TVSquad

You know, just when you thought you've seen the funniest episode of The Office, you get blown away by the next one. This one was IMHO the best episode yet this season. The writers will be hard-pressed to come up with a better story than this one.

The office staffers bring their little girls (and even including Meredith's son) to the Dunder Mifflin office for "Take Your Daughter to Work Day," and Michael lets it known that he is uncomfortable having kids around the office. If any of you reading this have ever worked in an office setting, you may well agree that having kids come in--yours and your co-workers'--almost always turns into chaos, no matter how cute and adorable they are.

The staffers react to the visitors in different ways. Pam can't understand why she can't relate to kids, but feels she should make a concerted effort because she's going to get married. Kelly continues to creep everyone out with her obsession over Ryan, now stating that she can't wait to get pregnant and have kids. Her obsession turns even more creepy when she spots Ryan having an innocent discussion with Stanley's pre-teen daughter and tells Stanley that Ryan is putting the moves on her. As a result, Stanley goes off on Ryan, who is totally freaked out by the entire situation. Kelly's behavior is definitely going to cause Ryan to explode sooner or later, hoepfully before the end of this season.

Tight-assed Angela can't seem to find joy in anything, especially the little visitors, and she and Dwight, who has his own issues with the kids, especially Meredith's son (who keeps calling him "Mr. Poop") share little moments where you can just tell they are meant for each other.

The most interesting aspect of the episode is the transformation of Michael's indifference over the kids to one of acceptance and pure enjoyment of having them around. Every now and then we get to see Michael's more human side. This was never more evident when we see a clip of his appearance on a kid's show from years past where he admits to not having many friends. He walks out of the conference room in shame, but Toby's little daughter comes in and shows him a little love and he begins purging his soul to Toby saying that he wants to have a wife and kids. He joins an online dating service, but his choice of screen name--LittleKidLover--needs some adjusting.

However, the end of the episode featured what probably was the single funniest moment of the season when Michael and Dwight duet on Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Teach Your Children". There aren't too many times when I laugh out loud at something I watch on television, but this one had me in stitches. The look on both of their faces was priceless. An outstanding episode. 'Nuff said.