The Office: Power Rankings

These are the second power rankings I've done (you can check out the Breaking Bad + Wire here and here) and many of the same rules apply.  Beware, there are spoilers left and right; the characters range from all seasons.  This list is also extremely objective; there are some characters I just don't like all that much.  Sorry if you disagree.  I would say the ranking formula is based 60% on humor, 20% on annoyingness (negative quality obviously), and 20% on importance to the show.

"Get on with it motherfu--"

#30 -- Charles Miner -- Maybe you remember Charles Miner, maybe you don’t.  He showed up for a few episodes during Season 5 to look over the Scranton branch… whatever.  However he was played by the actor Idris Elba, (Stringer Bell) which is good enough to give him the #30 spot in the rankings.

#29 -- Jo Bennett -- Jo Bennett was the beginning of many missteps from The Office for me.  She first showed up in Scranton during season six and Sabred Dunder-Mifflin.  With most characters Jo doesn’t create consistently funny scenes.  The main exception to this is her relationship with the wonderfully subordinate Gabe.

#28 -- Deangelo Vickers -- Played by the sometimes wonderful, sometimes irritating Will Ferrell, Deangelo Vickers was seen by many Office fans as a marketing ploy.  NBC hyped Ferrel's introduction to no end, and the Vickers storyline didn’t seem to fit in well with the season.  Granted, Ferrell produced some great scenes --I loved when Deangelo and Michael first met-- but overall the character was underwhelming.

#27 -- Todd Packer -- Todd Packer is the first character to make the list who is one of the original characters.  He is obviously much more annoying character than Jo or Deangelo, but also works better within the relationships of the office.  Outside of The Office, I’ve only seen this actor David Koechner in Anchorman and Thank You For Smoking, but he is pretty much the same type of asshole in all three.  At this point it would be too weird for me to see him in any other type of role.

#26 -- Roy Anderson -- Roy was fairly annoying the first few seasons.  He always treated Pam like crap, and who didn’t love when Jim AKA Larry Bird took him to school in the wonderful basketball episode?  Outside of every funny scene, Dwight’s pepper spraying of Roy was one of my favorites.  Unlike action filled shows like Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead, The Office rarely puts any of the characters into physical danger.  That’s why it didn’t feel contrived at all when Dwight saved the day at the last possible second.

"Stay away! I always get in trouble with bloggers.
I'm trying to be a good girl for once"

#25 -- Cathy Simms -- I’m fairly sure Cathy is spelled with a ‘C’ and not a ‘K’; the Internet yielded inconclusive results.  I’m a fan of Cathy and must have been one of seven people in the country rooting for her to succeed in seducing Jim, but even I have to admit she isn’t all that exciting. I determined this is the highest I could rank her without sacrificing all of my integrity as a ranker of the powers.  I liked Cathy flirting with the bloggers, that was fun.

#24 -- David Wallace -- David Foster Wallace was one of the most influential writers of our time one of the only characters who has always (somewhat) been able to deal with Michael’s shenanigans.  Because of this he reserves a cozy place in my memory.  It’s hard not to feel bad thinking of Wallace alone in his house thinking of follow up inventions to Suck It.

#23 -- Robert California -- Boss of Sabre, Robert California has been largely hit-or-miss for me.  For the most part, the hits come from the always-cool Jim stumbling over his own feet trying to impress California.  The idea of a character like this, the guy everyone thinks is super smart and therefore accepts anything that comes out of his mouth, is realistic and funny enough, but California’s personality is overplayed in a manner that is often weirder than it is funny.  Another hit was this deleted scene with Todd Packer: 

#22 -- Jan Levenson (formerly Jan Levenson-Gould) -- Sure, Jan is funny.  But she’s funny in an ‘oh yeah, Jan is funny” kind of way, not a cracking up kind of way like many of the other characters.  She starts her own candle business, gets inseminated artificially and goes steady with Michael, all things that cleverly point to her mental instability.  But with the high level of comedic value provided by the other characters, Jan often falls short.

"You've got a lot to learn around here Missy"

#21 -- Meredith Palmer -- Ahh, the first regular bites the dust, and I think Meredith might be the only original character to make the list that I didn’t know the last name of.  Although some may argue that getting hit by a car is Meredith’s greatest addition to show, those people are wrong.  Meredith’s signature moment is definitely when the office was reportedly getting shut down and she went around desk to desk asking if she made a certain agreement about the last day of work.  Coitus may or may not have been involved.


#20 -- Phyllis Vance --  Originally Phyllis Smith was only a stand in, reading lines while other characters were being casted.  However, she radiated motherness and was hired to play her namesake.  Phyllis went to high school with Michael, a fact the writers play up to create countless hypotheticals of how the two interacted in high school.  Usually warm, Phyllis always gets the most laughs out of me when she hisses at Pam or Karen – think Phyllis’s disgust when Karen doesn’t know Bob Vance is.


#19 -- Stanley Hudson -- I feel like I’m going to be catching a lot of grief for this one.  I guess I just don’t really get why people think Stanley is so funny.  In what must be one of the most incoherent offices ever, Stanley is how I think most people would react to a boss like Michael.  What is funny about that?  Sure, it provides a lot of humor when Stanley surprises us and gets excited about something over than the short hand on the clock reaching five (pretzel day) or flips out at Michael, but the majority of the time Stanley is a necessary, but uninteresting character.  Worth mentioning is that sometimes Stanley’s breaks from character are extremely misguided.  And why do Stanley's coworkers think this is funny?

#18 -- Gabe Lewis -- Gabe Lewis – Gabe Lewis reminds me of Bartleby the Scrivener a little bit.  Probably more in stature than anything, but I think could see Gabe going all “I’d prefer not to” on one of his bosses in what he thinks is a powerful act of defiance.  But if Gabe actually ever did that, he would only ‘prefer not to’ a couple times before backing down.  Even though his job title often gives him power within relationships, his submissiveness takes control.  Except with Erin, who he regularly beats in Scrabble.  This reminds me of when a teenager is playing a little kid in basketball and refuses to ever let the little kid win.  L.  Michael said it best when he called him a, “Weird little, skeevy guy with no waist”.

#17 -- Pam Halpert -- Gasp! Cue the readers loading their guns and mapquesting directions to my house. "But Pam is so funny!" "Her and Jim are so cute together!" Let me set all of you straight.  Pam is not funny and she has never been funny.  She is that girl you know who always talks about how she is funny as every other person in the room rolls his or her eyes.  Pam and Jim are not cute.  They are boring.  What once was a terrific development of a couple has turned stagnant the way I do after eating at a Brazilian steakhouse.  Pam and Jim have become people who are always boring and sometimes terrible (Jim skipping a week of work to help Pam with the kids, and then lying about it).  Granted this is sometimes the way life works out, people get married and settle down, but I never realized it happened in such a cringe-inducing way.

Who looks like more fun?

#16 -- Karen Fillippelli -- Before starting I want to say that I have a giant crush on Rashida Jones, second only to Scarlet Johannson, and I have not claimed to use objectivity on this list.  Even so, I went back and forth determining who should be higher between Pam and Karen, but eventually settled on Karen.  Karen is cooler, funnier, less annoying, and more attractive than Pam.  I find it hard to believe that someone would choose to hang out with Pam for a day rather than Karen.  If I want someone to organize an office Christmas party I’m going to Pam, but if I want to talk with someone at that office party, I’m definitely talking with Karen.

Check back to Loveboat later for Part 2!

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