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  EW review: 'Office' works wellBy Dalton Ross  YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(Entertainment Weekly) -- When I first heard about NBC creating its own version of the British comedy "The Office," I feared the worst, figuring there was no way it could match up to the original ("Coupling," anyone?). And you know what? It doesn't. But it comes pretty darn close. To borrow the lingo of fellow mockumentary subjects Spinal Tap, while on a scale of 1-10 the UK "Office" went to 11, the U.S. version still soars to a respectable 7 or 8. Steve Carell is spot-on as the embarrassingly insensitive paper-supply-company office manager, and the show has succeeded in keeping the tone, pacing, and overall awkwardness of the original. Instead of cutting out all the inappropriate references and long pauses that give "The Office" its uniquely dry humor, Carell and Co. have, if anything, jacked them up. (The "Diversity Day" episode, especially, is a thing of politically incorrect beauty.) It's almost shocking that Carell succeeds in not being a mere clone of creator-star Ricky Gervais' David Brent. At least until you listen to one of the five breezy commentary tracks, in which the "Daily Show" vet admits that he had watched only "some of the pilot" when he first auditioned. The reason? "Ricky Gervais was so good and so definitive that I thought, probably not a good idea to watch too much more or else I'd just want to do an impression of him." Seeing Carell on the show and in the dozens of deleted scenes -- including ones showcasing his painful Curly and Arte Johnson impersonations and another in which he interrupts a co-worker's lunch to discuss a suspected lump on his testicle -- you realize that ignorance, indeed, is bliss. In more ways than one. EW Grade: B+ 'The Ballad of Jack & Rose'Reviewed by Alisa Cohen Gaunt as a scarecrow, Daniel Day-Lewis fills the screen as Jack, a dying force of nature in an Edenic ex-commune, fighting suburban sprawl with his last breath. Daughter Rose (Camilla Belle, an old soul in waif's clothing) shares his us-against-the-world view -- and rebels when Jack's lover (a softer-edged Catherine Keener) and her two sons prove more intrusive than the developers. Writer-director Rebecca Miller, Day-Lewis' wife, doesn't skimp on the incestuous subtext or obvious symbolism (ahem, a snake slinks past as Rose loses her innocence), but in the actors' agile hands, this bewitching "Ballad of Jack & Rose" stops short of tawdry. EXTRAS None. EW Grade: A 'The Wedding Date'Reviewed by Mandi Bierly In "The Wedding Date," a brokenhearted singleton (Debra Messing) travels to London for her chilly sister's wedding with a hot male escort in tow. Why it works: Dermot Mulroney's stoic demeanor means you don't enter a total sugar coma when he delivers lines like "I'd rather fight with you than make love with anyone else." Also, we see tush. EXTRAS Messing's commentary reveals that the sisters' relationship originally included even harsher dialogue, and that she liked the darker tone. The DVD, meanwhile, could've used some lightening up. Messing tells us that Mulroney forwent the "modesty patch" when filming his shower scene, and that multiple takes were shot to get her reaction just right, but none appear here. At least we find out why the bachelorette guests were dressed like golfer girls gone wild: They were playing "pub golf," which means doing shots at nine different drinking holes. So how come Messing's penalty-strokes-for-vomiting tutorial ended up on the cutting-room floor? EW Grade: C- Click Here 
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