Night Out - Reception

Reception

"Night Out" received 4.0/10 in the ages 18–49 demographic in the Nielsen ratings. This means that four percent of all households with an 18 to 49 year old living in it watched the episode, and ten percent had their televisions tuned to the channel at any point. The episode was watched by 7.56 million viewers. "Night Out" did not do as well as "Chair Model" did the week before, losing 20 percent of the previous episode's viewers. Some attribute the loss of viewers to a lack of Grey's Anatomy and a repeat of CSI the previous week. With 7.69 million, "Night Out" had fewer viewers than any other episode of The Office from the fourth season, except for "Job Fair", which garnered only 7.16 million viewers.

Reviews for "Night Out" were mixed. M. Giant of TelevisionWithoutPity.com rated the episode with an "A-". A writer for GiveMeMyRemote.com said that "Dwight Schrute was on his game last night", and that he was "big fan of last night’s episode." Zap2It's Rick Porter thought that although it wasn't "as sublime in its Needy Michael-ness as last week's (episode)" and "in some ways, though, it was maybe even a little sadder", "Night Out" was "still pretty darn funny". Porter went on to praise the acting work of both B.J. Novak and Paul Lieberstein, as well as the writing of Mindy Kaling. TV Squad's Jay Black said that Michael summed up "Night Out" perfectly when he said "Best. Night. Ever." Black went on to praise both of the storylines, and the ability of the show to achieve success both in as well as out of the Dunder Mifflin Scranton building. Similar to Black's statements, Gretchen Hansen of Entertainment Weekly stated that "'Best. Night. Ever.' Oh, so true, Michael." She also stated that "I guess I knew it was going to be a good episode of The Office when I had two pages of scribbled notes before the first commercial break." Hansen went on to praise both the acting and the writing of the episode as points that contributed to the success of the episode. Rachel Cericola, of TV Fodder, praised the writing of the episode by Mindy Kaling. She also praised the storyline of the episode that didn't involve Michael and Dwight, saying "The second plotline was its usual funny filler. However, it was Toby's revelation that made it all worthwhile."

Travis Fickett of IGN said that the episode was "still satisfying, even when it's not one of the show's funnier episodes", but "it's a bit of a shame this episode wasn't a home run, because having Dwight and Michael hit the clubs is a funny idea." Fickett went on to praise the episode's awkward moment between Toby and Pam, when Toby placed his hand on Pam's leg, and Toby's subsequent escape by hopping the fence. Fickett stated that, for Toby's growing love of Pam, and growing jealousy of Jim, "this is pretty great pay off". Claire Zulkey, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, was not as pleased with the episode. Zulkey wrote "that when it's at its zaniest, The Office is at its worst", and the episode was "just too silly to be funny". Zulkey did say that "it was hilarious to see him (Toby) let his hand more-than-linger on her knee and then abruptly flee the premises by jumping over the fence and running home." In a poll done by Office fansite OfficeTally.com, viewers ranked "Night Out" as the 13th-most popular episode out of the 14 episodes of season four.