The fourth season of The Office was a very stressful time for nearly everyone involved in the production. Not only did the growing movie careers of the leads create endless scheduling headaches, but there was a looming strike by the Writers Guild of America that threatened to take the show off the airwaves for an undetermined period of time. Meanwhile, the writers had to find a way to rip Michael and Jan apart, squeeze as much comedy as possible from the Andy/Dwight/Angela triangle, figure out what would happen to Ryan after he got Jan’s former corporate job in New York, and, most important, find a way for Jim and Pam to come together without ruining their chemistry. The season begins with “Fun Run,” where the audience learns they’ve been secretly dating for the past few months.
Jen Celotta: As a fan of other shows, you know that once romances get consummated, there’s a magic that is hard to keep. I was on the side of keeping them apart as long as we can make it believable for these two characters, who we were trying to get inside and understand. What does Pam want to do? What is she lacking? Does she need more confidence? What is Jim doing? Why is he at this job? Once you understand why he’s there, why she’s there, and once you get those questions answered, then you feel like both of them have gotten to a certain place of growth on their own personal journeys. Then it feels like we’re stalling. Once we feel like we’re stalling, I feel like as an audience member you feel like you’re being cheated.
Jenna Fischer: Traditionally when you have relationships on television, whatever the relationships are, they don’t tend to necessarily evolve from the formula that made the show successful in the first place. And I feel like The Office took a lot of really great risks in deviating from formula and letting characters do things that might seem contradictory to their sort of archetype, if that makes sense. One of the most obvious examples of that is allowing Jim and Pam to get together, rather than waiting for the end of the series for the ingénue couple to finally realize their love.
John Krasinski: In the writers I trusted. I know Jenna probably did, too. They had done such a good job of keeping us apart that I only assumed they would do a good job in getting us together and keeping it detailed and layered. It was sort of a foregone conclusion that we had to go there at some point. I just remember it feeling really organic to get us together. And if we had gone a little longer, I worried that it was going to get sort of, I don’t know, slightly annoying.
Larry Wilmore: You and the audience have both made a pact that this will happen. You just haven’t agreed on a time.
Jason Kessler: People were afraid of what happens if you keep them apart for too long and then, also, about what happens if you get them together too soon. And I think we toed the line really well in having them get together at just the right time.
Kate Flannery: It’s sort of like Who’s the Boss. You don’t want Angela and Tony to really get together. But I felt like if any show was going to figure it out, it was going to be ours.
Justin Spitzer: Two people longing for each other is such a huge place to get story and scenes. Once we got them together, are people not going to be as interested? Are they not going to have chemistry anymore? Fans always say that they want you to get them together, and writers, we always believe, “No, you think you want them to get together. As soon as they get together, you’re not going to be happy anymore.” That was that fear.
Lee Eisenberg: All you’re doing in keeping them apart is creating all these false obstacles that you know are gonna be surmounted. But we did have huge debates because we worried that when you do bring Jim and Pam together, you’re letting the air out of the balloon in some way. But at the same time, in real life, people do get together. No one longs for somebody for ten years. That feels less realistic.
Jenna Fischer: The approach was always that these were real people. The early seasons had this “will they/won’t they” tension. But we all ultimately agreed that it was going to start to feel manufactured if you pushed it after a certain point. This was a documentary documenting these people’s real, authentic lives. It felt like we had to let them be real people rather than characters, and if these were real people, they would get together at this point. And so we took the leap of faith that we could do that and then it would be okay.
Anthony Farrell: The change from the “will they/won’t they” to the “now they’re together” situation, I think, was good. I liked them together. When you are writing it, you’re asking yourself, “How do you keep the people invested who are just watching it for the Jim and Pam love story? How do you keep them coming back to see more?” The thing that we did was make them teammates. So now it became Jim and Pam versus Dwight, and Jim and Pam helping Michael. It made them like a little duo. I think that worked for most of the episodes.
Justin Spitzer: The question became, “How do we keep it exciting?” And not just exciting but romantic. It’s not like romance dies once two people get together instantly, or even once they get married. But the fact that this is a mockumentary within a workplace. When they couldn’t be together, their entire relationship had to be at work. That meant it was all in longing glances or flirtation, with subtext. As soon as they’re dating they’re going home together, then that’s where the romance is, right? I don’t want to see big romantic gestures at work. I don’t want to see them making out at work. It would be like, “No, guys, do that at home on your own time, when we’re not watching.” Any time you get a couple together it’s tricky, but especially in a workplace mockumentary.
Brent Forrester: In truth, I think, my experience was that we basically proved the old adage, which is once the couple gets together there isn’t a lot of obvious story material. It is harder to find stories between a couple once they’ve had the resolution of coming together like that.
Ricky Gervais: I would never have gotten them together till the end. It’s nauseating. Two people in love in an office, fucking nauseating.
Season three ends with Ryan getting the corporate job in New York after Jim turns it down. Within seconds of learning the news, he dumps Kelly and an evil grin comes across his face. It was the start of a new, powerful Ryan. When we first see him in season four, he’s had the job for the past few months and is reveling in his new role. He also has a closely cropped beard and a designer suit. It’s no coincidence that this took place not long after Office producer Ben Silverman, who had the exact same beard and love for expensive suits, took over for Kevin Reilly as the cochair of NBC Entertainment. The writers only hinted at the parallels back then, but now they’re all willing to admit that Ryan’s new persona was a way to gently make fun of their boss.
Brent Forrester: I can’t deny it. Silverman definitely influenced the portrayal of Ryan there.
Ben Silverman: It’s true. Ryan was moving up and being ambitious. He was like, “I’m going to do it like Silverman.” So he grew the scrubble shadow beard and started wearing a tighter suit. I love B. J. and of course he talked to me about it and teased me and I teased him back. Also, Will Arnett did a little of me at 30 Rock too. [Tina Fey has admitted that Arnett’s character of GE executive Devon Banks, who also had the scrubble beard and enormous corporate power, was modeled after Silverman.]
Jason Kessler: In both cases, it was a younger person ascending to this powerful position. I don’t know if every element of that character was like Ben. I hope not.
Anthony Farrell: We really enjoyed taking the piss out of Ben a little bit because when I met him it was like, “He’s the smoothest, coolest, jet-setting-est guy.” He was like young Richard Branson. So of course if we have a character like that at our disposal, we’re going to take advantage of it.
Lee Eisenberg: B. J. is hilarious in the early episodes because his character doesn’t want to be there and he’s always put-upon. It’s hard to, every day, every episode, have a moment where that guy is just not psyched to be there. Writing for Ryan was hard until he became Ben Silverman, until he became this douchey guy who was pretentious.
It doesn’t take long for New York Ryan to become a cocaine addict who defrauds the company and is ultimately arrested.
Anthony Farrell: We wanted to take it even further than Ben had ever gone and just see if we can have this character, who is a young man from this small town but now living in the big city, go through the wringer. It was playtime for a lot of the writers. It was kind of like, “Okay, we’re gonna get to do something silly with this guy. Let’s take him all the way down.” A lot of that was because it was just funny to us to watch him implode because he was such a douche, and also, to give him a reason to crash so we can bring him back.
By this point, NBC’s ratings were in a state of absolute free fall. Their big ideas for that season were a remake of The Bionic Woman (canceled after eight episodes), the time-travel romance saga Journeyman (canceled after thirteen episodes), the Brooke Shields–led Sex and the City clone Lipstick Jungle (canceled after twenty episodes), and the horror anthology series Fear Itself (canceled after thirteen episodes.) ER was on its last legs and ratings for The Apprentice and My Name Is Earl were down precipitously. The Office, meanwhile, had been growing its audience for three years and was now NBC’s biggest sitcom. As a result, the network wanted as much of it as possible and gave a green light for the first four episodes of season four to be an hour each.
Gene Stupnitsky: I don’t think, creatively, doing four one-hour episodes was the right move.
Lee Eisenberg: I think an hour-long episode needs to feel important, feel significant. It began as an experiment in how would an hour-long comedy work. From a writing perspective it’s really fucking hard because you kinda want to leave the audience wanting more.
Michael Schur: They couldn’t just be one-hour episodes. They had to be episodes that, when they’re shown in repeats, can be broken up neatly into two half-hour parts, [and it] was very hard to tell stories that would arc individually over two episodes but would individually work as just one episode.
Justin Spitzer: Those episodes were a bitch. Greg was aware that at some point we would want to divide them into two for syndication. So that meant that with our three-act structure we were doing at the time, act three had to end in a way where it felt like that was a perfectly good, serviceable episode all on its own, and also have a throw forward to the next act. Those four episodes took much more time to break and figure out than eight standard episodes because of that challenge.
One reason NBC was racing to create as much content as possible was because a writers’ strike was on the horizon that threatened to shut down all of Hollywood. It began on November 5, 2007, and stopped production on The Office’s fourth season after just twelve episodes were shot.
Creed Bratton: We all got together and went down and joined the writers with their placards. We got in front of the studio and marched with them and sang “We Shall Overcome” and songs like that. It was solidarity.
Angela Kinsey: It was kind of a really wild time for us in this town. A bunch of our writers would go hit the picket lines and a few of us actors went with them to support because the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild are so interconnected in our contracts. One can often influence the other, so it’s in our best interest to all support one another.
Ben Patrick: A big issue for The Office in particular during the strike involved streaming rights and streaming royalties for the writers. One of the reasons The Office survived the beginning is that it was one of the first shows you could get, other than Lost, that you could watch on your iPod, because there wasn’t an iPhone at the time. The writers had to put their foot down, because there was a lot of revenue there. I mean, The Office must have made NBC so much money. And the writers were not getting their due part. The agents and the managers for the writers hadn’t caught up to speed of how to negotiate that stuff, so they went to the labor union.
John Krasinski: My take on the writers’ strike was really in support of our comrades. To me, they were the most important part of the show and I wanted them to feel like they were completely and totally supported. It was less about feeling weird whether I was going back to work in a day or a week or whatever, but more just wanting to come back whenever they’re happy. I didn’t want to put myself or anybody else in a position to be upset. So, I was just waiting for them to feel good about it because, obviously, they were the lifeblood of our show, so I wanted them to get whatever they wanted.
Kim Ferry: Steve was amazing because he said ahead of time, “I will not cross that line. I won’t.”
Jenna Fischer: It was really crazy. I remember that Steve didn’t come to work. There was a script that had been already written and I remember there were certain rules. One was that you can’t have writers actively working on a project, but if you have a script you can film it, but you can’t have a writer on set to help it along, which is really typical in television. Steve was a member of the WGA and he’s also a member of Screen Actors Guild, but as a member of WGA, he wouldn’t cross the picket line. And we all really respected him for that.
Justin Spitzer: Actors were still expected to show up and still act, even if the writers weren’t there. This could be apocryphal, but I heard that Steve called in sick and said he had come down with “giant balls” because it took balls to sit out on the strike.
Matt Sohn: It was a little depressing. During the actual first days of the strike it was fun because we all went into work and sat around with all of our writers who were protesting at the time. We all just hung out and talked and didn’t work because the cast didn’t come in. By this time we were all friends with the writers, and everybody was supporting everybody else, but we didn’t know how long it would go on. It was always a little nerve-wracking because you never know. We were like, “Is this going to go on long enough that it could potentially kill the show? Is this going to slow down the momentum?”
Gene Stupnitsky: I thought the strike was pretty good actually because our life before that was just totally The Office, so we actually had a little bit of time to live. We would picket every morning for a couple hours then [Lee and I] would work on [our movie] Bad Teacher in the afternoon. We had nothing else to do. We also went to New York for a while. I imagine it was not as nice for people who weren’t making money and had families to support.
Ben Patrick: The day after the writers’ strike happened, I went to Costco and bought the ten-chickens-for-ten-dollars deal. My wife got really sick of roast chickens.
Carey Bennett: We were probably relieved to have a little time to breathe. But, in any show, we’re all freelancers. So something like that totally can potentially really mess up your life. And you worry that we won’t come back at all. There were of course all kinds of rumors going around, like “If we have a long enough break we won’t be able to come back.” It was nice that we were the family that we were, so everybody was very supportive of each other. I found it to be really sweet actually that the writers did talk to us about why they were doing it, what they were trying to achieve and their hopes that it would trickle down to what we all do.
Justin Spitzer: The first week it was exciting to be a part of that. It felt like it was very much bonding with the staff. But then after that, any writer at the time will tell you it was just a grind, months and months. I wasn’t personally nervous financially. I felt terrible for the writers who were. It was just picketing for four hours a day, holding a sign, and a bunch of people with bad backs. Sometimes I think the strike could have gone on even longer if all the leads said to the writers, “Just go take a break. We’ll be back.” People wouldn’t have been as anxious to come back if they didn’t have to walk around holding signs.
Kim Ferry: They basically notified us that they are closing production down because of the strike. They were like, “We don’t know when it will resume again, but you should consider yourself free to take other work.” And then, I will say, much to everyone’s appreciation, Greg Daniels wrote out a personal check to every single crew member for, I think it was either $1,000 or $1,200. It was literally just from him and his wife, Susanne. And they said, “We are very sorry about what’s happening. We really are looking forward to being together again. This is probably a small amount, but we want to say thank you so much. And we want to try to help if this could pay your rent or bills or . . .” It was incredibly, incredibly generous and kind. He literally paid every single crew member out of his own pocket. Who does that?
Brian Wittle: I think it was $1,000 a person, if I recall. Then I think the cast, I think, pooled their money together and gave each person two grand or something, if I recall.
Kelly Cantley: I think Steve may have had something to do with it too. We all got $2,000. If you talked to anybody else during the writers’ strike, nobody else did that.
Angela Kinsey: We were fortunate because we were on a show that we knew had legs and had a following and that the writers’ strike would definitely derail our season, but that we probably after the fact would not be out of a job. I had friends that when the writers’ strike happened, their shows folded and that was it. It was really devastating for a lot of people. It was a time for us where we weren’t able to work, but we were really supportive of our writers, but I think we all knew that our show would be coming back.
Ben Patrick: Some series did not survive it. And I think there were movie projects that did not survive it either. It was brutal. At the same time, as somebody who worked with the writers, and I recorded everything that they wrote, it did seem like, yeah, you’ve got to stand up for your right. So I supported them as much as I could. I mean, I had no work. But Greg and Steve, they were very generous to the entire crew. They wrote checks that were big enough to make a difference.
The Writers Guild of America strike ended on February 12, 2008. The cast and crew of The Office immediately went back to work, but they only had enough time to make six additional episodes before the season ended. One major plotline they wanted to continue focusing on was Dwight and Angela’s secret relationship, which had been a major element of the show since early in season two when the camera crew caught them making out in Jim’s backyard during his house party.
Rainn Wilson: They both have an obsession for structure and discipline, and I imagine that there was some incident at the copy machine that first brought their eyes together—like someone putting legal-size paper in the letter-size drawer.
Angela Kinsey: Dwight and Angela are that couple that you’re like, “WHAT? NO WAY!” and then you start thinking about it and you realize, “Oh my God, it totally makes sense!” because they’re both these militant, carry-a-clipboard, aggressive people in the workplace—they take it all so seriously.
Jen Celotta: I loved their relationship and how different it was than Jim and Pam, which was slow burning and unconsummated. Dwight and Angela were not going to wait around very much. They both are go-getters and they’re so unusual, and they yet somehow just perfectly fit together. They’re both so strong, but they don’t want to show their feelings. But then there was a softness every once in a while when they reached out for each other, which I absolutely loved. I really loved that dynamic between the two of them. They both were such strong actors that they pulled off this relationship and made it feel very real.
At the start of season four, Angela breaks off her secret relationship with Dwight after he euthanizes her sick, elderly cat Sprinkles and then lies to her about it. She begins dating Andy even though they have absolutely nothing in common and she can barely stand the sight of him.
Angela Kinsey: What’s great about a show that’s on for a long time is you can take these characters that we get to know so well, pair them up with another character within the show, and all of a sudden that character opens up a whole other side to a character you thought you knew so well.
Michael Schur: Pam and Jim had finally gotten together and we wanted to replace a little bit of the longing in the show, and so we decided that Dwight and Angela would break up and we’d flesh out Dwight’s character a little bit by showing that he was truly in love with Angela and missed her a great deal.
Jen Celotta: I loved the outside threat of Andy. I wrote an episode where Andy and his buddies sang a cappella to Angela over the speakerphone. It was so much fun because there’s this kind of earnestness about Andy that is very different than Dwight. I thought that that was an appealing contrast and such a mismatch. You knew that Dwight and Angela were just meant to be, but what was it about Andy that was at all appealing to her?
Angela Kinsey: I felt like Dwight broke Angela’s heart and then she revenge-dated Andy, but then also ended up kind of thinking, “Well, maybe he’ll do.” It’s like that moment in life where you settle. Of course, she didn’t love him and poor Andy was just one of these people who is lost and is always searching, searching, searching. And so to me it kind of made sense how the two of them ended up in this odd relationship and neither of them were happy, but they were both in it for different reasons. I liked what it sort of showed of my character; she was hurt by Dwight and then she kind of took it out on poor Andy.
Ed Helms: There was definitely something sweet and puppy dog about Andy at that time in the show and that was some of my favorite stuff with the character. He just wears his heart on his sleeve and his pursuit of Angela was so unabashed and just straight from the heart and so passionate and full of big, big, grand gestures. The only heartbreaking part is how blind he was, to the lack of reception from Angela. That was kind of what made it beautifully and comedically tragic. But my favorite story lines for Andy were the ones where he was really passionate about something.
At the same time, Michael and Jan’s toxic relationship finally ends after the events in “Dinner Party.” Melora Hardin would occasionally appear as Jan in future seasons, but this ended her run as a main member of the cast.
Jen Celotta: When we had Michael together with Jan, he grew past her at a certain point and it was very difficult. There were a lot of discussions in the room of what to do about that because there was so much comedy in his dynamic and his relationship with her. So as a comedy show, you want to mine that for everything you can, but if you’re trying to make very real characters, it’s sad. It’s sad if he has evolved past someone, and to keep him there because it’s comic doesn’t feel very truthful and doesn’t feel very relatable and doesn’t feel very real.
Melora Hardin: I remember Greg saying to me, “We have to commit to Jan’s unraveling, and that that probably is gonna end your time on the show.” I was sad about it, but at the same time, I was moving on. I did think it was really sweet that Greg told me himself as opposed to me finding out some other way. He’s such a great guy and he’s such a sweet man. But I made peace with it, though I didn’t really keep watching after I left. My husband and I specifically had turned our TV off when we started having kids. Fans come up to me and tell me things about the show all the time. I’m always like, “Wow, you’ve seen way more of The Office than I have.”