While Martin Freeman is now best known for playing Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit movies, Lester Nygaard in Fargo and Dr. John Watson in Sherlock, the U.K. actor first got his big break on the original UK version of The Office. In the show, which starred and was co-created by Ricky Gervais, Freeman portrayed Tim Canterbury, the mild-mannered but good-humored paper company employee who you may remember better from John Krasinski's recreation as Jim.
While audience members expected a mash-up of sorts during his first guest-hosting gig on Saturday Night Live last night, read our recap here, it turns out the writers wanted to bring his original call-to-fame character back to the spotlight. For while Middle Earth, obviously, got to be the center of attention for one skit, Freeman also got to return to work at the Wernham Hogg Paper Company for the first time in ten years during SNL's mash-up skit of The Hobbit and The Office U.K.
With work — predictably — slowing down in Middle Earth after their mission, Bilbo and his friends now work day-to-day at a paper company in The Office: Middle Earth, as the skit, courtesy of Deadline, details. Running shop is Gandalf the Wise, who is now as incompetent and inappropriate as Gervais' David Brent. Also passing Bilbo's time is getting some laughs out of his co-worker Gollum's expense and making cutesy eyes with his female companion Tauriel.
As fun as the American Office is, in my book, The Office U.K. takes the cake any day and, while his skit relies heavily on recreating events from the pilot, its wildly impressive and amusing how well SNL carries the original's spirit and zen, both technically and comically, of the 2001 BBC sitcom. The writers clearly are having a ball with this material, and while the target audience may have gotten more of a kick out of the variety show spoofing Fargo or Sherlock instead, the risky endeavor pays off handsomely for those in tune with the original's deadpan hysterics.
Check out the skit below:
Image courtesy of Famous/ACE/INFphoto.com