Product Details

• Actors: Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, B.J. Novak
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
• DVD Release Date: June 19, 2011
• Run Time: 477 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (288 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000GETTKM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,300 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Office: Season Two" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Thank goodness for second seasons. While the first season of The Office started dubiously with a pilot that was just a poor copy of the original British version, it did manage to provide enough good material to stay on the air and hint that better was yet to come. And here it is. The second season of The Office finds its own footing and manages to do the near-impossible by not only breaking free of the gravity of that excellent BBC version to stand solidly on its own, but establishing it as one of the best comedies on TV. Season 2 starts out strong with "The Dundies," where Regional Manager, Michael Scott (Steve Carell, The 40 Year Old Virgin) hosts the company’s annual office-awards event with his signature less-than-perfect grace. Things seem to only get worse for him this season as he bumbles a potential affair with his boss, Jan (Melora Harding), angers his employees by reading their emails ("Email Surveillance"), cooks his foot ("The Injury"), and accidentally destroys the warehouse with a forklift in "Boys and Girls," one of the season’s highlight episodes. Always at his side is the clueless paranoid Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), the Assistant Regional Manager ("Assistant to the Regional Manager," Michael always reminds him in one of the show’s running jokes).

One of the reasons for the show’s improvement in the second season is increased focus on Dwight’s character, who’s becoming something of a pop-culture icon right down to having his own bobblehead. He in turn provides so much good material for Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Jim (John Krasinsky) to play off of, to their own amusement. But of course, Pam and Jim’s simmering relationship is the real meat of the show, as their compatibility becomes more obvious, Jim’s feelings for her continue to grow, and Pam struggles with the impending marriage to her less-than-caring boyfriend, Roy (David Denman). Things have to come to a head, and they do nicely in the final episode, "Casino Night." As strong as the leading characters are in The Office, it’s the excellent peripheral characters that really make the show hilarious, especially dimwitted office-slug Kevin (Brian Baumgartner), long-suffering intern Ryan (B.J. Novak), office-ditz Kelly (Mindy Kaling), and ultra-conservative Angela (Angela Kinsey). As with season 1, this season contains excellent bonus features to give you an excuse to spend more time at The Office, including the fake PSAs, commentaries, Michael’s The Faces of Scranton movie, the ten stand-alone webisodes, and deleted scenes. --Daniel Vancini

Product Description

It's time to clock in for Season Two of The Office, the comically honest look at the world of white-collar employment. Steve Carell (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) won a Golden Globe for his role as Michael Scott, the sometimes pathetic but always hilarious regional manager of Dunder-Mifflin paper supply company. Join him and the amazing ensemble cast (Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer and B.J. Novak) as Michael, Dwight, Jim, Pam and Ryan navigate the hidden romance and open absurdity of the business world, from the Christmas party to sexual harassment training to the "Booze Cruise" retreat to the heartbreak of "Casino Night." Developed by Greg Daniels (King of the Hill, The Simpsons), fully staffed with all 22 outrageous episodes and packed with hours of laugh-ot-loud bonus features, The Office: Season Two is the must-own cure for the workday blues. Starring: Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, B.J. Novak

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

121 of 128 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, emotional, absurd, sweet -- and great on DVD, September 18, 2006

By 

Amy Tiemann "creator of www.MojoMom.com" (North Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Office: Season Two (DVD)

For new potential fans of "The Office," the DVD set of the break-out second season is a must-see. Start recording the third season now (premieres Sept. 21) and save those episodes, but don't watch them until you've watched the complete second season.

For devotees like myself, the DVD set is a just reward for loyal viewing. The show came into its own this year. I had watched fitfully until the stretch of episodes starting with "The Injury," "The Secret," and "The Carpet" hooked me for good. I am now going back to watch the whole season again and the shows hold up very well upon repeated viewing.

Strengths of the season: Steve Carell gets the award for Most Improved Characterization. It took about a dozen episodes (starting with 6 in the first season) for the show to settle on a tone for Carell's incompetent boss. For a while I wasn't sure what to make of him, which kept me from getting attached to the show. But this season he evolved from a mean jerk to a clueless, lonely man who really just wants everybody to be his friend. While the Michael Scott character still has plenty of totally inappropriate behavior and tons of cringe-worthy moments, his core of pathos and vulnerability humanizes him. I am even rooting for him to find love with Carol or Jan. As we saw this season, the fumbling results will surely be funny.

Now that Carell provides a solid anchor for the cast, the rest of the supporting actors can truly come into their own. From Rainn Wilson's complete dedication to the serious idiocy of office suck-up Dwight Schrute, to the smaller roles of wild-card Creed and eternally suffering temp Ryan, the ensemble has truly gelled.

And of course the slow-motion unfolding of Jim & Pam's romance provided the heart of the show throughout the season. Just about anyone over the age of 30 has been either Jim, Pam, or Roy at sometime in their life, and the bittersweet agony of the whole journey provided the summer's biggest cliffhanger. In my online poll to find the "Top Mom Crushes," both John Krasinski and Steve Carell have been nominated.

Finally, the DVD extras are truly great. The deleted scenes for each episode range from about 4 to 11 minutes and they are really funny. The discipline of 22 minutes works in the show's favor keep the stories tight, but the extra scenes are a worthy bonus for true fans.

This is a fantastic show, and a great DVD set. Even if you didn't watch the British version of the show (which I could never quite get into) give the American version of "The Office" a chance. What separates "The Office" from any other current "sitcom" is that much of the humor comes from what is left unsaid, rather than having a barrage of lame one-liners hitting viewers over the head. "The Office" is absurd, laugh-out-loud comedy with a heart--and if you are part of a couple, it's appointment TV that you can both love.

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolutely brilliant Season Two for what could well be the best comedy on TV, September 25, 2006

By 

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Office: Season Two (DVD)

Warning: Some spoilers

Of all the half-hour comedy shows that I've ever seen, THE OFFICE is the one that I would have thought the least likely to be brilliant. The BBC original version of the show was a thing of genius. Trying to do an American version of it seemed to me to be akin to Andy Warhol doing a remake of Picasso's "Guernica." Watching the show in Season One I was astonished that it was not only not bad, but that it was in fact very good. Amazingly, in Season Two it became something utterly brilliant. Although I was a huge fan of the original show, I have to confess that the American show is every bit as good as the British original. It is the finest American adaptation of a British show since ALL IN THE FAMILY remade TIL DEATH DO US PART.

Two things make this a great show: the writing, which is persistently brilliant (though obviously aided by a great deal of improvisation on the set), and the cast, which is both talented and very deep. Steve Carrell at first was not completely at home in the role, failing to strike the right balance between an utter absurdity and being likable nonetheless. Ricky Gervais managed to get this perfect from the beginning and he was always someone viewers would find to be the world's biggest idiot while nonetheless inwardly rooting for things to work out for him. At first, Carrell was incredibly funny in the role, but he was not someone to feel much sympathy for. But as Season Two went on and some of his own insecurities were revealed, we came to understand that he was more aware of his own basic unlikability than his persistent bluster made clear. By the end of the season he was near perfect in the role and he fully deserved the Golden Globe he won. Nearly as many laughs were generated by his brown-nosing sycophant Dwight, played brilliantly by Rainn Wilson. But the heart of the show in Season Two was the obvious and endearing attraction between Pam (sweetly played by Jenna Fischer), who is engaged to marry a guy who works in the warehouse, and Jim Halpert (winningly played by Jon Krasinski). If the antics of Michael Scott dominated each individual episode, the non-romance between Jim and Pam dominated the season as a whole. The climax of the entire season comes in the final episode, when Jim confesses his love for Pam and they kiss, just before he transfers to the Stamford, Connecticut branch of the company. I have rarely seen so much anticipation over a summer for the start of a new season for a half-hour show as I did this one, with an army of fans of the show wondering how Pam and Jim would pick up in Season Three.

Although THE OFFICE started off fine in its first season, it got better and better throughout Season Two. Because it has already run for more episodes than the British original, it is beginning to exploit one advantage it has over it: the ability to develop more fully minor characters. In the second half of the season especially a number of characters who initially just took up space became known entities, such as Kelly, the Indian girl who is fixated on getting married and immediately having babies on the one hand and doing this with her coworker Ryan on the other. Or Creed, about whom we learn more and more odd details as the season goes along, culminating in the season finale where he informs us that he likes to steal things. (Creed, by the way, is played by Creed Bratton, who was a rock star in the sixties as lead guitarist for the famous group the Grassroots, which had a string of huge hits including "Midnight Confession" and "Let's Live for Today.") As we get to know the various members of the office and pick up on the intricate interplay between the various personalities, the show becomes more and more irresistible.

THE OFFICE follows a trend in the best American television comedy to move away from the situation comedies that has long dominated our comedy. Most shows have been shot in front of a live studio audience, filmed with three or more cameras, performing each scene more than once in order to have alternate takes for the final version. But wonderfully innovative shows like MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, and SCRUBS has abandoned the situation comedy format and opted for a more realistic format. Like ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, THE OFFICE takes on a documentary style, shooting the film on hand held video, which not only gives the show a more spontaneous feel, but avoids the expensive camera and lighting set ups that adds a lot of time to shooting. I think this is a great trend and I personally would love to see the live audience situation comedy disappear entirely.

With the unfortunate demise of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (I still haven't recovered from that shock of its disappearance), THE OFFICE becomes the finest and most innovative comedy on American television (its only rival for the title being SCRUBS). There are still a few diehard fans of the BBC series that won't give this one a try. They should. It not only does great honor to the British show, it has become an absolutely wonderful show in its own right.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Second season pure comedic genius, September 17, 2006

By 

WTDK "If at first the idea is not absurd, the... (My Little Blue Window, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Office: Season Two (DVD)

When "The Office" first appeared on NBC the show used many of the basic plots for the brief first season. In comparison to the British inspiration these shows were good but it's clear that the series hadn't found its own voice yet. That can't be said of the glorious, hilarious second season which actually surpasses its inspiration. Steve Carell can sell things with such sincerity and plays the role of Michael so perfectly straight that his deadpan approach fits the series like a glove.

An excellent transfer from Universal "The Office" looks marvelous in this transfer. The show is shot in HD video so there aren't any analog problems that crop up. Audio sounds terrific as well the box says it's 5.1 but it sounded like a 5.0 mix to me although the surround speakers are used well for ambient sound keep in mind this is a dialogue driven show like most sitcoms.

We have bloopers, parodies of the "The More You Know" commercial spots that NBC periodically runs on topics such as not eating black jellybeans, meteors, using the word smell in everyday conversation, taping sex (and forgetting to erase it). "Steve on Steve" faces himself in interview for both "The Office" and "The 40 Year Old Virgin". It's pretty clever. The "Olympic Promos" are pretty funny as well. We also get on 10 episodes featuring a variety of cast and crew. I only had time to listen to a couple of them and both were amusing at the very least. The two I had time to listen to for this review were "Drug Testing" and "Casino Night" two of my favorites from this season (they also happen to be the last two episodes of the season as well). Unfortunately Steve Carell doesn't appear on either one of these commentary tracks (as producer/writer Greg Daniels jokingly notes on "Casino Night" which Carell wrote, "he's too busy working on his movie career". In fact he doesn't appear on any of the tracks as he was in the midst of shooting a film.

Disc three features "The Faces of Scranton" the short film that Michael made for one episode. It's amusing. Back on disc four we have the webisodes are pretty amusing as well but they lack a play all feature so you have to go back to the special features menu to play them individually. It's odd that this was forgotten but a minor annoyance. There are also two hours of deleted scenes throughout the set. Interestingly a couple of cast members write as well as appear in the series which probably accounts for the fact that it found its own creative and comedic voice surpassing the original British series during its second season. The deleted scenes usually follow each episode and can be played individually.

A dry, hilarious sitcom about the misadventures in the workplace, "The Office" came into its own during its second season departing from the British inspiration. The show managed to find its own voice and tone with the appealing writing of Daniels, Carell and cast member B. J. Novak among others. The extras are terrific and, with the exception of some minor issues such as the deleted scenes not being presented in enhanced 16X9 mode (which means they're letterboxed for those who have widescreen TVs) and the lack of a "play all" feature for the webisodes this is a pretty terrific set. The first season only consisted of six episodes so fans of the show will be in heaven with this set. Every one of the episodes from the "The Dundies" to the faux award show to the episode on "Sexual Harassment" to "Casino Night" there are no misfires during season two. This is a gem of a set well worth picking up for fans of the show. I would suggest renting though for those folks who haven't watched the show to see if the dry humor of the series will appeal to you.