19 Years Ago, The Office Got a Surprising Buffy Connection (But It Was a Coincidence)

In February 2007, The Office aired one of its absolute best tearjerking moments. Pam Beesly is displaying her creativity at an art show, and hardly anyone from Dunder Mifflin shows up. Only Oscar comes and she overhears him and his partner trashing her work. But then Michael Scott walks in and compliments her drawing of their office. And, while she does have a hilarious moment of fear when she rubs up against a candy bar in his pocket, we swiftly go back to sweetness as Michael hangs up her drawing in the office. It’s a wonderful way to cap one of the top episodes of the series’ excellent third season, “Business School.”

This episode was directed by none other than Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and future director of The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. He later returned the following year to helm Season 4’s “Branch Wars.” How did he get this particular gig? Let’s unpack it.

How Did This Connection Come to Be?

When Whedon temporarily joined the Office family, he joined a very impressive list of A-list directors. Jon Favreau, The Amazing Spider-Man‘s Marc Webb, J.J. Abrams, Jason Reitman, Four Christmas‘ Seth Gordon, Harold Ramis, Paul Feig, they all oversaw episodes of the NBC classic.

The way Whedon got involved was something of a two-parter. For one, he was friends with the show’s creator, former Conan O’Brien writing partner Greg Daniels. Two, he was also friends with Jenna Fischer, who he met through Daniels.

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So, besides Whedon’s general presence, how is “Business School” connected to Buffy the Vampire Slayer? You need to ask Mr. Dwight Schrute. That is, unless he’s busy cowering in the conference room, peaking through the blinds to see if his prankster coworker Jim Halpert has completed his transformation into a blood-drinking creature of the night.

Of course, this is a reference to one of the episode’s two B-plots. The A-plot is Michael tagging along with Ryan Howard to business school. Once there, he gets embarrassed when he hears just how out of touch Ryan thinks his boss is.

But, while Michael gets his feelings hurt, at least he gets to miss the silliness that ensues when Dwight lifts one of the office’s ceiling panels and unleashes a bat. Naturally, when he does so, Jim sees an opportunity to benefit from it, and with the help of Karen Filippelli he pretends to have been bitten by the flittering mammal. As Dwight is wont to do in such horror or fantasy-infused situations, he believes the fiction is well within reality and proceeds to keep his eye firmly placed on Jim.

The presence of a bat (and vampiric coworker) was purely coincidental. Whedon had nothing to do with it. But it sure was a fitting way for him to make his debut as a director of the show.

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