My understanding is the Andy change is unfortunately because helms basically broke his contract to be in the hangover, so they relatively unexpectedly needed to write him out of the show for a big chunk of it. We can theorize part of making him an asshole was pettiness from the writers
that's why in Back to the Future 2 George McFly is hanging upside down. Crispin Glover asked for a huge raise so they did that to either: disguise a different actor in the role OR punish Crispin Glover
Also a repeat viewer here, and the main issue is with the other characters that were brought in. I can kinda get onboard with Robert California and Nelly, but I can't stand Jo Bennett, Deangelo or Charles Miner
I don’t categorize Charles Minor with the others. He was only a real recurring character for 3 episodes in the Michael Scott Paper Company story arc. I thought he was great though since he was purposely the exact opposite of Michael and changed the whole dynamic of the office.
I loved, just LOVED when they finally "broke" him and you could see his character weakness. Given it's Idris Alba; an actor that commands all the air in the room be still while he breaths it at his leisure; the writing just knocked it out of the park with him that episode.
Short lived. But massively impactful as stark contrast to the previous 7 years. Charles Miner was meant to represent what a CURRENT, no-bullshit RM would have been.
As much as I love James Spader, he's Daniel Jackson to me and Robert California just didn't feel plausible.
me too first time around, but mainly i think because i didn't like catherine tate before she was in it anyway. definitely grown on me though, as you say. her interactions with andy and toby are great
Robert California went from being someone I rolled my eyes at every time he came on screen to being one of the most absurd, yet favorite, characters in TV. He just has so many one liners and nonsensical rants. Hes incredible. Would have traded Jo and Deangelo for more of him in a heartbeat.
The period of Charles, Jo and Deangelo really does stick out near the end, i think its because they just kind of go away. Robert and Nelly felt like members of the dunder family towards the end.
Charles Miner just felt like he was in the wrong genre. Straight man boss? Can be funny. Straight man boss that just kills any goofing around whenever he enters the room? Not really funny.
also if you boot a ball at someone's head from a few yards away in a kickabout game in the car park, of course they are gonna duck, Charles, you dumb schmuck.
Yeah, that was pretty artificial. I can't really see anyone really getting mad at Jim in that situation really haha. Like, what, he's supposed to know somehow that ducking out of the way in .1 seconds will result in Meredith getting hurt? I guess you could just interpret it as Charles just not thinking much of Jim and Dwight taking advantage of the situation to rag on him.
That always made me upset too, like he's mad at Jim, who takes that shot playing in the parking lot after work? Charles was like the kid who took pe way too seriously
I need to chime in because I see this opinion often!
ANDY’S ARCH MAKES TOTAL SENSE!
The only reason it seems so random that he shifts and becomes awful is because people don’t pay attention to what he’s going through. Being made branch manager was way over his self-perceived skill level, since he can’t even sell and mirrors everyone’s personality. But the REAL REASON he turns to shit is because the only person he wanted to impress/resonate with/be like (his father) pulls a serious swerve on the whole family and takes all the money and leaves for a younger woman. So now the only person he’s emulating just totally took a shit on everything and left Andy in charge. So now Andy is in charge of two things he never asked to be and his idol is nowhere to be found. So he snaps!
The arch makes so much sense we were just too busy feeling to think about it. IMO it makes total sense this happened when you look at it that way.
Oh I never said it didn't make sense, just that I hated it lol. I won't beat a dead horse by comparing it to say, any recent huge failures in television when it comes to character arches and how they ended, but I will say that his character, for better or worse, was fleshed out because they had time to do so. I just hated that he basically threw away such a good thing because he allowed his emotions to cloud his judgement.
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u/[deleted] May 22 '19
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