What’s more impressive is that it took a central concept that has been plundered many times over in comedies – the dinner party – and managed to sidestep the bulk of the pitfalls, and delivered an episode that was akin to welcoming a bloody funny old friend back into your front room. But this is an episode about the increasingly one-sided relationship between Jan and Michael. So we find out that Michael has little say what goes on in their home, doesn’t get to sleep in the main bed (did you catch the video camera pointing at it though? Shudder….) and sacrifices most of the space in there to Jan’s thus-far unsuccessful candle business (the dinner party turns out to be Jan’s idea, too, as she’s hunting for investors). In some ways, it was quite a melancholy episode by The Office standards, not least when Michael and Jan starting arguing, but there were some healthy belly-laughs in there anyway. Michael’s pride-and-joy plasma screen, Jan’s suspicion that Pam fancied Michael, the poison… it certainly packed a lot into 25 minutes.
