TVSquad

When I received my copy of The Office season five DVD in the mail, the first thing I noticed was that there may or may not be a Golden Ticket enclosed that would win me a trip to Hollywood. I tore into the packaging, and saw that I had not, in fact, won. So, this DVD set sucks. THE END.

...Okay, I've been informed that I won't get paid unless I tell you about what's actually on the DVDs. So, let's get to that.

The short version of the story is, the folks who make The Office DVDs do so with fans in mind. They are not creating merely a collection of episodes: They chock the DVDs full of enough extras and other goodies to make buying the DVDs preferable to say, buying a season pass on iTunes or just not erasing the season's episodes off of your DVR.

In one of the features, "Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Presents The Office," the editors talk about how each filmed episode of The Office is about 38 minutes long, and is then cut down to about 22 minutes for broadcast. What that means is they end up with a lot of deleted scenes. Now, deleted scenes are pretty standard for just about any DVD, but there are deleted scenes on every disc in this five-disc set.

There are also episode commentaries on all of the discs except for disc three -- apparently, no one had anything to say about those episodes. The main special features include the aforementioned panel presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which includes the entire cast and crew and is moderated by Andy Richter. It's a nice feature, but the sound and video quality is horrible. It's reminiscent of the "Writer's Block" feature on the season 4 DVD, in that It feels as though it was shot by an audience member who stole a rental VHS camera from their video store in 1993.

However, that's really the only negative thing I have to say about the extras. Even the promos, which I expected to just be filler, were great. They weren't the normal 30-second promos you see on NBC all the time: they were extended promos that NBC aired during sporting events. There are two amazing, extended ones from the XLIII Football Championship (which, I don't know much about sports or anything, but it seems that maybe the Office folks don't either, because isn't that the Super Bowl? If it is, I don't understand why they just didn't say that), and four Olympic-themed ones from the Beijing Games this summer.

Also included are both webisodes produced this season: "The Outburst," and "Kevin's Loan." I'm not a huge fan of "Kevin's Loan," but "The Outburst" is pretty good, and it's nice to see them on a big screen.

My favorite extra, though, is the "100 episodes, 100 moments." The season finale happened to be The Office's 100th episode, so this is a nice montage that's exactly what it sounds like: 100 moments from throughout the five seasons. You get to see Steve Carell's old hair! There's a nice mix of funny and sweet moments, and they've included an especially nice selection of Jim and Pam scenes.

The set is reasonably priced too: You can get it on Amazon for about $33 for the DVD set, or $42 for Blu-Ray. All in all, it's a definite must-have for any Office fan.

Watch episodes and clips of The Office and other shows over at SlashControl.