The Office writers introduced the Brian the Boom guy plot line for a reason you might not have considered /u/Questionsey People Person’s Paper People

Ultimately the documentary concept of the show requires suspension of disbelief because it completely falls apart under scrutiny. That’s kind of why they had to find a way to put a Brian character in front of the camera. They needed someone to do exposition about the unrealistic filming and recording techniques to wrap things up and introduce the filming of the documentary into the documentary itself and they did it with the Pam and Brian pursuit storyline. Without him, the show had kind of painted itself into a corner.

There are many examples of recording things that simply don’t make sense. Boom guy was somebody to explain it away and give viewers details about how much secret recording was done – the Angela/Dwight office sex for example, among lots of other things. Then there’s stuff that even this doesn’t explain and you just have to hand wave – like the distance wide shot filming of Jim proposing to Pam in the rain outside of the gas station. How would they know to set up? What about the car interactions after the dinner party? Who manages to capture that? Are parabolic mics that good? Ehhhh just don’t think about it.

For fun you can try to think of instances in the show where a camera crew would be obligated to intervene, but doesn’t. They’re not really “mistakes” so much as choices the writers made, and Brian’s firing attempts to hand wave those away too. It doesn’t ruin the show. Creed’s a murderer. It’s fine.

*I wrote this comment a while back and people liked it so I decided to make it a post

Ultimately the documentary concept of the show requires suspension of disbelief because it completely falls apart under scrutiny. That’s kind of why they had to find a way to put a Brian character in front of the camera. They needed someone to do exposition about the unrealistic filming and recording techniques to wrap things up and introduce the filming of the documentary into the documentary itself and they did it with the Pam and Brian pursuit storyline. Without him, the show had kind of painted itself into a corner.

There are many examples of recording things that simply don’t make sense. Boom guy was somebody to explain it away and give viewers details about how much secret recording was done – the Angela/Dwight office sex for example, among lots of other things. Then there’s stuff that even this doesn’t explain and you just have to hand wave – like the distance wide shot filming of Jim proposing to Pam in the rain outside of the gas station. How would they know to set up? What about the car interactions after the dinner party? Who manages to capture that? Are parabolic mics that good? Ehhhh just don’t think about it.

For fun you can try to think of instances in the show where a camera crew would be obligated to intervene, but doesn’t. They’re not really “mistakes” so much as choices the writers made, and Brian’s firing attempts to hand wave those away too. It doesn’t ruin the show. Creed’s a murderer. It’s fine.

*I wrote this comment a while back and people liked it so I decided to make it a post