The fourth season of The Office was not its strongest, and you won’t really find anyone to dispute that. The season started with four hour-long episodes, a length that doesn’t really suit the show (and which the writers have admitted they were uncomfortable with). There was also the little matter of the writers’ strike, which threw most shows for a loop last year. And there was the simple fact that one of the main plot engines, the will-they-or-won’t-they between Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Jim (John Krasinski) was effectively shut down by the fact they hook up and seem quite happy together.

That all said, the show is still great, and I’ll probably watch every episode on the DVD box set, just out, about 1,000 times, as I have with the rest of the series. Episodes like “Local Ad,” where the team gets together to film a commercial and “The Deposition,” where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) testifies against his lover and former boss Jan (Melora Hardin), are still among the best the series ever produced. And Carell’s performance as Scott remains one of the most brilliant comic characterizations on TV. So yeah, it’s still very much worth watching, and the DVD versions of the seasons have the added bonus of lots of very funny deleted scenes.

If you missed it in theatres, I really gotta recommend the doc Young@Heart, about a seniors’ choir who perform songs by Sonic Youth, Outkast, Coldplay and other unlikely artists. Yes, it’s a feel-good documentary about senior citizens living life to the fullest and being all inspiring and stuff. But it’s really not as sentimental as it seems, and it should get to you unless you really have a heart of stone. The performers are charismatic and interesting, and some of the performances are really quite moving. (Especially the performance of Coldplay’s “Fix You,” and I really never thought I’d say that.) Recommended.