Michael Scott (The Office) - Comparison With David Brent

Comparison With David Brent

Although originally based on David Brent, Scott has developed into a significantly different character than his British counterpart. Whereas Brent is shown to be irredeemably incompetent, Scott is portrayed as an outstanding salesman who is unwisely promoted to a management role to which he appears completely ill-suited, making him an apt example of the Peter Principle which states that competent employees will "rise to the level of their incompetence" after which they will not advance. A scathing performance review written by Jan Levenson stated that he should be removed from the Branch Manager position and put into a more suitable position in Sales. However, Scott has been oddly successful as regional manager. This is, in part, attributed to his weakness of procrastination wherein he typically forfeits a bad choice by seeking the advice of his more competent subordinates (such as Jim, Oscar, or Darryl) and uses their recommendations, while also partly attributed to his main strength: genuinely caring about the well-being of the office and treating his employees like family. When he took over the Scranton Branch he decreased costs by 17%, without firing any personnel. After the merger of the two branches Scott does not lose a single client despite a great deal of employee turnover (much of which he was directly responsible for). He received a $3,000 bonus for firing Devon, most likely because his doing so saved the company around $50,000. Although it is suggested that Brent has had similar success, such claims only ever come from Brent himself, thus making them unreliable.

Scott's social immaturity and inability to cope with responsibility is balanced with a personality that is much more caring than Brent's, even if both make unwise comments in the heat of the moment. Unlike Brent, who pretends to be friendly with many of his employees purely for the benefit of the cameras, Scott seems to genuinely like his colleagues, with the exception of Human Resources Director Toby Flenderson. Scott's need to be liked by his staff and his belief that people see him as a genuine friend leads him to become very hurt when he realizes this is not the case. Most, if not all, of Scott's managerial blunders can be directly correlated with the degree to which he desires to be liked by his employees or jealously seeks their approval.

The DVD commentary to the pilot episode suggests that Scott's character continues a process begun in the second UK series, in which Gervais and Merchant intentionally made Brent less nasty, and more of a buffoon. It is said in the commentary that Gervais and Merchant suggested that this be applied to Scott. This also reflects a general change in the US version's attitude, which is more sympathetic to the characters, and tones down the cruel humor of the original. The commentary also says that Steve Carell had not seen more than a few minutes of the original UK series when he was offered the role of Scott, and has since made a conscious decision not to watch it in case it influences his own performance.

The show's writers have said that the 2005 hit movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin provided very useful guidance as they refined the character along with Steve Carell between the 1st and 2nd seasons. Michael Scott wore a large amount of hair gel and dressed sloppily in Season 1, but by Season 2 he had a more conventional haircut and dressed much more neatly. Also, while Michael is often rude and nasty in Season 1, he is generally nicer and less hard-edged in subsequent seasons.

In the seventh season episode "The Seminar", Michael in fact briefly meets David Brent in the lobby and they establish an immediate rapport, joking together and generally signalling that they would have been good friends.