That’s a very helpful contribution to the thread. Thank you.
Think you could at least tell us what qualifies as “botching” so you don’t retcon it later?
But you’re wrong. As much as I feel that Jim is generally a dick, you’re just wrong.
If Michael had actually managed to have a personal life, which Jim has managed with a loving wife and daughter, most of Michael’s problems wouldn’t exist. His entire life revolves around the office because he doesn’t have a life outside the office. His desperate need for approval from the peopel inside the office arises from the fact that he doesn’t get any approval from anyone outside the office - and from what we’ve seen he pretty much never has. He has no sense of boundaries because he doesn’t have anyone to pull him back from the brink of stupidity.
The only way Jim becomes Michael is if we fast forward twenty years, Pam has divorced him, his daughter is in college across the country, and he’s still working at Dunder Mifflin.
Michael will not end up with Holly, but will instead somehow gain the newfound maturity to understand that he doesn’t need someone else to make him happy, he needs to find happiness in himself. He will ride off into the sunset away from Dunder Mifflin in some way that shows a character redemption for him, that he might actually become a… well, normal human being.
At least that’s what I’d find satisfying.
As for the new manager, I agree that it will come completely out of left field and nominate… Phyllis, who will rule with an iron fist.
God, I hope not. Surprise pregnancy is such a cliché now; I can think of at least half a dozen shows that have used it to either create or resolve drama.
She is such a passive-aggressive bitch, that would be awesome. Kind of like Kelly taking over, but without the stupidity.
Go out past the bleachers and make it Creed. He would of course do nothing, so everyone would have to cover for him. If they do well, he gets the credit and people get pissed. If they do badly the branch might close and everyone loses their job.
I’m really not that wrong, though. Look back on the episodes where Jim was co-manager or whatever, and you’ll see how out of his element he was. The things that motivated him to make bad choices or lose control of he office might be far different from what motivates Michael, as I already said, but at the end of the day, the results are the same. Like the birthday situation, which he completely mishandled until it snowballed out of control–he was trying to make everybody happy (like Michael does). Jim also has the tendency to say inappropriate things and babble when he’s nervous or on the spot, and Michael-Scott-things fly out of his mouth–which he usually knows the second it happens because he’s self-aware, unlike Michael, but the damage is still done.
And I believe it was the episode with the conflicting birthday stuff that Michael hints at the fact that he was just like Jim once and they make the parallel more specific.
The series revolves around some mostly normal people and they’re completely intolerable/incompetent boss. Since Jim has already proven that he’s a great salesman but not an effective manager, I think promoting him again is the most logical choice.
He might be a poor manager, and that happens. He might find that the pinnacle of his career is ‘Regional Maanger of Dunder Mifflin Sabre’. Thing is, that’s not what makes Michael pathetic. Who in that office is going to do better? What percentage of American workers are going to do better than that?
It’s not the job that makes Michael pathetic. It’s Michael being Michael that makes him pathetic, and it comes down to him not having a life outside the office. He has no friends, he has no relationships, and he has nothing to look forward to other than his nine inch flatscreen TV.
Jim could end up as the manager, but that doesn’t make him Michael. That’s a huge way off from being a pathetically selfish human being who spends all his time demanding attention and validation from his subordinates.
Passed over for the promotion, Dwight goes to his car, pulls on a camo jumpsuit, and loads his AK-47. As he walks into the office, everyone looks up…
[Fade to black. Roll credits.]
How about Andy? He went to Cornell, so he’s got some superficial Ivy League cred that could plausibly impress somebody. He’s also got some similarities to Michael in terms of insecurity, social ineptide, neediness and lonliness. He’s also got the anger management issues which could cause him to implod in ways that Michael did not.