have these guys in a trivia contest, but it worked well. Even though it was predictable after their first right answer that Kevin's team would go on to win the contest, it still felt somewhat realistic, as we saw them get some wrong answers too (the tag with them at a harder trivia contest was great). And Gabe continues his trend of being a better character this season as we finally learn why an apparent executive is always in Scranton (We also learn why Robert is always in Scranton, which I appreciated). I appreciated seeing Dwight pursue a better job and hope this isn't the last we've heard of his ambitions.

But...: The set-up to why the the office was entering this contest was a bit contrived. Just a bit though. And Dwight's storyline had it's moments, but wasn't as strong as the trivia plot.

The Bottom Line: This was a strong episode of The Office that has got me excited for the rest of season 8.

Grade: Totally Awesome! (Great)

Memorable Moments

-The cold open with the office trying to keep their silence streak was pretty funny, especially Kevin's compulsive need to say "Oh, Yeah!" when he eats a candy bar.

-Things the office came up with as uses for paper: Ransom Notes, Anonymous Threats, Love Letters, Books, Infinite things).

-Gabe: "I am the toilet of this office".

-Creed: "Let's reverse engineer this. You're a black singer. Where do you go where you're a novelty? Alaska?"

-Erin's ideas for what blind people think about: "Dogs, canes, signs, manholes, stairs, piano, darkness."

-Kevin's sign "What is SEE-Attle?" was one of the funniest jokes of the episode.

-Ryan tries to answer a basketball question: "[Shawn Marion] doesn't sound right. I want to say Ladamian Washington." Jim: "Wrong. For so many reasons".

-Ryan's inability to be separated from his smart phone was also really funny.

-The Einsteins (Kevin's team) getting a question about Albert Einstein wrong was again, also really funny.

-Kevin: "A fluke is one of the most common fish in the sea, so if you go fishing for a fluke, chances are you just might catch one".

-The Einstein's guess on who wrote The Grapes of Wrath: The California Raisins.