Traveling Salesmen

"Traveling Salesmen"

"Traveling Salesmen" is the thirteenth episode of the third season of the US version of The Office. It first aired on January 11, 2007. The episode was written by Michael Schur, Lee Eisenberg, and Gene Stupnitsky, and was directed by executive producer Greg Daniels.

In this episode, the sales team goes out on sales calls, with Michael and Andy, Stanley and Ryan, Phyllis and Karen, and Dwight and Jim pairing up. Andy tries to show Dwight in a bad light to Michael. Karen learns of Jim's previous crush on Pam, and Angela forgets to hand in some important documents to New York, so secret boyfriend Dwight does it for her.

"Traveling Salesmen" was later rebroadcast with "The Return" as a combined hour-long episode. As a result, the cold open with Michael and the talking computer was deleted. The hour-long recut appears on the Season 3 DVD, so the scene is included as a deleted scene.

Synopsis

Michael announces that the sales department will be pairing up. Andy chooses Michael, Phyllis chooses Karen, and Stanley grudgingly chooses Ryan, leaving Dwight with Jim, who already used to do sales calls together. Andy learns that Dwight does Michael's laundry as punishment for meeting with Jan to take over the branch. During their sales call, Andy sabotages the meeting, setting up an opportunity to later apologize to Michael, stating that he had really "Schruted" the situation, a further attempt to deride Dwight.

While the salespeople are out, Angela tells Pam a thinly disguised story of how "Kurt" saves "Noelle" ("Kurt" and "Noelle" being Dwight's and Angela's middle names, respectively) by delivering the quarterly tax forms to New York.

At first, Jim's and Dwight's sales call appears to be a fiasco, but it is immediately clear that the joint force of Jim's straight-and-honest sales approach, along with Dwight's aggressive, erratic tactics, is a very successful partnership. Ryan asks Stanley if he could lead on this call so Stanley can critique him, which Stanley obliges. However, Ryan freezes up and fails when he realizes that Stanley's clients are all black. Stanley laughs at an annoyed Ryan during the entire trip back to the office. Phyllis and Karen first stop at a beauty parlor, emerging with gaudy makeovers. Their sales call is a success owing to the fact, as Phyllis knew, that the client obviously likes women with that kind of look, as evidenced by the photo of his wife. Returning to the office, Phyllis tells Karen that she's pleased that Jim got over his crush on Pam. Karen confronts Jim with this information, and he reassures her that his crush has passed.

Andy finds evidence of Dwight's trip to New York. Michael accuses Dwight of disloyalty, and Angela prevents him from clearing his name because it would expose their relationship. Dwight resigns. Andy gloats over his success, but the documentary camera catches Angela in the background glaring at him.

Production

"Traveling Salesman" was written by Michael Schur, Lee Eisenberg, and Gene Stupnitsky, while executive producer Greg Daniels directed.

John Krasinski enjoyed the episode because he believed it was the first real glimpse of Angela and Dwight's relationship, with Rainn Wilson noting that the audience gets "to see how Dwight becomes her hero". A number of scenes were improvised and unscripted, including Angela and the jelly beans and Stanley laughing at Ryan in the car.

The old picture of Jim and Dwight was a photoshop of Krasinski's real high school photograph with a 1991 image of Rainn Wilson while he was on tour with an acting company. While standing in the parking lot, the cast had to pretend to shiver in 85 degree weather. Krasinski actually slapped Wilson at Wilson's request, which Krasinski considered "one of the craziest acting experiences I've ever had." Before deciding on singing to a melody from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Ed Helms and Daniels shot 50 different versions.

"Traveling Salesmen" was later rebroadcast with "The Return" as a combined hour-long episode on March 15, 2007. Greg Daniels explained that it was both an attempt to attract a larger audience and "it's about giving something extra to our wonderful fans…their loyalty must be rewarded somehow, and we don't have the budget for 10 million muffin baskets." As part of the editing process, four scenes of Andy searching through Dwight's things were condensed, and the Angela–Pam storyline was added. The season three DVD contains a number of deleted scenes, such as Michael using his computer 'Harvey' to hit on Pam. Other notable cut scenes included Andy dramatically illustrating to Karen that they are the only two Stanford employees remaining, Jim and Dwight surreptitiously planning their sales tactic, Pam offering to get coffee for her co-workers, and Dwight emotionally giving away selected items to others in the office.

This is the first episode to use an abbreviated title sequence, presumably to allow for slightly more content in the episode itself. It has since been used in several subsequent episodes.

Reception

"Traveling Salesmen" is first broadcast on January 11, 2007 in the United States on NBC. According to Nielsen Media Research, an estimated 10.2 million viewers tuned in, making it only one of three other episodes of The Office to reach over 10 million viewers, the others being the show's pilot episode, "Ben Franklin" and "Stress Relief," of which the latter reached over 20 million viewers.

Buddy TV senior writer Oscar Dahl remarked, "It didn't make me laugh out loud and, yet, I still loved it." He shed a negative light on Andy's behavior towards Dwight, calling it "annoying and not that funny." Dahl hoped Dwight would be reappearing soon, and concluded "Overall, a crucial story episode with a nice cliffhanger. Even if wasn't as funny as last week or even most episodes this season, The Office still entertains." AOL TV's Michael Sciannamea lauded the episode, writing "I cannot remember ever guffawing over every single line in a single sitcom episode as I did watching this one. If the performances in this particular one don't garner the actors in this show a plethora of Emmys, there ought to be an investigation." Sciannamea continued that he believed it was Steve Carell's best series performance thus far because he "displayed the full range of his personality--jokester, arrogant jerk, charming salesman, sensitive soul, and added a new one--anger."

References

• "NBC Primetime Schedule For Sunday, Jan 7 2006 - Saturday, Jan 13 2007" (Press release). NBC. 2006-12-21.

External links

• "Traveling Salesmen" at NBC.com
• "Traveling Salesmen" at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com episode