I do not understand people who comfort-watch the U.S. version of “The Office.” The show always filled me with an anxiety that, as I have observed anytime I’ve revisited an episode post-pandemic, has fully curdled into dread.
That’s because of how it presented the Dunder-Mifflin employees’ work-life situation, which, to put it generously, seemed not at all psychologically sustainable.
Characters toiled in a drab suburban business park, uncomfortably close to colleagues who were each damaged in some obvious or dangerously hidden way, with an overdetermined boss who insinuated himself into their personal lives as if to dramatize the reddest of all workplace flags: “We’re more like a family here.”
Yet, a dozen years after it ended, “The Office” endures in the cultural memory as an affectionate ensemble comedy responsible for standardizing the faux-documentary format that became dominant in TV sitcoms, and for assembling a remarkable arsenal of writing and performing talent.
After inspiring shows such as “Modern Family,” “Parks and Recreation” and “Abbott Elementary,” “The Office” finally has a literal sequel, whose premise promises to be even darker. The same “documentary” crew that followed the team at the Dunder-Mifflin paper company has set up shop at a decrepit daily newspaper. Gulp.
“The Paper” — co-created by Greg Daniels, who adapted the original British “Office” for American television — follows its predecessor in maintaining an upbeat tone that is distantly at odds with the grim late-capitalist reality that provides its backdrop, and in introducing a protagonist driven by delusional self-regard, or at least irrational optimism.
Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) was seduced by the lore of the newspaper business but didn’t get a journalism degree until the mid-2000s, when the industry was already in decline, which makes us similar in age and lack of professional foresight.
Luckily for him, Ned is a nepo baby who worms his way into a job as editor-in-chief at the Toledo Truth Teller, which is owned by the same paper conglomerate whose portfolio includes Dunder-Mifflin and a toilet-tissue company now sharing space in the newspaper’s cavernous art deco office building.
Given that set-up, it would have been easy to position “The Paper” as a nostalgic commentary on the tragic but well-chronicled erosion of local journalism, but the series is smarter than that.
When Ned takes over, the Truth Teller has already completed its death spiral. Formerly a respectable metro daily, it subsists as a hodgepodge of ads and wire copy with a clickbait website that exists to harvest user data.
The show’s first 10 episodes, dropped in bulk last week onto the Peacock streaming platform, unfold as a familiar-feeling exercise in world and character building, as the existing staff warms to Ned and starts training as reporters.
Only two — the 30-something Mare (Chelsea Frei) and the old-timer Gary (Duane Shephard Sr.) — have any journalistic experience. The rest of the staff seems too incompetent to dress themselves, let alone revive a civic institution.
They’re a combination of overly broad caricatures (including Sabrina Impacciatore as Esmeralda, the flamboyant managing editor) and undifferentiated drones who all seem to do work that could have been automated years ago.
But people seem to forget that “The Office” and “Parks and Rec” took at least a season to find their footing, and that their now-beloved characters deepened over time.
“The Paper” appears to have a solid head start beyond its built-in franchise recognition; for a project whose existence seems to be a cynical concession to various economic realities, the joke-writing has an improbably solid hit/miss ratio.
The closing moments of the pilot, for instance, reveal that the “Office” side character Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) now works as the Truth Teller’s accountant. Having no interest in participating in another workplace documentary, he tries to make his footage unusable by unleashing a torrent of obscenities that inadvertently exposes strange corners of his psyche.
As with “The Office,” “The Paper” conveys a granular hopefulness that requires everybody to ignore a depressing bigger picture. Sure, their once-bustling newsroom is empty for reasons that are probably unfixable, but unlike the crew at Dunder-Mifflin, they at least have some elbow room.