"The Office" returned last night after six looooong months off the air due to the writers' strike. Maybe my expectations were too high, but honestly, I didn't love it. There were very funny moments (courtesy mostly of Angela and Dwight, even better now as exes than they were as were as undercover lovers), but the show seems to have lost its focus and tone.

To be fair, that's been a problem for the show all season. Nearly half of the Season 4 episodes have taken place outside of the actual office, between the trip to the Utica branch, the episode about Michael's after-hours telemarketing scheme, the "fun run" to cure Meredith of rabies, and Michael's ill-conceived trek to the woods to find himself. This week almost the entire episode took place in Michael and Jan's condo, a.k.a. the Fifth Circle of Domestic Hell.

It's not a bad idea for an episode, but it's not really "The Office." And after six months off, that's what I was looking forward to. And if you start to think too much about how the conceit of the show is a documentary film crew following the employees at a failing, mid-level paper company, and then you try to justify why they're taping them at a totally non-work-related dinner party (even interviewing the subjects in the bathroom), your head will explode.

My bigger issue, however, is the broadening of the comedy and the lack of connection with the characters. "The Office" perfected a lackadaisical, wry approach to observational comedy, but it also had a heart. Last night there was very little that was wry, a whole lot that was over-the-top, and the rest of it was just kind of terrifying.

Specifically, Jan was terrifying. That was obviously the joke: all you needed was one look at the hooker red lipstick smeared across her clownish smile to tell that the writers have decided to send Jan Levinson off the edge. And that really sucks. Jan was a fantastic character; she started out as a strong, smart, competent manager trying desperately to corral her perversely incompetent charge (Michael). The show did a fairly decent job explaining her initial attraction to Michael (a self-destruction streak a mile wide), and from there it was a short, hilarious trip to cohabitation. But up until the last original episode - which featured Michael's deposition in Jan's sexual harassment suit against the company - she still largely had her shit together, despite being broke, unemployed and, you know, living with Michael.

But last night, we saw the full, terrifying face of Jan unhinged, and I for one was not amused. Jan went from character to caricature in one episode. She is now an insanely jealous (she really, truly believes that Pam has a thing for Michael), socially calloused (holding a dinner party in which dinner is served after 10 p.m.), hysterics-prone (she threw a Dundee at Michael's $200, 8" wall-mounted plasma television!), candle-making crazy woman. And I don't like it one bit.

I'm not saying that it's inexplicable. She lives with Michael, and chooses to do so, which would drive anyone insane. But it just seems like such a cheap way to go with that character, and I truthfully expect so much more from this show.

Lastly, I don't think the episode featured more than brief flashes of the rest of the office-mates - Phyllis, Stanley, Creed, Oscar, Kevin, Toby, or Kelly - and those guys are a big part of what makes this show tick. The supporting cast is one place where the American "Office" totally excels above the original British show; I cannot figure out why the producers and writers would ignore them so heavily this season. But so long as we keep taking these stupid non-office trips every episode, that's precisely what's going to happen.

And no scenes from next week? Oh, SHOW!