After a long time without a new episode (a real one anyway), The Office came back in solid form tonight. We got to meet the new boss, who it turns out is worlds apart from the old one. It's an office electronics company called Sabre and it's clear that the company represents everything that is absurd and maddening about 21st century corporations. This brings up an interesting point about The Office. For all its familiar hilarity, the show has never really been a proper corporate satire. The joke was always that Dunder-Mifflin is so behind the curve that it probably shouldn't even exist. Now that a thoroughly corporate sheriff is in town, the workplace jokes can start in earnest. If anything is going to keep The Office relevant, it's this timely update.

It also helps that the first bit of satire is extremely well-done. When a young, obviously soulless lackey of the Sabre corporation shows up to implement a series of changes at the Scranton branch, he comes riding in on an introduction video that has a severely imbalanced Meaningfulness-to-Christian-Slater ratio. With each policy shift, Michael gets more uneasy about Sabre's involvement with day-to-day business in Scranton. To his credit, the changes sound just as troubling for us viewers. Real work isn't wacky or fun, which is why The Office is so entertaining. Standardizing everything for the sake of productivity doesn't seem very... comedic.

Essentially threatened with termination if he doesn't go along with the new rules, Michael runs to the now-unemployed David Wallace for advice. What he finds is both sad and hilarious. Wallace is clearly in a state of shock and depression, lounging around the house unshaven and even a little loopy. Of course he doesn't have any suggestions for Michael, but he does have a sales pitch for what is possibly the worst idea in history. It's a shop-vac that kids will use to clean up their toys, working title The Suck-It!(tm). Realizing what unemployment might look like for himself, Michael runs back to the office and tries to put on a brave face for the new bosses.

In tonight's B-plot, Jim and Pam scope out a local daycare center for their snarky spawn, but things go about as badly as possible. Jim walks in on the manager while he's using the bathroom, making the rest of the meeting insurmountably awkward. Key line, "Well, maybe you two aren't as charming as you think you are." Amen. Don't get me wrong, I like Jim and Pam, but they've clearly grown socially lazy after spending so much time feasting on the low-hanging fruit of the crazies at DM Scranton.

Best Moment: That Sabre corporate video was excellent. Even without the surreal nonsense of Christian Slater, it was spot-on for the medium.

Notes: Kathy Bates is our Sabre CEO, a menacing southerner who communicates exclusively via webcam (which is a nice touch, by the way). I think she'll add a lot of good material to the show. After all, she's the polar opposite of hands-off milquetoasts like David Wallace.

Episode Rating: 5/5- I had a few good, long laughs and I'm glad to see the show isn't resorting to a return to the status quo after the Dunder-Mifflin collapse. We get one more new episode between now and the Olympics, for those who are interested.