The final seasons of The Office are not without their criticisms, but one scene in particular may have been the most controversial moment of all if it had ever made it to air. One of the most popular sitcoms in television history, The Office debuted in 2005, following the British series of the same name from which it was inspired. It aired for nine seasons with more than 200 total episodes and remains very popular due to fans still streaming episodes on Peacock.

Steve Carell left the show as its lead in season 7, and keeping the series interesting without Michael Scott proved to be a challenge for the remaining cast and crew. The love story with Jim and Pam was also starting to run its course, as there wasn’t much else to do with these “will they or won’t they?” characters after they finally got married and had children. That led to a storyline in the final season that teased some marital tension between the two.

As it turns out, things could have been much worse for Jim and Pam if not for John Krasinski getting involved. In the new book Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office, which recounts behind-the-scenes stories from the show, Krasinski details how the showrunners planned to include a scene in the episode “After Hours” where Jim would “make out” with Pam’s maternity leave replacement, Cathy, when they were left alone in a Florida hotel room.

As told in the book and regaled by the New York Post, John Krasinski outright refused to film that scene. This was unlike the actor, but he felt strongly that filming such a scene would betray the audience that spent years investing into these characters and their relationship. So many diehard fans had stuck with the show after Steve Carell’s exit, but Krasinski believed that Jim making out with another woman would have only driven more fans away.

”That’s the only time I remember putting my foot down… I remember saying things that I never thought I’d say before, like, ‘I’m not going to shoot it.’ 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. And I think that if you show Jim cheating, they’ll never come back.”

Ultimately, the creative team sided with John Krasinski and scrapped the scene in question. In the book, Greg Daniels also touched on why storylines about tension in the relationship were considered. As Daniels explains, the thinking was to tease the audience that maybe Jim and Pam weren’t going to work out after all, but the plan was still to keep them together by the finale.

”I feel like that kind of worry was good in terms of the fans’ engagement. I think they knew what was coming. They were very comfortable with the show they were getting, and I needed to worry them that maybe I was going to give them a bad ending so they were happy when they got a good ending.”

As we know now, Jim and Pam lived happily ever after. Now, fans can relive the whole saga by binging episodes of The Office on Peacock. This news comes to us from The New York Post.