The Office-"Dwight K. Schrute, (Acting) Manager"

Kathy Bates discusses some things with manager Dwight on "The Office"
Credit: NBC

My thoughts on last night's episode of the Office are after the jump.

Last week I decided that I would write off that episode completely and treat this one like it was the first episode since Steve Carell leaving. This episode almost made me forget that he was on the show in the first place. It proved that the show can be funny without Michael. I admit, I had quite a bit of worry about this episode because Dwight was never my favorite character on the show. He always seemed to go too far towards mean instead of funny. But I really enjoyed his character in this episode.

The writers of the show had the right idea when they decided to only have Dwight be the boss for one episode. I feel like this is a concept that I would be very tired of after one episode. But with one episode to show exactly what Dwight would be like, the show was able to capitalize on the idea. It was very strange for me to be laughing at Dwight being Dwight, but I was. All of the crazy stuff that he did during the episode was surprisingly funny. I especially loved how he changed the work environment. The new hole puncher, the lunch schedule, the copy machine numbers, and the vending machine were very funny gags. The way he ran the office surprisingly worked very well and was very funny. And I don't think they could have come up with a better way to get Dwight fired then having him shoot a gun in the office, very funny.

This is something that I haven't said in awhile but some of the best material in this episode went to the combination of Jim and Dwight. Everything from the Fist to the conversation between Jim and Dwight in Dwight's office was actually funny. I think they used Jim very well in this episode, as a good enemy to Dwight. It was essentially what would happen if Dwight became the boss, Jim would do anything to ruin it. And that's what this episode did, in a very funny way.

Some other thoughts:

• The continuation of the Erin/Andy/Gabe love triangle didn't do very much for me this week. It seems like they're just spinning wheels until Andy and Erin get together.
• Andy getting his eardrum popped was fun, but it wasn't anything special.
• Kathy Bates just looked bored in this episode. I'm glad Harry's Law was renewed so she doesn't suck the energy out of the Office very often anymore.
• There was a lot of great material for Brian Baumgartner in this episode. I loved his moment with the piranha in the bathroom and him trying to enter the 21 digit copier code.

Dwight Schrute is now fired and Creed is now the boss of the office. Boy there's a lot of comic material for the show to play with there while they bring in the parade of special guest stars. I don't know what to expect from the one hour finale next week, but if it's anything like tonight's episode, it should be very enjoyable.

What did everyone else think?