A few years ago, I binged the entire series of The Office during COVID-19 lockdown quarantine. It gave me an excuse to tap into a show that I had completely missed out on, as I had never watched it when it was airing. I always heard good things, but I've heard that about all sorts of different shows and movies only to be disappointed when I engaged with it, so I assumed The Office would be another one of those. Clearly, I would start watching it and hate it.
On the contrary, I ended up doing what I did with Modern Family: I started watching it, pretty instantly realized that I liked it, and breezed through my binge watching, going episode to episode every day until I swept through the series in no time.
It wasn't perfect. There were certain characters that didn't resonate well with me. The show fell off after Michael Scott was no longer the centerpiece and some other characters came in that were annoying. But overall, I ended the series wishing I had experienced the journey for several years with other people, rather than just watching it all in 2020 long after it had ended.
So when they announced that The Paper was going to be a show, I knew that I had to give it a chance from the onset, instead of waiting.
Here are my thoughts—for better and for worse—on my impressions and review of season 1 of The Paper.
75% Pro: The Tone
Arguably even more than the cast of characters themselves, the real gem of The Office was its tone. For the most part, The Paper gets that right, but not fully on the mark.
There's a certain level of awkwardness that it should have so that it plays off as believable. Things shouldn't feel like the pacing sets up for a laugh track, nothing should look staged, reactions should seem genuine. At times, though, I did find myself thinking that they lost track of this and dipped too much into sitcom tropes.
This doesn't feel as "lived in" as the original. Everyone's clothes feel a little too chosen for them, for example. I do feel like some of the acting can turn into performing rather than being. Sometimes, it feels like they were told to ham it up a bit because it would come off too flat, whereas the flatness is part of what sold The Office. It needs that tension.
This feels like The Office, but it feels like the later seasons and not the core 2-5 I would say that really make up what people love about the original the most. IE, The Simpsons of 2025 has some of the essence of the prime 2-10 seasons, but my milk still tasting like my cereal doesn't mean it literally is more cereal, if you catch my drift.
Mixed Bag Pro & Con: Jim & Pam x2
The dynamic between Jim and Pam was in many ways the main hook of the show for a lot of people. Maybe I'm diluting it a bit, but I feel like most fans could probably say they either watched the show primarily for Michael's antics, Dwight's antics, or the Jim and Pam romance. A big portion of the crowd loves shipping people and love stories, so that becomes their investment.
As such, I fully understand not only why the writers of The Paper would want to revisit that dynamic for themselves, but why they would also feel obligated to do that. If there wasn't a couple to root for to get together, I think a good number of viewers would tune this out and say they can't get into these characters.
But they've decided to double it up and have two of those couples right out of the gate in The Paper, and I don't really love that. It feels like there is another layer to this that could possibly be an excuse. Did they not think they could write one of them well enough, so they have a backup couple in case fans reject one of them? Did they not think they were strong enough on their own and want to double up because quantity over quality? I sure hope it isn't that they wanted two white people and then wanted two non-white people to get together for a quota or demographics thing and they were just running the math behind this. Likewise, I don't wish to find out it was manufactured by the studio as some sort of generic equation of "people liked Jim & Pam, do 2 Jim & Pams and we'll get double the ratings!" Ploys like that don't ever really work out.
Between the couples of Ned Sampson & Mare Pritti and Nicole Lee & Detrick Moore, I do like both of them, but I don't LOVE both of them. Honestly, it didn't feel like I watched 10 episodes of growth between these characters in any fashion to reach a point where I was really hoping they would get together in some fashion. That all felt very rushed, and I think part of what made Jim & Pam so special was the teasing.
I can only assume that season 2 will start with Ned and Mare being awkward with each other because "they shouldn't" while Nicole and Detrick are awkward with each other because Detrick got his heart broken and needs to chill out a bit while Nicole needs to grow a heart herself and get closer to his level. Tada.
Ned and Mare comes off as the slightly better duo in the sense of being equals with the caveat of being a little bland, while I feel like Detrick and Nicole comes off as more interesting characters but the power dynamic kind of makes Detrick "winning" Nicole kind of like a contest rather than a romance blossoming. To be honest, both couples kind of feel like they could almost play the brother and sister vibe better than love interests.
I do like all four characters, overall. Detrick is probably my favorite of the bunch.
Massive Con: Esmeralda Grand & Ken Davies
Holy shit, do I not like Esmeralda. Her character is supposed to be obnoxious, but not in this way for me. This is the same problem I had with Nellie in The Office, where a villain is supposed to be disliked, but I didn't want to see her get her comeuppance, I just wanted to see her not in the episode. In pro wrestling, there's a term called "go away heat", where instead of the villain heel getting boos because they're a bad person and you want to see them lose the match, you're booing the performer and the character's writing and you don't want them to take time away from other performers/characters you genuinely do find entertaining.
Esmeralda is like someone watched Modern Family, said "we gotta have a Gloria" and then told Sabrina Impacciatore to do her best Sofia Vergara impression. I've seen some people defend the character, saying they're interpreting it as Esmeralda as a character is trying to put on a performance for the camera. I don't think that is the case at all, or we would have seen her change her voice and act like a human being during her sad moments manufactured to try to convince me to like the character and sympathize with her. Newsflash, it didn't happen. I would love to see her character written out of the show or coming back in season 2 with a completely different vibe. I don't want to watch the redemption of her villainous character at all.
With Ken Davies, I just feel like the whole bible of the character is just one page that has typed out in big letters "do The Office". He feels the least like an actual character and more like a fever dream of what someone remembers characters from The Office to look and sound like. I don't believe whatsoever that this is an actual person living in this world. What is he, The Great Gazoo from The Flintstones?
I haven't seen Tim Key in anything else (same with Impacciatore), but I assume they're better than this. In 10 episodes, they never got out of coming across to me like people auditioning to be in an Office spoof, rather than actual characters within the show.
Major Pro: Travis
He's not on the same level of the series regulars, for some reason, but Travis stands out to me as the most consistently funny character of the show. Frankly, he's funnier when he's interacting with the others than he is in his own side bits, which I'm already afraid will contribute to his flanderization and turn him into a total dimwit doofus instead of the more subdued character that I like better now. Give me more scenes of him just being a sly scumbag and less of him pulling a Kramer waking up from the melatonin.
The Oscar Situation
Why is Oscar here? Don't get me wrong, I like the character. I liked him a lot in The Office. But the coincidence of him working at the place that the documentary crew is going, and then going from an accountant to a report, just screams to me "we reached out to see how many people would be interested in a sequel series and Oscar Nunez was one of the only ones who said yes, so we had to figure out a way to put him into this new show instead of where he would've fit in with The Office 2.0"
I did enjoy him calling up Stanley. There does remain potential for him to bring other guests onto the show, which could be fun. But I didn't get a chance to see much from him so far in 10 episodes, and it still feels a little forced.
The Others
Is Barry just literally that they took jokes they wrote for Stanley and made a new surly older black man?
Adam has some charm, but he's also a little over the top already. I don't find him as engaging of a character as Ryan was, if he's in a similar position.
Adelola hasn't completely won me over yet, but I like her sass. She just hasn't had as much to do and no real episodes primarily focused on her.
Marv and everyone else either were there just to fill a functional role in a scene or weren't memorable enough for me to even recall their names.
My Expectations Going Forward
I think this is going to end up following the pattern of That 90's Show where as a follow-up, I felt like they were doing a decent job trying to replicate the formula, but they weren't able to capture the magic. I didn't watch season 2 of that show, as I wasn't loving the characters (and some of them I outright disliked and thought were obnoxious). Season 2 of The Paper will get a watch from me, but I'm going to be hoping that it is as much of a level up as The Office had. The first season of that was rough as well, and season 2 was where it really anchored me in. Maybe The Paper will, too. If it doesn't, I could very well see season 2 being the last season I watch. There is still time to find a better rhythm, prevent some stuff from getting too wacky, and further bring depth to some characters that have a lot of potential, but haven't hit their stride yet.
That's me telling my truth on the Toledo Truth-Teller, but what do you think about the series? Drop a comment below!
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