Friday, March 6, 2009

JIMBO!/INCOMPL TE: Did we really make it to Friday afternoon without an Office/30 Rock thread? Rather than diving into plots and rehashing jokes, let me just laud two actors. Brian Baumgartner rarely gets anything to do on The Office other than get caught with porn and act like the kind of guy Holly would mistake for special. I've read that he is a deft and quick-witted actor, the person on the Office set least like his character, and we don't get to see much of that. But the writers of The Office are smart, and several of their more cartoonish characters -- Dwight, Andy, and Angela, though not Creed or Meredith -- have been given chances to paint a little depth into themselves. This was Baumgartner's second chance to play Kevin as more than just a simpleton, and for the second time, he nailed it, efficiently conveying both the depth of Kevin's loneliness and how small a ray of hope he needs to brighten up.

And then, of course, Baldwin again demonstrated what an incredible mimic he is. Without spoiling, I just wanted to appreciate how perfectly he nailed the peculiar cadences of what it was that he was recreating. Far more subtle than his Emmy turn in the Funniest Minute of Television last year, but no less impressive.

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