A Statement About Mr. & Mrs. Halpert

Confession time: I have been giddy for five months.

Ever since that silent moment in a Pennsylvania (read: Los Angeles set) hospital room when a doctor told Pam Beesley and Jim Halpert that they are pregnant, I have been waitingwaitingwaitingwaiting for The Next Step.

And next Thursday, I'm going to get it.

It's a risky proposition: Who in their right mind would marry off the will-they-or-won't-they central couple five years in to a potentially ongoing franchise? That romantic tension is supposed to carry whole seasons; the unplanned pregnancy should spur a crisis of coupledom resulting in Jim fleeing the state to seek everything he'll miss when he becomes a father, and should magically drive Pam back into the arms of her former fiancé Roy. Or something.

But the brilliant brilliance of the Jim and Pam dynamic is their complete normalcy. Even when there was drama (and there has been plenty), they reacted as normal, mature, real-life adults. There was no screaming, no yelling, no overreactive not-speaking-to-eachothers (and being 3/4 of the way through a Felicity marathon, I can tell you that those are a dime a dozen on network television).

Even this unplanned pregnancy is real: there is no discussion of "what happened?", no blame placed, merely happiness at the surprise that was going to happen eventually anyway.

There will be a lot of discussion and a lot of watching of the ratings numbers after the hour-long wedding special next week. People will debate whether or not the show has been ruined because the tension is gone. I've got news for people who think this is it: the "tension" has been gone for a long time. Ever since that fateful afternoon when Jim took his name out of the running for a corporate job in New York and rushed back to Scranton to ask Pam to go to dinner with him, this moment has been inevitable.

If the wedding was put off for artificial reasons, that would ruin things. The beauty of The Office in general and Jim and Pam in specific is that they are true to life. We all know Jim and Pam, and we all want to be Jim and Pam, and there is no earthly, real reason to keep them apart.

And so I am giddy for next week. I thoroughly expect to jump up and down, and tear up, and have an hour-long freakout. I can't wait.