Who Will Replace Steve Carell's Michael Scott on "The Office?"

The Halloween episode (Oct. 28) of "The Office" may have given us some clues as to who will replace Michael Scott (Steve Carell) when he leaves the show at the end of this year.

Dressed as Magruber, Michael is angry when he discovers that Darryl went behind his back to take the idea to Gabe Lewis (Zack Woods). The idea was to let drivers sell and it has been implemented by corporate and resulted in sales by personnel in the warehouse. Michael, as Darryl points out, screwed up by not passing the suggestion along to corporate, but he fixed it. Perhaps Darryl will be the one to run the office after Michael leaves? Craig Robinson's star, (he plays Darryl), has been ascending. Perhaps the PTB, recognizing his higher profile in movies, wants to make him the guru who follows Michael.

Gabe, himself, is a possible leader for the future, although he's going to have to lose the drag outfit he was wearing on the Halloween show.

Neither Jim nor Dwight seems a likely leader, to me. In this episode, Dwight has a ridiculous line about how he knows how to straddle the fence. He says, "I can even sleep on a fence. You just lay face-down and put the fence-post in your mouth." Earlier, he was encouraging people to sneeze on one another to build up their immunity. Yeah, I don't think that Dwight is going to be running "The Office" any time soon. Nor do I think that Jim is a likely candidate.

In this episode, Timothy Olyphant appears as a new employee. Olyphant is better known as the current star of "Justified" and, before that, as the Marshal on "Deadwood." The big question in the episode was why he didn't ask Pam out for a third date when Jim was gone and dating another. (They went out twice, but he never called a third time). When he finally admits that he found her "dorky," she is dressed as Olive Oyl and storms off with the words (a la SNL), "Excuuuuuse me."

Olyphant's character seems to be remaining somewhat aloof and free from the office hi-jinks. He even makes a comment about how they certainly like to party in the office. Perhaps Olyphant is being set up as an outsider who could come in and be a reasonable boss trying to deal with the craziness that is the reality of Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. However, how is Olyphant going to continue to star in "Justified" and also star in "The Office?" Doesn't seem likely, does it?

There is also always the possibility of someone brand new being brought in from outside.

Should be interesting to watch who follows Steve Carrell's Michael Smith on "The Office."