End of Office Romances

[Brian Damage]

To borrow a page from Bill Maher's playbook, here's a new rule: No more office romances.

They are bad enough in literal offices, where flirtations in that DMZ between the water cooler and the bathroom doors lead, with the inevitability of a tax deadline, to post breakup awkwardness, regretted revelations, anger, jealousy, and fantasies (enacted or not) of revenge. Now it's worse because almost all of our favorite TV shows pivot on office romances or their equivalents. From "24" to "The Unit," from "Without a Trace" to "CSI," mismatched people are making goo-goo eyes at each other; playing sleepover; misinterpreting each other's comments, letters, or phone messages; and, getting jealous when the object of their affection makes eye contact with another person. Doubtless, the most egregious office romances are in a show actually called, "The Office."

Admittedly, this is a dissenter's view. Part of the success that "The Office" has enjoyed over the last two and a fourth seasons is founded on the public's fascination with the ups and downs of Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) and their compromised involvement with each other. Pam is the cutesy, shy American girl with artistic aspirations and an unexpectedly mild mean streak (seen in her conspiracies with Jim to torment office nerd Dwight Schrute). Jim is a witty, realistic, easygoing everyman with whom everyone either knows or identifies. Clearly, they are not made for each other. I am quite possibly the only person in America who doesn't like Pam as a potential mate for Jim, and think he is better off with the acerbic Karen Filippelli (Rashida Jones) (at least as these characters have been established thus far).

Within Dunder-Mifflin, however, there are other romances: between Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and his partner in law and order, Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey); salesman Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak) as an unwilling partner to Indus Valley Girl Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling); and, of course, the much more complex and unlikely romance between office manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Dunder-Mifflin exec Jan Levinson-Gould (Melora Hardin).

These couplings would be fine if the show was called "The Office Romance," but, in fact, it's called "The Office." What began as a witheringly accurate account of modern American business incompetence and interpersonal awkwardness (following the lead of its British progenitor) has been shanghaied and derailed by this fixation on love.

Don't get me wrong. I still watch and love the show. But I wish it spent more time on harebrained pep-squad schemes, misguided all-office meetings, and tensions between different social castes -- than on the intricacies of love and its snail's pace progress (which is what all other shows already do, anyway).

Love is an epidemic on prime-time episodic television. On "CSI," Gil Grissom has been seeing Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) for some indeterminate time. On "Without a Trace," weeks and weeks of problems took place between Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) and Sam Spade (Poppy Montgomery); she then went after Martin Fitzgerald (Eric Close). Now, Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano) is in a form of puppy love over office mate Elena Delgado (Roselyn Sanchez). "The Unit" has been chronicling interplatoon infidelities since day one. "24" must pause the clock periodically so that Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and Morris O'Brian (Carlo Rota), or Nadia Yassir (Marisol Nichols) and (the now late) Milo Pressman (Eric Balfour), could corner each other in the grim halls of CTU and issue romantic ultimatums. In "Shark," various secondary cast members (who one cannot remember from episode to episode) hint at varied couplings. Finally, "Grey's Anatomy" is all about the star-crossed path of love among a closed set of people. Can't any of these characters forge relationships with people in the outside world? Even one season of "Survivor," a reality game show, had a sort of romance.

It's easy to understand why network execs and show runners are drawn to the use of a love story or an office romance as a through line. It's a trick that links the individual episodes of a show that is otherwise an anthology of discrete tales. But what happens is that the urge to keep the show fresh, or to keep viewers addicted to it, leads to incestuous romancing. "Friends" is an example of that, as is "That '70s Show," in which everyone eventually ends up dating everybody else.

Worse, romances in these shows must always be thwarted, compromised or interrupted, and remain essentially hopeless (perhaps based on a daytime soap opera model). Take "Prison Break." By the end of the second season, Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) finally scored a fleeting kiss with Dr. Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies), only to be quickly separated again. Horatio Caine (David Caruso) of "CSI: Miami" is doomed only to yearn for others, his nobility restricting him to romantic isolation as he selflessly gives himself over to the aid of others. In the end, these shows give a distorted view of love, and romanticize failure and isolation rather than success and intimacy.

"The Office" aired its season finale on Thursday, May 17. It was a good episode, one that featured some characteristically "Office-style" ironies while resolving three of the many office romances (at least for now); it even generously devoted a little bit of time to the comedy of office politics. Still, in the happy/sad afterglow of the show closing down for the year, at least one viewer was wishing that, next season, "The Office" will just get back to work.