THE Office nearly turned out very different for John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer’s characters Jim and Pam, as the A Quiet Place star’s character nearly had an affair in his on-screen marriage.
According to People, in a new book titled Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office, it was revealed that show creator Greg Daniels revealed he initially wrote in a storyline that featured a major test for the show’s beloved couple.
In the book, written by Brian Baumgartner who played Kevin on the show and executive producer Ben Silverman, it came out that Jim was supposed to cheat on Pam.
Fans will recall a Season 8 episode of The Office called “After Hours.” In it, Jim takes a business trip to Florida.
During the trip, he’s tempted b Dunder Mifflin’s temporary receptionist Cathy (Lindsey Broad).
The storyline was supposed to go much further, however.
John said in the book: “Greg said, ‘We need to come up with a good Pam-Jim story line.’ And I said, ‘I think we should get borderline separated, and I think we can do it and then come back.’
“He was so on board with that.”
Greg wanted to take it further, but John stood firmly against the idea.
He recalled: “That’s the only time I remember putting my food down. ‘Cause [Greg] was saying, ‘You’re going to actually make out with her in this scene.'”
John went on: “I remember saying things that I never thought I’d say before, like, ‘I’m not going to shoot it.’ I remember [co-showrunner] Paul Lieberstein was in the room, who I think was very much into it.
“He was like, ‘No, you’ll do it.’ Not in an aggressive way, but it was like, he saw the benefit of doing it.”
It was important to John that the affair storyline not make it into the show.
He explained: “I remember saying to Greg, ‘My feeling is there is a threshold with which you can push our audience. They are so dedicated. We have shown such great respect to them. But there’s a moment where if you push them too far, they’ll never come back.”
John went on: “And I think that if you show Jim cheating, they’ll never come back.”
Fans came to love Jim and Pam’s romance, but it was far from a sure thing early on in the show.
Pam was initially set to marry someone else, but eventually found her way to Jim.
The characters didn’t get together until Season four of The Office.
They tied the knot in Season six and went on to welcome two fictional children together.
Their relationship faced challenges throughout the show, but none as big as infidelity.
During one particular episode, the pair got into a heated fight on the phone. Pam broke down into tears and was comforted by Brian Wittle, a cameraman filming the Dunder Mifflin documentary.
John revealed in Welcome to Dunder Mifflin that Brian’s crush on Pam was his idea.
“I had this idea that I pitched Greg, and it came from [Office camera operator] Chris Workman. He had put down the camera and left it running. And I was like, ‘Let me see the footage,'” John recalled.
He continued: “We went over the footage and it was just feet, and you could hear people talking. I said to Greg, ‘Dude, you should do that. Have someone in the camera crew put their camera down, not knowing that they’re catching a moment, and they left to go to lunch or something.’ And then it ended up in the episode with the boom guy.”
In another The Office book, The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s, author Andy Green revealed that Greg wanted to break Jim and Pam up.
According to Collider, Brent Forrester revealed in the book: “Greg really wanted to do something extremely risky and high-stakes, which was the documentary airs and we see what effect it has had on these characters. And there was going to be a reunion episode where you see Jim and Pam have split up by this time, and they will have their reunion in the reunion episode.”
Writers even considered introducing a relationship triangle between Pam and Brian.
Brian first appeared in Season 9 during the fight episode.
Writer Owen Ellickson said in the book there were talks of Pam and Brian “hooking up a little bit.”
He wrote: “Ultimately, I don’t think it was about actually going there. They never did anything. It was just to introduce worry in the audience.”
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