Stress Relief (The Office)

"Stress Relief"
The Office episodes
Dwight wearing a face of the CPR dummy he ripped off, in reference to The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Episode nos.	Season 5 Episodes 14/15
Directed by	Jeffrey Blitz
Written by	Paul Lieberstein
Featured music	"You Make My Dreams" by Hall & Oates "Have a Little Faith in Me" by John Hiatt "All Out of Love" by Air Supply "Lady" by Little River Band "Stayin' Alive" by Bee Gees
Cinematography by	Randall Einhorn
Editing by	Dean Holland (Part 1) David Rogers (Part 2)
Production code	516/517[1]
Original air date	February 1, 2009 (2009-02-01)
Running time	42 minutes
Guest appearances
Part 1 Andy Buckley as David Wallace John Hartmann as Kendall Robin Lynch as Rose Part 2 Rick Overton as William Beesly Bobby Ray Shafer as Bob Vance
Episode chronology
← Previous "Prince Family Paper" Next → "Lecture Circuit"
The Office (American season 5)
List of episodes

"Stress Relief" is a two-part episode of the American comedy television series The Office. It constitutes the fourteenth and fifteenth episodes of the fifth season and the 86th and 87th overall episodes of the series. Both episodes were directed by Jeffrey Blitz and written by Paul Lieberstein, who also plays Toby Flenderson on the show.

In this episode, Dwight stages a fire in the office to test the office's fire safety skills, but things go from bad to worse when Stanley suffers a heart attack, causing Michael to come up with ways to relieve stress in the office, including a comedic roast of himself. Meanwhile, Andy, Jim, and Pam watch an illegally downloaded movie at work starring Jack Black, Jessica Alba and Cloris Leachman, and Pam deals with her parents' recent argument that's caused her father to move in with her and Jim temporarily.

Both parts of "Stress Relief" originally aired together on February 1, 2009 on NBC, immediately following the network's broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII, and The Office writers and producers sought to attract newcomers to the series with the expected increase in viewership. Guest stars Black, Alba and Leachman do not interact with the regular characters themselves, but rather appear in a film within the episode. The Office creator Greg Daniels said this was done to keep the episode more grounded in reality.

The episode received generally positive reviews, with Time magazine declaring it the best overall television episode of any series in 2009. The episode is considered a favorite by many fans of the series. Many commentators particularly praised the chaotic cold open scene, in which Dwight panics his co-workers with a simulated fire as part of a twisted safety demonstration. Because it aired following the Super Bowl, "Stress Relief" was the most viewed episode of The Office with 22.9 million viewers according to Nielsen Media Research during its original broadcast. It won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, and received another nomination for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series.