The Office reached a new level of popularity when it was added to Netflix, but if you’ve only watched the workplace sitcom on the streaming service, you’re missing out.
Office Ladies podcast hosts Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey recently discussed the season three episode “Traveling Salesman” (featuring the introduction of the term “Schruted”), although, as they discovered, they didn’t watch the same “Traveling Salesman”: the Netflix cut is different from the version included on the DVDs and what aired on NBC. “Angela and I were so confused, because we were trying to outline this episode and there were all these scenes that Angela was talking about that I remembered shooting…but that weren’t in the version I was watching,” Fischer said, via Mashable. Basically, “Traveling Salesman” and the following episode “The Return” aired on January 11 and January 18, 2011, but NBC combined them into an hour-long episode when they were re-aired as a “newpeat” months later in March, as part of sweeps week.
Kinsey broke down what you won’t see on Netflix, including a touching scene where Pam tells Angela that she won $100 from an art contest (a sixth grade elementary school art contest, but still!). “Jenna, we have one of those classic over-the-partition Angela and Pam scenes. And she tells Angela, and Angela has all this good favor in her heart towards Pam right now, you know?” she explained. “They’ve gone and got coffee, they’ve bonded. And so Angela goes, ‘Congratulations’ and then she says, ‘I really like having these little moments with you.'” The bond between the co-workers is quickly broken, however, when Pam declines Angela’s offer to take home a kitten. “[Angela] instantly goes back to just being this cold, snarky person to Pam. That’s it. Their friendship’s over,” Kinsey said. “It was so fleeting.”
Also fleeting: the number of days before The Office moves from Netflix to Peacock. The constant maneuvering of shows and movies between streaming services is, along with the bonus scenes, yet another reason why you shouldn’t give up on physical media. You never know when The Office might end up on Quibi in seven-minute chunks. Not ideal.
Another difference between Netflix vs. DVDs: “Traveling Salesman” on Netflix begins with Michael and Harvey, his talking computer, but on the DVD, the cold open is relegated to the deleted scenes. You know who sucks more than Jim? Whoever decided to leave out Harvey.
(Via Mashable)
