Every sitcom faces impending plot points and impending thematic shifts as the characters find and settle into relationships. If it isn’t between the main characters (Psych, How I Met Your Mother), then they find it with others (30 Rock). Often times fans enjoy the lead up to the relationships the most, the will-they won’t-they dynamic as the characters struggle to express their feelings. But eventually, with rare exceptions, the characters fall in love, get married, and have kids (as long as cancellation doesn’t catch them first). With the shift in relationships comes a maturity as the characters go from inexperienced to responsible adults. And when this happens the show has to decide how, not if, it reflects this shift. One of my favorite show of all time, The Office does an exceptional job at showing this shift in life and providing commentary on what it means.

The main relationship in The Office, between Jim and Pam, begins in the final minutes of season three when Jim impromptu drives to Scranton and asks Pam out, catching her off guard with the film crew. By season six, when they get married, Jim and Pam are much more mature than they began. Jim no longer spends all his time pranking Dwight (though he still finds the time), and is making a move for Co-Manager after a botched relationship with Charles Minor from the corporate office. Pam, the once insecure and shy secretary, now uses her sales experience and confidence to hold herself in higher regard. More and more, the couple’s plots involve business decisions or family dilemmas as they struggle to deal with their changing lives. These are changes you want to see in people, and the show would suffer without them, but they aren’t necessarily desirable for sitcom characters. While the plot is still relatable (except the clunky execution of Brian or Kathy), it doesn’t lend itself to as much humor. The Office maintains comedy by juxtaposing the maturing characters (not just Jim and Pam) with the immature. Dwight, while he does mature as he looks for a relationship and invests in property, does so in a caricatured way. Michael, always looking for a long term relationship, never loses his childish behavior as both a manager and friend. When he eventually leaves, the commanding but emotionally stunted Robert California takes over. In the last season, Dwight finally gets the promotion of his dreams and becomes manager. Placing these characters as the bosses allows them to interact with the entire cast and keep the humor going. Dwight and Michael illustrate the extremes of maturity, allowing the other characters to physically interact with the changes in their personalities. Still, the show trends towards maturity, and with Dwight as boss in the final season, the episodes become more about the emotion than the humor as The Office approaches its finale.

The second way in which The Office addresses people maturing is through eras. I think The Office breaks into three main eras, or groups. The first is the older employees; Phyllis, Stanley, Creed, and Michael have all been at Dunder Mifflin for longer than most. Phyllis and Stanley are both in relationships (though Phyllis doesn’t get married until season two and Stanley keeps cheating on his wives), but more importantly they are mature and have settled into their lives. The second ‘era’ is the main characters; Jim, Pam, Dwight, Angela, and Andy are all in their late twenties, joke around more, don’t see their current job as their career, and are still looking for ‘the one’. This group also changes the most as I already discussed. Michael probably belongs in the first group, but he thinks of himself as part of the second group as he avoids growing up. The third group doesn’t even appear in the first few seasons, but Erin, Pete, and Clark are introduced in season five or nine. Even by the end of the show, they haven’t begun to mature in the way that the other groups have. Andy, like Michael before, forms a bridge between the last two groups. While Jim and Pam, and Dwight and Angela, find love, Andy is left still looking and insecure. All the eras blend fluidly, and old characters seem just as much a part of the world as the new ones. Still, the distinct eras within the characters, and the development of initially background characters like Daryl or Oscar, means there is always a young and new group of people to follow through life. More powerfully, it gives another physical form to aging. Phyllis sees herself in Erin, she and Stanley both watch in admiration as Jim and Pam find each other, and Daryl becomes the sarcastic man to Andy that Jim was to Dwight. Pete and Clark are directly compared to Jim and Dwight, and the relationships between the younger employees can be seen to mirror that of the older ones. After seeing Jim and Pam mature so much, it’s nostalgic and bittersweet for them and the audience to see young love in Pete and Erin. This nostalgia gives way to want, and Jim and Pam spend most of the final season redefining their love in their new lives.

Much of the finale of The Office is spent dwelling on how things can change so silently, slowly, yet dramatically. The penultimate episode ends with the in-show documentary airing its first scene, an actual scene from season one where Michael tells Jim he has “much to learn, young grasshopper”. As nostalgia overwhelms, its hard to believe it’s the same Jim Halpert that’s sitting in Poor Richard’s watching the doc. Afterall, it’s been nearly a decade. The finale, which takes place a year later, sees a last reunion of the Dunder Mifflin employees before most of them part ways and before the viewers say goodbye. Dwight, finally a regional manager, is left with only four employees from the early seasons (Phyllis, Meredith, Angela, and Erin). Everyone else has gone or is going, and the office is full of unfamiliar faces. Andy hands us one of a dozen powerful quotes, wishing “there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you’ve left them”. For whatever stage of their lives Dunder Mifflin was, it was a home to them all; Stanley, Pam, Ryan, Creed, Erin, and the list goes on. While it’s easy to feel down that the character’s respective stages of life are over, it’s important to see the positive. Eras will come and go, and you will live through parts of your life and then it will change. But different isn’t bad, it’s just different. The new employees will become a part of the family, in so much the way Pete and Clark did the year before. And the older employees will remember the last decade and the people it brought, touchingly conveyed through Creed’s singing in the final minutes. But times will change and people mature. You need to appreciate your surroundings, adapt and not cling as they change, and mature as you age because inevitably it will all happen. And life doesn’t usually have season finales to let you know.