The Seminar

"The Seminar" is the fourteenth episode of the seventh season of the American comedy television series The Office, and the show's 140th episode overall. Written by Steve Hely and directed by B. J. Novak, the episode aired January 27, 2011 on NBC. The episode features Ricky Gervais reprising his role as David Brent, his character from the original British version of The Office, in an uncredited cameo. In the episode, Andy holds a small business seminar in the office. He asks Kevin, Creed and Kelly to help him while Michael and Holly embrace the opportunity to improv. Meanwhile, Oscar and Pam help Erin in a Scrabble battle against Gabe. Synopsis Michael Scott (Steve Carell) bumps into David Brent (Ricky Gervais) outside an elevator. After they exchange several ethnic jokes, David asks if Dunder Mifflin is hiring. Michael says "not right now" and David asks him to drop a line if they do have any openings. In order to improve his worst-in-office sales totals, Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) holds a seminar on starting a small business. He enlists Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) as one of the guest speakers, but Jim abruptly pulls out when he apparently recognizes one of the attendants. The other speakers—Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), Phyllis Vance (Phyllis Smith), and Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker)—lose faith in Andy's plan and also pull out, leaving Andy to replace them with Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner), Creed Bratton (Creed Bratton) and Ryan Howard (B. J. Novak). Kevin's speech goes bad when he gets ill from running around the room to Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train," and vomits in front of the audience. Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling), who replaces Ryan, calls up an old professor from her management training time at Yale to talk business lessons. Creed delivers a bizarre speech about the Loch Ness Monster.