"Lecture Circuit" included guest appearances by screenwriter Dan Goor, comedian Rob Huebel and actress Rashida Jones, who reprises her role of Karen, a regular character from the third season.
Although the character Holly Flax played a major part in the storyline, actress Amy Ryan did not appear in "Lecture Circuit".
He and Pam Beesly, who is coming along as his assistant and driver, plan to visit every branch except Nashua because Michael is not ready to face his ex-girlfriend Holly Flax, who works there.
Michael's lecture in Utica proves to be a disaster when he pretends to receive a call saying that his father has died, has Pam throw miniature sized Mounds at the audience, and tries to teach the employees a trick for how to memorize names but ends up insulting everybody.
Back in Scranton, Jim and Dwight Schrute have been named the reluctant heads of the Party Planning Committee by Michael due to previous fights between Phyllis Vance and Angela Martin.
Jim and Dwight prove terrible at the job, and when an upset Kelly Kapoor chastises them for forgetting her birthday, they try to make it up to her by throwing a party but they do a poor job - Dwight chooses brown and gray balloons (because they "match the carpet") and doesn't blow them up all the way, uses toilet paper as streamers, and his banner simply states "IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY."
Andy repeatedly acts awkwardly in front of Julia and accidentally sets off her car alarm while trying to look inside and find out what music she likes.
Kelly also declares she hates the cake Jim picked for her, which is completely blank; he later decorates it and ends up spelling her name incorrectly as "Kelley".
The first episode included a cameo performance by Rashida Jones, a regular cast member during the third season, during which she played Jim Halpert's love interest Karen Filippelli.
"Lecture Circuit" aired just two months before Jones began her regular role as Ann Perkins in the NBC comedy series Parks and Recreation, which was created by Office producers Greg Daniels and Michael Schur.
[2] Dan Goor, a future writer for Parks and Recreation, made a cameo as Karen's husband in the photographs featured in the part one episode.
[3] Rob Huebel, a comedian best known for the MTV sketch comedy series Human Giant, guest starred as Holly's boyfriend, A.J.
Michael said he can only prepare for his lectures by listening to "silence or Sam Kinison", an American stand-up comedian known for his extreme and vulgar sense of humor.
During one lecture, Michael and Pam both do impressions of the protagonist from Forrest Gump, the 1994 film starring Tom Hanks as a mentally handicapped man.
[10] Holly's computer has a screensaver with images of Ed Grimley, the nerdy character with a cowlick played by comedian Martin Short in the comedy shows SCTV and Saturday Night Live.
[10] Creed gives Andy romantic advice and says, "This is how I got Squeaky Fromme", a reference to the Manson family member who tried to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford.
A picture of President George W. Bush appears on a fake three-dollar bill Creed gives Jim to pay for the party.
[4] Andy puts Splenda, an artificial sweetener, into Stanley's coffee because he has adult onset diabetes, a disorder characterized by high blood glucose.
[8] Kelly confesses she went to juvenile detention in Berks County, Pennsylvania,[12] at age 14 for doing something "like Thelma & Louise, but with a boat", a reference to the 1991 road movie starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon on the run from their troubled, caged lives.
Both ratings were three-tenths of a drop from the previous episode, "Stress Relief", which was heavily viewed because it immediately followed the broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII on NBC.
Whitney Pastorek of Entertainment Weekly described them as "nearly perfect", calling them the two best episodes of the season so far: "[Writer Mindy Kaling] nailed the characterizations, the interactions, the tossed-off one-liners, the weird-yet-realistic scenarios...I wonder how much it helps that she's out on the acting floor every day, getting attuned to her costars' rhythms?
Rabin praised the Jim and Dwight teaming in the first episode, but said the plot line of Michael's lectures were predictable and "promised more than it delivered".
[11] Rabin said the second episode "wrapped up everything up nicely [and] delivered larfs aplenty"; he particularly enjoyed the subplot involving Angela's cats, and the fact that it "left the door open for Holly's return".