The Big Jim And Pam Storyline That Was Stopped By Fans Of The Office
Most people tune into sitcoms for the jokes, but with "The Office," something else brought in viewers week after week. From the very beginning, it was clear Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) was in love with Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer). Of course, Pam was engaged to someone else in the pilot episode, so it quickly became a matter of whether the two would even be able to be together at any point. Their relationship had many ups and downs for those first few seasons, but what transpired was one of the most love-affirming storylines in television history.
The phrase "Jim and Pam" has become synonymous with couples who are madly in love with each other. Throughout nine seasons, the two dated, got married, and had children. They'd have disagreements, but for the most part, it was nothing that couldn't be sorted out within 22 minutes. That is until the final season came around.
The ninth season saw Jim pursuing a new job in Philadelphia, while Pam began to form an attachment with the film crew's boom operator, Brian (Chris Diamantopoulos). Things looked dire for a bit, but the couple turned it around and went off to start a new life for their family in Texas in the series finale. Everything turned out all right, which was good news for fans because things could've been so much worse for the iconic couple.
Fans prevented Jim and Pam breaking up by the final episode
During the show's ninth season, it genuinely seemed like it may be the end for Jim and Pam's marriage. However, they managed to turn things around and still be happily married by the time the show ended. That wasn't always the plan, as actor Brian Baumgartner and writer/director/producer Brent Forrester discussed on an episode of The Office Deep Dive podcast. Forrester reveals that the original plan during the final season was to break up Jim and Pam. Then, the two would reunite during the series finale when the entire Dunder Mifflin office gets back together for the documentary retrospective.
Forrester explains, "The word reunion would come to mean two things." The pair goes on to describe that the couple missed this fate thanks to two factors. First, Krasinski and Fischer were executive producers during the final season, so they had a lot more input about where the show would go. They insisted the last season should be about the fans, and the fans wanted Jim and Pam to stay together.
This leads to the second factor: how social media gave the creative team behind the scenes greater access than ever before on what fans thought the show was still airing. It's incredible to think that if the show came out just a few years earlier, they wouldn't have that information, and the show could've ended with a heart-wrenching separation. As it stands, the relationship remains one of the best in TV history, proving that it pays off to voice your opinions on your favorite shows on the internet.