The Fight (The Office)

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

In the cold open, Dwight Schrute arrives at the office to find his desk has been moved into the men's bathroom, presumably by Jim Halpert.

Although initially angry, he quickly simmers down upon finding the desk, even staying in the bathroom to politely field a work-related phone call from Jim.

Seeing the opportunity for comic mischief, he goads Michael and Dwight into an office fight to prove their respective prowess.

Jim accidentally goes too far when horsing around with Pam, picking her up and lifting her shirt halfway off, and she shuts him down when their co-workers take notice.

At the end of the day, Michael has Toby Flenderson, Angela Martin, and Stanley Hudson complete his workload, forging his signature on the documents, and promotes Dwight from his lowly "Assistant to the Regional Manager" position to his dream position: "Assistant Regional Manager" (although he warns Dwight not to publicize the promotion).

"The Fight" was written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, while Ken Kwapis served as the episode's director.

[2][3] The episode guest starred comedian and actor Lance Krall, who portrayed Dwight's sensei, Ira.

[4] B. J. Novak, who portrays Ryan Howard in the series, noted that when the episode was being filmed, the majority of the cast and crew called it "'Karate', or 'The Dojo', since the most memorable scenes involve a karate fight.

Eventually, she vented her frustration by "practically knock[ing] Rainn over when she kicked the pad he was holding", which was included in the episode.

Jenna Fischer recalls that she had to film the scene where Ryan reveals that he is working on emergency contacts "about 20 times".

[6] In addition, Fischer noted that she and John Krasinski kept laughing "about a million times" during the kitchen confrontation between Michael and Dwight.

[10] An encore presentation of the episode, on April 25, 2006, received 3.0 rating/8% share and retained 91% of its lead in "My Name Is Earl" viewership.

[8] Francis Rizzo III from DVD Talk called the episode "classic", and praised the performance of Rainn Wilson as Dwight.

[14] In 2006, Jenna Fischer said that the episode's cold opening, featuring Jim moving Dwight's desk into the bathroom, was her favorite prank on the show.