Christmas special episode 1, The Office UK

The Office UK 2001-2003 

The Office UK is a staple show in British TV history, first aired in 2001, it follows the day to day lives of office workers in a paper company in Slough.

The Christmas special episodes were the final 2 episodes of the series, set 3 years after the events of the main series, and catches up with the employees of Wernham Hogg.

David Brent (played by Ricky Gervais, one of the shows main writers), now a traveling salesman, is seen attempting to make use of his brief moment of fame from the in universe ‘documentary’ that was the first and second series of the show to make some money appearing at youth events, whilst other staple characters such as Tim and Gareth remain at the office.

The central event over the episodes is the office Christmas party, where the main characters reunite. A major part of this is seeing Tim and Dawn meet again, Dawn flying back from Florida to attend, one of the series most compelling relationships, finally concluding and giving us viewers a hopeful and satisfying conclusion. The episode continues to show how the lives of different characters has changed, as well as gives the main character David Brent a kind of ‘redemption’, where he makes a joke that lands and reminding the viewers of his humanity and desire for acceptance, despite his actions in the first 2 seasons.

An interesting thing to know is that the script of the second episode was leaked before the episode originally aired, with the writer Steve Merchant revealing that the script had been accidently mailed to the wrong address and then being sold off to the highest bidder. The script was then published in the Daily Mail 4 weeks before airing.