The Paper, the brand new spin-off of The Workplace that’s streaming now on Peacock, will most likely be fairly humorous to the common viewer. To a journalist who has lived by means of all the pieces the occupation has suffered over the previous 20 years or so, the office mockumentary is a cathartic encapsulation of a lot of the nonsense I’ve by no means been in a position to clarify to my family and friends who don’t work within the discipline. The Paper’s 10-episode season portrays the trials and tribulations that include working in journalism in 2025, whether or not that be on an area degree just like the volunteer reporters of the fictional Toledo Fact Teller or on a bigger scale, and the present does it with a shocking degree of care, sympathy, and advocacy for the vital work persons are making an attempt to do in not possible circumstances that threaten to undermine them at each flip.
Admittedly, I used to be fairly skeptical coming into The Paper, not as a result of I didn’t love The Workplace or as a result of I had my doubts about how it might deal with its too-close-to-home subject material, however as a result of all of the early promo trailers did nothing for me. They didn’t actually have jokes and appeared to be largely banking on nostalgia for the unique sequence to attract individuals in. If nothing else, that’s made the truth that The Paper is fairly nice a pleasing shock.
The Paper picks up a number of years after The Workplace. Dunder Mifflin, the paper provide firm that the unique sequence documented, has shut down, and the documentary filmmakers who adopted its office antics are searching for a brand new topic. They find yourself within the workplace of the Toledo Fact Teller, an area newspaper that has been so underfunded that its output is primarily information pulled from AP, mind-numbing listicles, and clickbait non-stories. New editor-in-chief Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) has left his cozy life in gross sales behind to attempt to revive the legacy paper, solely to search out that he’s coping with each roadblock the fashionable journalist faces when making an attempt to do the work.
The Fact Teller has misplaced virtually all of its institutional information, has no actual funding to construct itself again up, and is beneath the possession of a bigger company that has nothing to do with journalism. The truth is, its house owners solely stand to see their place jeopardized if the publication digs slightly deeper into the corporate’s personal enterprise practices. However, Sampson is decided to make it work and depends on a small workforce of extremely inexperienced, volunteer reporters to get issues shifting. Gee, that certain feels like each media firm, massive and small, proper now, huh?
I’ve labored in journalism each on an area degree at my small-town Georgia newspaper and at websites learn by hundreds of thousands like Kotaku, and watching The Paper was like reliving 10 lives over the course of 10 episodes. The present succinctly sums up all of the hurdles getting in the best way of fine journalism in 2025 in a manner that might be type of horrifying if it weren’t delivered within the hilarious deadpan so synonymous with The Workplace. Ned and his workforce face underfunding, company sabotage, and a must additionally grind out stomach-turning churnalism to assist preserve the lights on. Making an attempt to do reporting that’s each useful to the general public and clears a baseline moral threshold is a endless battle when the percentages are stacked in opposition to you. Almost each episode of The Paper touches on some very actual challenges journalists are coping with as they simply attempt to do their jobs within the fashionable media panorama, and I used to be really happy with how true-to-life it felt, even when taking issues to their most absurdist excessive.
The Workplace was all the time at its greatest when it exaggerated mundane workplace drama into its most comical, awkward, and uncomfortable finish phases, however specializing in a gross sales workforce, particularly one promoting one thing as unremarkable as paper, gave it a common attraction. The present is much less in regards to the specifics of the work than it’s the ubiquitous expertise of clocking in and making an attempt to benefit from one thing dreadfully boring with a bunch of individuals you most likely in any other case wouldn’t hang around with. The Paper, in the meantime, is so particular and actual, I really feel prefer it may double as a surprisingly instructional device for a common viewers in regards to the state of journalism proper now, who are available with preconceived notions of the way it all works.
For instance, there’s an episode by which Esmeralda, the earlier interim EIC of the paper, tries to get the workforce to go down the highway of doing advertorials to cowl some life-style merchandise she desires, and Ned intervenes and says the workforce will assessment this stuff as a substitute of uncritically selling them for the paper. Ultimately, it turns into clear that these merchandise all have some severe opposed results, resulting in the employees getting sick or injured, and Ned, in a head-on collision of journalistic ideas and the worry of incoming deadlines, tries to check all of them himself without delay, and that goes about in addition to you’d count on. Moderately than making an attempt to utterly recapture The Workplace’s magic by making Ned a carbon copy of Steve Carell’s Michael Scott, The Paper finds its personal method to the identical hysterical conclusions, all in a manner that feels very particular to the office it follows. The Paper is definitely fairly restrained in its ties to its predecessor when it may have cynically leaned into that connection to be able to bait the school children who marathon the older sequence between lessons into watching it.
The strongest tie The Paper has to The Workplace is in Oscar (Oscar Nunez), the only real returning character in the principle solid, who definitely has his personal stuff occurring, but in addition typically simply looks like he’s there to carry consideration to the truth that this present is a spin-off of one thing else. Nunez has a number of scenes that really feel tailored to remind those that Michael Scott is someplace on the market off-screen. A number of the callbacks are good, just like the metanarrative of him not desirous to be filmed by the documentary crew following him round once more, however then he straight quotes bits from Workplace episodes, and it loses me. We’re all of the merchandise of the roles and coworkers we as soon as had, however I had a number of cases of being like, “Oh, proper, this present may in the future be some type of bid for a shared universe of mockumentaries for Peacock to churn out, not in contrast to the gross churnalism Ned and his workforce attempt to keep away from.” Maybe I’m being cynical, however The Paper stands so properly by itself that I don’t really feel prefer it wanted the Workplace tie-in to prop it up.
All that being mentioned, I get why Peacock would need to return to The Workplace. Its office documentary format remains to be actually intelligent, and once I watched the unique present again within the day, I used to be all the time fascinated by how it might current scenes that, so far as the characters concerned had been involved, had been clearly not alleged to be on digicam. A number of the most iconic scenes from the original series had been shot at a distance, with un-mic’d actors pantomiming a scene the viewer ostensibly wasn’t alleged to see, or they’re shot by means of the crack of a barely opened door just like the crew is being nosey as shit for the plot. When The Workplace blew the lid off this and had a member of the documentary crew intrude with the motion onscreen 9 seasons in, it was met with a variety of blowback from longtime followers. The Paper is already extra overtly enjoying with the fourth wall, so possibly that can set viewer expectations appropriately, however even after 12 years, the format nonetheless works, and The Paper is utilizing it properly with out resorting to the identical playbook.
I’m glad I gave The Paper an opportunity after my first impression of it left me chilly. A office comedy a few fumbling newspaper may have made a variety of uninformed or irresponsible jokes a few occupation that’s traditionally misunderstood, each willfully and since misinformation spreads on the web like wildfire. As an alternative, it has a shocking degree of empathy for the plight of the fashionable reporter. You may have company house owners who know nothing in regards to the job meddling in your affairs, commenters nipping at your heels, and also you’re most of the time barely compensated or rewarded on your efforts. I haven’t set foot in an area paper’s newsroom in six years, however I nonetheless marveled at how clearly The Paper sees that a variety of company media’s largest obstacles are the identical ones small-town reporters are combating in opposition to in cities you’ve by no means heard of however which can be full of people that nonetheless learn the print model of their native information. All of its raunchy humor, intelligent cinematography, and painstakingly awkward comedic set items of the sort you understand and love from its predecessor funnel right into a mockumentary that, on the finish of the day, humanizes the individuals behind the bylines, and is aware of they’re at their greatest after they’re free to do the work they got here right here to do, with out fixed interference from the powers that be.
