Did you get the double meanings?

S2E2: ‘Appraisals’ by, for and of David Brent

This piece is part of a series on The Office (UK), running up to the 20th anniversary of its finale this Christmas. Don’t miss out by following me on Medium.

The HR make-work of staff appraisals structures this episode, a neat device for Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant to show where characters have got to in their story-arcs. But the episode is also about appraisal in a figurative sense: getting the measure, eyeing up, taking stock.

David Brent downplays the hostility of making your staff account for themselves — he tells the camera they’re not “putting their head on the block” — while Gareth plays it up: appraisals “separate the wheat from the chaff.” Their perspectives merge when Gareth points out they already know who the worst staff are, showing names on paper to David, who gives a wry “Yeah.” (Oddly we never see Gareth’s appraisal, though perhaps because he’d have aced his.)

The best appraisal of the episode is Keith’s, not in the sense he’s the best staff but that his is the best depiction of the essence of appraisals. He’s left out a page in the form he was meant to complete, so David has to take him through it, getting more and more galled the more Keith asks what the answer options are, and the more he keeps picking “Don’t…