Papering Over ‘The Office’
“Nobody wants this!” Oscar Martinez of The Office insists to the documentary camera crew on the hunt for what became of the Dunder-Mifflin crew 12 years after the long-running program went off the air. “Don’t you guys have enough after nine years?”
Evidently, no, Oscar. We need more. Much more.
The Paper, which began streaming earlier this month on Peacock, is Office creator Greg Daniels’s encore, a reimagined single-camera workplace sitcom that basks in the glory of its predecessor, adapts many of its conceits to the post-COVID-19 employment landscape of the 2020’s, and reminds us that even dreary contemporary white-collar jobs in declining industries have their redeeming — and hilarious — moments. In short, The Paper doesn’t quite escape the shadow of its big brother, but that’s just fine with us.
The eponymous newspaper of the series is the Toledo Truth Teller, a once storied local outlet that covered politics, business, sports, and the arts in Northeast Ohio and beyond.