The Alliance (The Office)

Dwight Schrute (played by Rainn Wilson) forms a Survivor-esque alliance with Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) against the other employees—later adding Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer).

Michael agonizes over writing the perfect greeting in her birthday card, and in the end, his joke falls flat, ruining the party and the employees' morale.

"The Alliance" was viewed by an estimated 5.4 million viewers and received a 2.4/6% rating share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49.

Dwight Schrute feels threatened by the downsizing rumors at Dunder Mifflin, and forms an alliance with co-worker Jim Halpert.

Jim giddily grabs Pam's hand as he explains that he has persuaded Dwight to go undercover at the Stamford branch.

Dwight claims to the documentary crew that he proposed the alliance with Jim as a plan for this betrayal from the beginning.

When the episode was being written, many of the cast and crew feared that Oscar refusing to let Michael off the hook for his walk-a-thon pledge was a lapse from the realistic tone the show was aiming for, more resembling the unreasonable behavior seen on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

During the writing of the episode, Daniels made the writers spend actual time on the set, most notably in Michael's office.

Executive producer Greg Daniels considered making the episode a two-parter, one focusing on the alliance and another focusing on Meredith's birthday party, but the appearance of party hats in the alliance scenes caused him to nix this idea.

[4] Although not much footage made it into the final episode, the producers thought this was a nice character touch for the new employee.

"[2][3] Although the crew felt that the wall-slamming version was more dramatic, they realized that it caused the episode to go from a comedy to an "angry drama".

[2] In its original American broadcast on April 12, 2005, "The Alliance" was viewed by an estimated 5.4 million viewers and received a 2.4/6% rating share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49.

"[10] Television critic Robin Pierson noted that in the episode, "The Jim and Pam relationship begins to take real shape here."

Adams praised the scene wherein Dwight emerged from the box, calling it one of "The Office's first great sight gags".