The ‘Dinner Party’ is my favourite episode of the US Office.
In my eyes it stands head and shoulders above all other episodes in that show.
From watching the bloopers it looks like the actors found the episode extremely funny and daresay the writers knew they were onto something special too.
So I’m grateful for two reasons.
One that the makers of the show proclaimed a fantastic episode and two that there wasn’t a ‘Dinner Party Part 2’.
I believe that everyone involved in making this episode knew it was going to be a hit but they didn’t change their plans to capitalise on it.
The rest of the episodes are not variations of the Dinner Party.
They did not seize on the hit and try to squeeze every last excellent drop out of it.
They moved on.
They went back to the drawing board and created a brand new episode.
Which was worse of course.
Naturally.
But eventually after repeated attempts at originality they found their way back and created great episodes again.
They had a practice.
A practice to be original, hit or miss.
Not keep going til you find a hit and milk it to death.
Thomas Duggan 