Recap / The Office USS 7 E 17 Threat Level Midnight

After eleven years of production, Michael finally screens his film Threat Level Midnight to the rest of the Dunder Mifflin staff, most of whom were also in the film.

The Re-Cut version of Threat Level Midnight can be watched for free on YouTube here (it was previously DVD exclusive), which is longer, adds more humor, and added a bunch of scenes not previously seen in this episode.

Airdate: February 17, 2011

Tropes Found In The Episode:

• All There in the Manual: The extended film explains many of the cliches and backstories.
• Art Shift: The movie scenes were shot in a different manner from the office scenes to make them look more like an amateur production. The movie has no handheld camera, odd camera placement, poorly-executed zooms, and the footage was processed differently to look like it was made on the type of cheaper camera that Michael could've afforded.
• Asshole Victim: Goldenface demonstrates his ruthlessness by killing one of the hostages... only for Michael Scarn to reveal he was a wanted animal rapist. That dead hostage was played by Toby, naturally.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Since the Dunder-Mifflin staff members aren't professional actors, much of their dialogue delivery either comes off as way over the top (Michael, Jan, Andy), trying to sound decently dramatic in spite of the cliched writing (Darryl, Creed and Jim, whose performance also counts as Ham and Cheese), or sounding like they're phoning in their performances (pretty much everyone else). Karen's line delivery is especially bad, to the point the documentary crew actually tracked her down to ask her about this, much to her irritation.
• Battle Butler: Dwight's character Samuel, even before he's revealed to be a robot.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: invoked The movie suddenly shifting from a serious action thriller to a big song-and-dance production number called "The Scarn". The employees receive it as this as well, with Jim unable to control his laughter.
• Brick Joke: Todd Packer as the drunk at the bar who declares "If doing the Scarn is gay, then I'm the biggest queer on Earth!" In the full-length version of the film, this is a Call-Back to his earlier line "The Scarn? Sounds gay!"
• Bond Oneliner: Parodied. Scarn keeps saying "clean up on aisle five" after killing people. None of the movie takes place in a grocery store, has anything to do with shopping or otherwise has any context that makes that relevent.
• The Bus Came Back: The nature of the movie having been filmed over the course of the show allows several characters to return for brief appearances in it, including Roy Anderson, Jan Levinson, and Karen Filippelli. The crew also tracked down Jan and Karen for their comments on the movie. A Deleted Scene also featured David Wallace.
• Call-Back: Ultimately to Season 2's "The Client", when Pam discovered the Threat Level Midnight screenplay in Michael's desk and the office staged a reading of it while he was at a lunch with a prospective client. The screenplay as presented in that episode is a lot different from the final film, but Michael Scarn, Goldenface and Samuel were still there (though Samuel was named Samuel L. Chang and was meant to be Asian).
• The Cast Showoff: The main reason for why there's hockey in the film.
• Cliché Storm: The film in-universe is this with regards to many action movies. Unneeded Training Montage? Check! Meeting up with an enemy associate at a Jazz Club? Check! Informant killed after revealing information? Check! Really, we could list every cliche running...
• Color Motif: Gold for... well, Goldenface.
• Crusading Widow: Michael Scarn is mainly motivated by his dead wife.
• Dance Sensation: "You meet new friends, you tie some yarn, and that's how you do The Scarn!"
• Drugs Are Bad: Goldenface temporarily leaves the hostages with a declaration of "Well, I'm off to do some drugs", and comes back saying "Man, those drugs really hit the spot."
• Expy: Goldenface is basically Goldfinger... except it's his face that is gold.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: An In-Universe example, it took ten years for Michael Scott to complete his film.
• Freudian Excuse: Goldenface reveals that he used to work at a gold factory that didn't allow its employee to even eat, so he ate the gold until his face turned gold, somehow. The audio was barely heard in the episode but heard clearly in the movie version.
• Fridge Logic: In-Universe. The president is revealed to be evil, yet Michael Scarn accepts another mission from him at the end knowing this anyway.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Any hockey fan will tell you there is no halftime in the sport.^note Hockey has three periods with two intermissions Also, Michael's apparent misunderstanding of pro sport all-star games, thinking they're the most important events in their sports (when they're really just lighthearted exhibition games).
  • A subtler one: the various all-star games are referred to by their proper organizations (NFL, NBA, NHL)... and then there's just "the Baseball All-Star Game", implying that Michael doesn't know the name of the MLB.
• Heads or Tails?: Michael Scarn decides whether to come out retirement and take the job with this trope... but best out of seven.
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": The Threat Level Midnight movie is this.
• Hospital Hottie: Much to Pam's disgust, her mom Helene is the sexy nurse who treats Michael Scarn in the movie.
• Karma Houdini: In-Universe. The President works with Goldenface to blow up the stadium and attempts to kill Michael Scarn. He is not exposed to the public or arrested, and that end of the film he recruits Scarn for another mission.
• Lampshade Hanging: Karen asks the documentary crew why they found it necessary to go all the way to Utica to ask her about her one line in a movie that was filmed years ago.
• The Lost Lenore: Catherine Zeta-Scarn for Michael Scarn to the point of causing his retirement prior to the events of the film.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Creed's character, Cherokee Jack, is The Obi-Wan hockey teacher for Michael Scarn who dies midway through the movie.
• Music Video Syndrome: The hockey training scenes have montages set to the Billy Joel songs "Running on Ice" and "Pressure".
• Narm: In-Universe. Michael intended for Threat Level Midnight to be a serious action movie, but between the shoddy production values, the fact that none of the actors are actual actors, the plot hole riddled writing and cliched dialogue, among other things, the whole thing falls apart and becomes an unintentional comedy akin to The Room (2003).
• Narrator All Along: In the movie, Michael Scarn narrated his own film.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Filming the hockey scene involved Michael going out into an actual Scranton High School hockey game when they were qualifying for states. Because of him, they had to forfeit despite having an undefeated season.
• Old School Introductory Rap: A scene in Michael's movie has Billy the bartender playing "The Scarn" to cheer up Agent Scarn. While he refuses to dance along at first, he soon joins in and teaches everyone in the restaurant how to do the dance, in the form of a rap that begins with, "Well, my name is Michael Scarn and I'm here to say, I'm about to do the Scarn in a major way!"
• Old Shame:
  • Jim (who plays the movie's Big Bad Goldenface) expresses this, saying he only took the role to impress a certain receptionist.
  • Darryl says that he only agreed to be in the film so his daughter could see a black man as president...and considers it a waste of time following Barack Obama's election.
  • Played with / inverted by David Wallace in a deleted scene, who admits that he regrets not taking part when Michael asked him because at the time, as CFO, he felt it would have been embarrassing, but now honestly thinks that good or bad it would have nevertheless been a lot of fun to do.
• Piss-Take Rap: "The Scarn", which even opens up with the most time-honored of all rap clichés.
  Well, my name's Michael Scarn and I'm here to say
  I'm about to do The Scarn in a major way!
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Scarn attempts this with him telling Goldenface "go puck yourself" by throwing the bomb puck at him... only for him to miss and Goldenface tries to shoot him.
• President Evil: President Jackson (played by Darryl) later turns out to be in league with Goldenface. That doesn't stop him from recruiting Michael for another mission at the end.
• Re-Cut: The entire uncut Threat Level Midnight film, with lots of material that wasn't used in the episode, was released as an extra on the season 7 DVD set and was later uploaded for free on YouTube.
• Robot Maid: Samuel is revealed to be one at the end, although Michael was insistent he wasn't one until giving into Dwight's demands.
• Robotic Reveal: Samuel, via Dwight eventually getting his wish for him to be a robot.
• Shout-Out: The hockey training montage is an in-universe rip-off of The Karate Kid.
• Shown Their Work: The show's staff painstakingly worked out exactly when Michael would've filmed the movie's scenes in the show's timeline—for example, much of it seems to have been filmed when Season 3's events were happening—and tried to keep the characters' looks and personalities consistent with what was happening earlier in the show's run.
• Shrug of God: In-Universe. Michael apparently forgot several details of his movie over the course of making it, such as whether or not Dwight's character is a robot, and the President being revealed to be evil only to be shown as a good guy again at the end.
• So Bad, It's Good: In-Universe. Michael eventually accepts that his movie is this.
• Subliminal Seduction: Michael Scarn learns where the hostages are located via Jasmine Windsong doing this.
• Theme Tune Rap: Over the closing credits, written by Michael but performed by Andy, and listed in the credits as being "inspired by the music of Will Smith."
• Throw It In!: In-Universe. At one point, Samuel takes a bullet for Michael Scarn. Michael says that this was not scripted.
• Title Drop: In the full cut of the movie, when Scarn meets the President:
  Michael Scarn: Just out of curiosity, what threat level is this?
  President Jackson: I can't sugarcoat this. We're at threat level (very dramatic pause as he leans forward)...midnight!
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: A few characters, but especially Andy. When Michael stops the screening, Andy interjects, "Some people are really popping on screen—", suggesting he's still not ashamed of it.
• Two Decades Behind: Even with the long production time, the movie still just anachronistically reeks of The '80s, filled with action movie cliches from the decade, and the lyrics of the closing rap even imply that Michael thought Nelson Mandela was still in prison.
• Vocal Dissonance: Stanley voices the narrator, who is revealed at the end to be Michael Scarn.
• Wag the Director: In-Universe. Dwight wanted his character Samuel changed from Michael Scarn's human butler to a robot. Michael refused and got Dwight to perform the role as he wanted it by telling him Samuel would now be a highly advanced robot that was indistinguishable from a regular person. Dwight still tried to throw in various robotic bits of business, like a "circuit board malfunction" when Samuel has coffee spilled on him (but Michael cut the scene short). The whole thing was rendered moot when Michael eventually decided to make him a robot anyway.
• Writer on Board:
  • Cherokee Jack tells Scarn to take out all his frustrations with "women, and the system" on the hockey puck. Obviously, a Wish-Fulfillment character like Michael Scarn has neither of these frustrations, and this is an aspect of Michael Scott's personality.
  • In the uncut version of the movie, there are several lines condemning bosses who only care about money and treat their employees poorly, obviously representing Michael Scott's own opinion of what makes a bad boss and, implicitly, why he's supposedly a good boss. Also, Scarn's speech to Jasmine Windsong is clearly Michael Scott talking about himself.
    Michael Scarn: I love Billy Joel songs. And I love fish sandwiches. I love babies and I love puppies. And I actually like to think of puppies as baby dogs. I don't know. Seems a little weird. I'm part Bruce Wayne, part Bruce Willis, and part Bruce Vilanch.
• You Killed My Wife: Goldenface later reveals he's the one who killed Catherine Zeta-Scarn.
• Your Head Asplode: Toby's character, from multiple angles, in what Michael calls "the most expensive shot of the film." But it was crucial to the plot. Apparently.