Christening (The Office)

The series, a mockumentary, depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

In the episode, Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Jim Halpert's (John Krasinski) baby, CeCe, is christened and Michael Scott (Steve Carell) invites the entire office to celebrate.

Michael joins a church group of high school graduates on a mission to Mexico, with Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) following along to impress Erin Hannon (Ellie Kemper).

Since the seventh season of The Office focused on Michael's departure, the producers wanted to showcase the ensemble cast in various episodes; "Christening" dealt with Pam and Jim.

Pam and Jim Halpert's daughter Cece is being christened, and Michael Scott has invited all the members of the office to the service, much to their disappointment.

Jim scrambles to replace the gown, and Cece is eventually baptized in an Arcade Fire T-shirt he found in the back of his car.

The episode was written by Peter Ocko, his first writing credit for The Office since joining the staff in its seventh season as a co-executive producer.

As such, "Christening" was written to specifically highlight "potential heirs to the throne", in this case Fischer and Krasinski's characters, Pam and Jim.

[7] Michael defends the churchgoers, and claims that the office members are being catty like the titular antagonists from the 2004 comedy film Mean Girls.

Club wrote that his favorite element of the episode concerned Toby and his relationship with God, but he was slightly critical of the "A-story", calling it "inert".

[15] She was also critical of Michael's interaction with the youth group, writing that it "didn't add any development to his character or to the show's broader arcs; it just seemed weird, and not that humorous.

[16] While reviewing the seventh season, Cindy White of IGN said that the episode proved to fans that Jim and Pam dragged the series at times.

[17] She wrote that the episode was "one of the worst of the series"—noting that only the sixth season clip show "The Banker" was worse—and blamed it on the writers, who she said "have no idea what to do with [Pam and Jim] anymore".