www.makemkv.com

So I think I've finally solved this (not that I have any idea how the DVD could be this botched in the first place): video and audio in all episodes have been sped up by roughly 4%, except on episode 1 where audio has been sped up by 4% and pitched up by 8%...! Ended up using MKVToolNix to multiplex...

Double-checked and it's not speeding up to 30 fps, but it's probably been increase from 24 to 25 as many reviewers have noticed.

Thanks for all the answers. Will look into posting a clip somewhere, but looking at the Amazon reviews it seems like the issue isn't on my end. I tried slowing everything down in a video editing software where the episodes oddly enough differed: one needed 0.92x and the others 0.96x. But like I said...

I'm having issues with a PAL DVD containing Season 1 of The Office (US). It reads and rips with no errors or other issues, but the resulting .mkv files are all "too fast", in the sense that their durations are slightly too short and the audio is pitched about 1.2x up from what it should be...