New Guys
The series depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.
In this episode, two new employees (Clark Duke and Jake Lacy) are hired by the Scranton branch and cause trouble for Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) and Jim Halpert (John Krasinski).
Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) returns from manager training, hoping for revenge on Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate).
"New Guys" was viewed by 4.28 million viewers and received a 2.1 rating among adults between the age of 18 and 49, making it the show's lowest-rated season premiere.
Various workers in the office explain what they did over the summer: Kevin Malone tried to save a turtle that he ran over, making a new shell after he cannot put the old one back together.
Dwight Schrute made a new “energy drink” from beet run-off and also learned that he is not the biological father of Angela Lipton's baby.
Andy Bernard returns from Outward Bound manager training — where he became more "decisive and confident" — hoping for revenge on Nellie Bertram for commandeering his job during the previous spring.
Much to his embarrassment, he has to be rescued by a team of firefighters, while Creed Bratton mistakenly believes the incident to be a circus act, erroneously commenting that this was "not bad for a day in the life of a dog food company."
While everyone is outside crowding around Dwight, Jim calls up his old college friend and tells him that he wants to be involved in the new business deal, even though he did not have Pam's approval.
[12][13][14] The episode features both Clark Duke and Jake Lacy as two new Dunder Mifflin employees who have been hired to "go through the back log of over 4,000 unanswered customer complaints that" Kelly has ignored the past few years.
[22] Andy returns from Outward Bound, an organization that aims to foster the personal growth and social skills of participants by using challenging expeditions in the outdoors.
[23] Dwight tries to talk to Clark about the heavy metal band Slayer, noting that he has tickets for a show in ten months.
[26] The story, which was later turned into a popular play Oedipus Rex by Greek writer Sophocles, tells of how Laius hears of a prophecy that his son will kill him.
The ending, featuring Dwight riding a bicycle on the roof, was positively compared to the third season episode "Safety Training".
[30] The Office finished second in its time slot, being beaten by an episode of the Fox series Glee, which received a 2.9/8 percent rating.
Bruce Miller of the Sioux City Journal gave the episode a largely positive review and noted that "If you can erase last season from your mind, you'll see this ... is exactly how The Office should have carried on after Steve Carell left."
"[23] Entertainment Weekly writer Ken Tucker concluded that "New Guys" has "a lot more snap and vigor than most of last season's episodes."
He was extremely complimentary towards the Pam and Jim story arc that was hinted at, noting that, after settling into a comfortable marriage, the show was finally trying to make them interesting again.
[36] David Silverberg of DigitalJournal.com called the entry "one of the show's best [premieres] in recent years" and concluded that the addition of Duke and Lacy "work as a better foil than Nellie and the creepy boss played by James Spader.
TV Fanatic reviewer Dan Forcella awarded the episode a three out of five, but was appreciative of the additions to the cast, as well as many of the actors story lines.
"[40] HitFix's Alan Sepinwall, however, was critical of the episode's humor, noting that it "didn't give me a lot of hope for a last-minute resurgence".
[41] Matt Roush of TV Guide wrote that the "one interesting storyline" may make him watch the remainder of Pam and Jim's story, but not "the rest of this sadly played-out workplace comedy.
