Thanksgiving is something of a dead zone for primetime TV, and so it was that I found myself watching a repeat of The Office's one-hour Jim-and-Pam wedding and wondering, more than ever, what B.J. Novak is doing in the opening credits.
I wondered about it in the first season, when it seemed like Novak's new temp Ryan would be the audience surrogate experiencing the office through fresh eyes (a conceit that appeared to be abandoned in roughly ten seconds). I wondered about it in Season Two, when Ryan's formerly anonymous coworkers were suddenly granted about as much screen time as Novak usually has, and in Season Three, when Angela Kinsey clearly overtook him. Now, though, it's clearer than ever that the show has no intention of ever doing all that much with Ryan, yet producers protect Novak's opening credit like it was Dumbo's magic feather.
I've got nothing against Novak -- hell, when the show premiered, I kinda thought he was the hot one. (I've got that in common with Michael Scott, I suppose.) Certainly, I can understand how Novak would want the publicity and pay grade that comes with being one of five billed regulars in that opening title sequence, but ever since the show added Ed Helms and began to write more and more for him, Novak's opening title credit seems like a running joke.
Even in episodes where he's relegated to a C-plot or worse, Helms seems to have the most lines on the show for someone not named Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, or Jenna Fischer -- bump him up to a B-plot, in fact, and he might get more to say than the latter two. It's clear that the writers (which include Novak) are delighted to write for Helms's blowhard Andy, and they've even given him a plotline wooing Dunder-Mifflin's new receptionist that reads like a punchy parody of the early days of Jim and Pam. By contrast, even in the rare episode or two a season where Novak's Ryan figures prominently, he still has awfully little to do and say; it's entirely possible that in a Ryan-heavy episode, he'll have less lines than Phyllis, Oscar, or a visiting guest star from corporate.
Producers for The Office haven't tinkered with the opening sequence since the show premiered, and that's their prerogative (even if the lighting has changed, the characters are no longer in the jobs they're shown in, and Steve Carell's mock hairplugs were zapped in a network note between Seasons One and Two). At this point, though, Novak's credit seems like they're practically mocking his meager amount of screen time. I'm reminded of Inglourious Basterds, where Novak filled much the same function as his Office character: he stood around in the background for most of the running time, then snagged a few lines near the end when Quentin Tarantino apparently forgot about his fellow soldiers. But hey, he got a great screen credit and a fun European trip out of his eleventh billing. Seems fair, doesn't it?