Yesterday, I fulfilled a dream five years in the making when I boarded a bus that took buzzing TV critics to The Office set, an unassuming and bland building in The Valley surrounded by nothing more than dingy stores and buildings.

                    

But, inside, we were transported to the show’s warehouse set, which looked exactly as it does on the show, only with the addition of a custom coffee bar and folding chairs that had been set up for our eventual press conference. But first, we were treated to a tour of The Office set itself: in small groups smiling PR reps walked us over to a back building where a small and exuberant Angela Kinsey gave my group a tour, showing us some of the inside jokes on Post-It notes she and her fellow “accountants,” Brian Baumgartner and Oscar Nuñez share, and told us how each cast member was asked to bring in a photo from their real lives to decorate their own desks when they shot the pilot.

I managed to sneak in my own picture at the reception desk formerly known as Pam’s, (Ellie Kemper’s character, Erin, now occupies that spot) before we were taken through Michael’s office, the boardroom, the kitchen and the lunchroom, where Kinsley reminisced about the time Rainn Wilson’s character, Dwight, filled the snack machine with organic foods that led to subsequent flies.

Once we had had our fill at The Office (and received individualized desk tags that each said Assistant to the Regional Manager), our bus took us to the historical Warner Bros. lot, where we were led to believe we were going on set visits of The New Adventures of Old Christine and Southland, but were led instead to a theatre for three back-to-back sessions (including a new web series, The Lake, which is directed by Jason Priestley).

After sitting in the same seat for roughly two hours, it was quite a relief to stretch my legs when they let us out to the reception room and patio, where stars from various WB series were mulling around. Having skipped lunch at the Dr. Oz session, I was famished, and decided to line up for some mini hamburgers, pepperoni pizza, chicken kabobs and this wicked fry buffet with different toppings. I tell you, they’re all about health in L.A. — Dr. Oz would have shunned us.

As I was waiting for a plate, Luke from More to Love came up to say hello, beer in hand, and told me his meet and greet session from the previous day went well. I found the conversation awkward after what had (or hadn’t?) transpired the other night when we first spoke, so I was a little relieved when he went to go find a friend, and I hid from him for the rest of the night.

I opted for a mini burger and a square slice of pizza to at least somewhat honour Oz, and armed with food I found the “Canadian Contingent,” who thought it would be fun to remind me of last year’s set visit to Chuck where they embarrassed me by whipping out their digital recorders, pretending to interview me to see if some of the nearby ambulance chasers would try and figure out who I was (clearly, just another one of them). It worked again this time, obviously, since anyone would stop and check who a bunch of people were holding out recorders to, and I sincerely wanted to crawl under the table.

Embarrassed but only slightly disgruntled, I left them to their shenanigans and walked around a little bit. There wasn’t much space, and the young cast of The Lake and kids from The Middle were the only actors I could find. Near the end of the night I did manage to catch Ian Somerhalder, who plays a fanged baddie in the upcoming Vampire Diaries, and he also confirmed to me that he is returning to Lost for the series’ final season, but the details still need to be worked out.

As Somerhalder turned to chat with another reporter, I spun around to face Vik Sahay, who plays Lester Patel on Chuck, and was standing there with his colleague. So I smiled and said hello.

“Are you Amber from Toronto?” he asked me.

I asked him how he knew that, never having met him before, but knowing he was from Canada. He said he recognized me from my picture, but chided me for hanging out with Diego at the NBC party and ignoring him. Since I had just posted my NBC blog that day I was quite flattered he was reading up on my musings, but had to defend myself when he also gave me a bit of a hard time for not showing more love to Chuck. I tried interviewing him then, but he was having none of it, so I promised him I would catch up when I returned home. I figure I have until at least March before I can be called out on it again.

It was around this time that I heard someone calling out to those on the shuttle, so I sadly declined Sahay’s offer to introduce me to the rest of the cast members in attendance, but before I could reach the door I heard my name again and spun around to see my new favourite person, Bill Prady, co-creator of the Big Bang Theory. I commended him on his unwavering attendance at these parties, since this was the third run-in we’d had during my L.A. adventures, and he introduced me to Neil Flynn (Scrubs) and Diedrich Bader (The Drew Carey Show). I wanted to ask Prady what his random fact of the day would be, but I only had two minutes to chat before I seriously had to run to catch the bus.

When I got outside the bus was nowhere to be seen, and I felt my breath catch in my throat since I had absolutely no idea where I was. Thankfully I spotted some flashing lights around the corner and pumped my legs as fast as I could; luckily I was wearing flats. As I reached the door the Warner PR rep was saying goodbye to everyone —and I was greeted to a chorus of “There she is!”

Apparently, the bus had circled a couple of times thanks to my colleague Bill Harris, who, as he puts it, was declaring bus war on the people who wanted to just leave and were insisting I had taken an earlier bus. Apparently he knew better, since I’ve pretty much been the last to leave every party this tour and would only ever take the early shuttle if I were sick.

So with angry critics all around me I settled into the seat next to Harris and we exchanged evenings. When we got back to the hotel we went for a couple of drinks with one of our lovely Canadian PR reps who had come out for the occasion, and for the second night since I got to L.A., I was in bed before 1 a.m.

It was a glorious way to end my second-to-last night.

Up next: Heavy hitting at the ABC party.

Amber is currently reporting live from the TV Critics Press Tour in L.A. Check out complete coverage here. amber@tvguide.ca

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