Episode 3 - The Promotion
5 October 2009
Review
Synopsis: Jim and Michael have to decide how to spread out a meagre cost of living raise to the staff. Pam has to embarrassingly ask people to give cash as a wedding present. Dwight tries to stir a rebellion against Jim.
The Good: Seeing Michael behave childishly and taunt Jim isn’t the most entertaining spectacle. But it does seem exactly how Michael would react to a new child invading his sand pit. It’s similar to how he responded to Charles Minor pushing him around (518) and fits his character just right. I am constantly impressed with how Michael is written and how he plays his part.
His childish taunting of Jim makes sense as he loses control of a situation and is being forced to make an unpopular decision which he would normally try to wriggle out of. But more than that behaviour the writers go to the heart of why Michael is behaving like this. He tells Jim that “When I am irritated and I look at you, I don’t see you anymore, all I can see is how big and gross the pores on your nose are.” It’s the response of a child. Faced with being forced to do something they don’t want to their mind focuses on other things they “hate” about the mean adult who is oppressing them. Michael admits this to his friend Jim; he is trying to explain why he is annoyed and how it is affecting him. It’s writing that has fully understood and absorbed Michael’s psychology.
The plot rolls out in similar fashion to a previous episode Survivor Man (407) where Jim angers the office and Michael has to patch things up. Here Jim is honest with everyone leading to widespread anger at his suggestion that the sales staff be the only ones who get raises. Their anger and unprofessional outbursts are more understandable because Jim was their peer a few days before. In the end Michael feels closer to Jim, he has always dealt with these issues on his lonesome but now he has a friend to share the burden. If you care about these characters, it is a sweet moment.
The detail work was really solid throughout this story. Jim’s new office was simply and logically carved out of the existing space. Michael revealed his belief that Jim essentially went behind his back to become a manager, which is perfectly understandable. Finally Jim had to objectively rate Pam’s skills compared to others, causing some obvious friction.
The key moment in Survivor Man, as here is when Jim starts to behave like Michael. It’s one of those very clever pieces of writing. For anyone watching The Office, it’s obvious that Michael is an exaggeration, a caricature of insecure bosses in the real world. No one is exactly like him, that would be ridiculous. But when Jim angers everyone in the office with his plan, he tries to take back what he said and makes a silly joke. A very Michael-like joke. The writers are making the point beautifully that Michael doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Much of his sillyness is a response to the tensions of a workplace and Jim is going to have to adopt some of the same techniques to survive.
The comedy is sparse but Kevin has a nice running gag where he doesn’t understand what the beans signify, which Michael and Jim were using to grade the employees performance. Pam asking for money makes sense and she gets to have a nice moment when she sees her new name on Kevin’s cheque.
The Bad: The problem underlying this episode is that Michael and Jim should not be sharing the role of manager. Oscar points out how ludicrous it is to have two leaders in any major organisation. It makes David Wallace look like a fool, which isn’t good for the realism of the show. It will also remind some viewers that this is a silly TV show and that isn’t something you want to be reminding them. The same conflicts could have been in place even if Michael had the final say.
The jokes are thin on the ground here which is a shame. Dwight is miswritten throughout. His anger at Jim is very real but gets turned into a silly MMA\WWE parody at the beginning. Then his attempt to stir an actual rebellion is just too silly. We have seen Dwight toe the corporate line so many times that this should seem to him to be an entirely inappropriate course of action.
As for Pam falling for Ryan’s con, that’s just bad writing. She should know better than anyone (having worked with him at the Michael Scott Paper Company) what he is capable of. In the same episode as we learn that Kelly is being conned by him it undermined Pam as a character.
Comic Highlight: Jim tries to butter Michael up and prepare him for criticism at the same time. He says that Michael has many strengths and one of them is the ability to take constructive criticism well. Michael laughs at this and with self awareness and a complete lack of it he cries “Ha! That, I am not known for that!”
That’s what I said: Once more the writers work on keeping their stories reflective of their characters personalities. They impress me more and more with their efforts on behalf of this often forgotten art. But this story is a bit of a retread with few good jokes to help the medicine go down.
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