This Moment Almost Derailed The Final Season of The Office

You look like you want to tell me something

You look like you have something really important to say, and you just can't for some reason

Jim, you can tell me anything. When you think about The Office, one of the first things that pops into your head

is the relationship between Pam and Jim. For the better part of a decade

they were seen as America's couple. But here's the thing. This relationship was almost destroyed entirely

late into the show's final season. With the introduction of Brian Whittle

Brian Whittle was the primetime television equivalent to a giant asteroid narrowly missing the planet

It's one thing to throw a wrench into a show's primary dramatic storyline, but breaking a show's firmly established narrative structure

with only 15 episodes remaining in its entire run is a cardinal sin

And with the abrupt introduction of Brian into the story, much like Pam, The Office was flirting with disaster

I just feel like I'm on my own here. I mean, okay, not completely on my own

but in terms of people who can do something, thank you, Brian. The Office's comedy is certainly driven

by its ensemble cast of top-tier comedic talent. Throughout the entire show's run

almost every single reoccurring character has an opportunity to really shine. The mixing and matching of these incredible characters

is done in a way that always feels fun, fresh, and exciting

We really get to see a lot of these characters pair off in ways that played with the overall charisma of the show

Michael and Dwight played with the hero sidekick dynamic filtered through a veneer of ineptitude, whereas Jim and Dwight often felt like a real-life version

of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. Throughout the show's run, we see a lot of this character shuffling

The writers seem to have a lot of fun pairing characters together to see what worked and what

did it, and more often than not, it ended up being pretty successful. Despite the writers

penchant for mixing and matching characters, Jim and Pam's relationship never really strayed from

our interest Even when Jim transferred to Stanford to distance himself from Pam their relationship was still a focal point of the show It was a fresh take on an aging and tired will trope that really piqued viewers interest So do you

Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, everything's pretty much the same here

Oh, good. Their relationship is really what makes The Office work so well because it hits us right in the heart

We see these two characters and we want them to be together. And after they are together, we want them to stay together

They are, without a doubt, the most important characters on the show in the sense that they serve as a grounding tool for some

of the more insane characters on the show. Their reactions to any given situation presented on the

show are incredibly normal, and through this normalcy, these reactions allow the absurd

behaviors of the supporting cast to really stand out. Without Jim and Pam there for us to relate to

The Office would likely derail itself into an absurd clown show. This was even more true for

the show after Steve Carell's departure. This all almost came to a crashing halt

in the middle of the show's final season at the end of the episode titled Customer Loyalty

After an intense fight over the phone over Pam's failure to film the child's dance recital

Pam begins to emotionally break down. This has happened before in the show

but this time, something rather strange happens. The camera pans away from the action at hand

and toward the actual crew, who have been serving as silent observers

to Dunder Mifflin's daily operations for a decade. We aren't quite sure what to call this

In a show that constantly breaks the fourth wall, this is like breaking the fifth wall

We are then introduced to the character of Brian, the boom operator, for the first time

as he rushes to console Pam during a time of crisis. In this seemingly white knight moment

he tells the camera crew to stop filming and give Pam some space. I just don't know that it's going to be this hard

Yeah. Let's turn the cameras off. Seriously, guys. Enough. Enough. It feels like a strangely intimate moment

and it made even stranger by the first scene of the following episode Junior Salesman At the top of this episode Pam has a brief conversation with Brian who has apparently been reprimanded for intervening in the previous day dramatics between Pam and Jim Well thanks for being a good friend Sure Anytime How about you and Jim

Everything squared away? Yeah. Mostly. In Andy Green's book, The Office, the untold story of

the greatest sitcom of the 2000s, it is mentioned that Greg Daniels was actually intending on having

Pam and Brian seemed like that they were going to hook up in an attempt to shake up Jim and Pam's

relationship, ultimately leading to a separation. Writer Brent Forrester said that the intent was

to have Jim and Pam split up and have them rekindle their relationship in the final episode

Jim and Pam separating and reconciling wouldn't be a weird thing or even necessarily a bad thing

They had done it before and it's not like marriages don't come without their struggles. The problem here is that the writers are trying to shake up too many things at once

By breaking the fourth wall and actually showing the crew, The Office breaks its narrative and it changes the entire tone, feeling, and style of the show

Having one of these crew members insert themselves into the show's primary narrative

feels disrespectful to the viewers. John Krasinski actually had the wherewithal to say something to Brent Forrester

about the move to split up Jim and Pam in this way. According to Forrester, Krasinski said that since this final season of The Office

was essentially for the mega fans of the show, it would be too painful for them to see Jim and Pam go through a divorce

The episode that really made fans upset is in the episode titled Vandalism

where Brian steps in to physically defend Pam from an attack. So someone needs to shut you up

Hey, hey, hey! Whoa! Easy! This was the moment where Greg Daniels was finally able to see

that he was heading down a dangerous path with these two characters. There were only a handful of episodes left to produce

and fans were becoming increasingly agitated with the idea of this character being forced down their throats as a potential paramour

and destroying something they had watched grow and evolve for a decade This prompted some quick thinking on behalf of the writers and editors and Brian character was whittled down to little more than a speed bump on Jim and Pam journey We see Brian one more time when Pam heads over to his home to ask him

just how much privacy the documentarians violated during their time filming Dunder Mifflin. And

honestly, watching this scene play out is kind of nerve-wracking at first. We don't really want to

see Pam hook up with Brian. We don't even want to think about it. At this point, audience members

are likely audibly shouting the words, don't do it, Pam, at the televisions

Thankfully, Pam just asks him a simple question, leaves, and Brian is never heard from again

Having Jim and Pam go through a separation would have been really tough on viewers

who knew that their time with them was coming to a close. Having Jim and Pam go through a separation

because of Pam's infidelity would have been disastrous. Having that infidelity occur with a character

whose very appearance disrupts the show's narrative would have destroyed the show entirely

It would have been thoughtless and maybe a little callous towards what drew viewers to The Office in the first place

Sometimes writers feel the need to make drastic changes to keep the audiences interested

And in some cases, that might be true, but The Office was so successful

that it stopped becoming just a television show for some people, and in turn became more of a comfort

It was somewhere we could go to have a few laughs and a few feels for a brief amount of time

and you can't disrupt something like that so abruptly. Especially after telling the audience that this is the last season

that they would be receiving that comfort. Thankfully, Greg Daniels realized this

and was able to fix the problem before it was too late. But to this day, the character of Brian Whittle

is one of the most hated characters in sitcom history, and the scar that he left on audiences' hearts

will always kind of be there. The Office actually wraps up quite perfectly

There's no shredding of divorce papers, no forced drama. It's just fun, heartwarming, and silly

much like the entirety of the show