Dwight Schrute: Asset or Distraction to 'The Office'

[Brian Damage]

This comes with the major caveat that Dwight—beet farmer, former volunteer reserve deputy sheriff, non-expert in the deadly arts, and assistant to the regional manager at Dunder Mifflin Scranton—hasn’t always been a drag on the American version of The Office. Quite the contrary: For many seasons, Dwight’s authoritarian, Mussolini-like vision for how the office should operate has bounced nicely off a cast of defeated cubicle drones, and made him the unwitting foil of many a classic Jim-and-Pam gag. But as the show has progressed, Dwight has seemed more and more like a leftover from the era of the traditional sitcom, where the gag machine is reset every week, and less like a human being capable of evolving and revealing new things about himself. One of the keys to The Office’s success has been its ability to balance wackiness with real depth of character—a balance Steve Carell’s Michael Scott embodies, albeit shakily at times, at the show’s center. Dwight falls so squarely on the wacky side of the equation that he’s become more one-note with each passing season, as predictable in his antics as the squeak of a desk chair

http://www.avclub.com/articles/showb...v-shows,44163/

[TJL]

Sometimes Dwight is a bit cartoonish in his actions, but Dwight is appealing as a character because he refuses to change. In his deluded mind he thinks he is always right, and he keeps going.