- [num]*[/num] After years of driving around Todd Packer, getting up early to bring Michael his sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits, and being subjected to choruses of “Ryan Started the Fire,” the temp finally gets the ultimate revenge -- a promotion to Corporate that allows him to lord over everyone. As fully realized stories go, this particular subplot is extremely well played. With three seasons as the office’s low guy on the totem pole, Ryan built up plenty of resentment that he gets to spew back in Season 4.
So why isn’t Season 4 the Dream Season of The Office? Call it a victim of its own success. With ratings sky-high (not only on television but as one of the first champions of the iTunes video charts), NBC execs wanted more, more, more.
That meant supersized, one-hour episodes, expanding normal storylines into inflated narratives that, while still funny, felt elongated. A secondary story that might have been hilarious in three short segments now got the full-blown treatment. Again, not the worst thing in the world, but it’s like a dance mix of an old favorite song -- it’s amazing at three minutes but starts to get a little monotonous at seven.
We also lost Toby at the end of the season -- at least for a while.