The Paper (2025)
When the white, redhead Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) enters the lobby of the building that houses the Toledo Truth Teller, he pauses to tell the unseen people behind the camera that his hero as a young boy was Clark Kent, not Superman. The point, as he goes on to articulate with nerdy zeal, is that Superman’s alter ego, a reporter, was the true hero. From Greg Daniels (the man who developed the American version of The Office for NBC [2005- 2013]) and Michael Koman (who has written for Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Saturday Night Live) comes The Paper, not quite a spin off, but indelibly connected to The Office. You see, The Paper is also about a paper company – toilet and news – and its staff who are (like the original Scranton, PA group) a collection of what one could lovingly call, oddballs and misfits.
Diverse in race, sex, and age, they look blessedly normal and mid-western, that is except for Esmeralda (Sabrina Impacciatore), the heavily accented, stylish, and flamboyant Italian editor of the paper’s digital platform. Esmeralda, as we soon found out, is both sneaky and prone to hilarious linguistic missteps, as when she encourages the hesitant Ned when introducing himself rather sheepishly, to not be so self-defecating (she intended to say deprecating, of course). Much like the format and feel of The Office, The Paper takes this new batch of quirky and uninspired employees and follows them around with the unseen documentary crew.
Although the show could have taken the easy route with one-to-one matches for the clueless and always inappropriate Michael (Steve Carell), the sarcastic Jim (John Krasinski), the witty Pam (Jenna Fischer), the shrewd and mean-spirited Dwight (Rainn Wilson), the on-my-last-nerve Stanley (Leslie David Baker), slow and steady Kevin (Brian Baumgartner), bitter Angela (Angela Kinsey), and ditzy Kelly (Mindy Kaling), they did not. Instead, the characters who inhabit the paper have a whole new set of quirks. The one holdover from the original cast is Oscar Martinez (played by Óscar Núñez). Oscar’s reaction upon first sight of the documentary film crew is priceless. Aggressively gesturing towards the camera, he commands the unseen people behind it to stay away from him because he has not signed the necessary legal documents to give them permission to film him. Hilariously, after his dramatic over-reaction, the video gives way to text letting the audience know that the original release that Oscar signed had no end date.
Like The Office, much of the comedy ensues from the bizarre interactions, misinterpretations, and missteps of the employees. When Ned enters the newsroom and begins taking cellphone photos without introduction, a suspicious Nicole (Ramona Young) locks him in the glass copier room outside of which the staff gather to interrogate him. As we soon learn, The Toledo Truth Teller – like Dunder Mifflin in The Office – is floundering and relying mainly on re-printing news reports from the AP wire which the former soldier and compositor, the white female Mare (Chelsea Frei) selects. They also rely on the stunningly unexciting click-bait curated by digital editor Esmeralda. What is clear is that the paper’s once storied investment in vibrant, interesting, local news – the days, as we learn, when the building was once staffed by hundreds of Truth Teller employees – have long since passed. This demise is best exemplified by the black and elderly Barry (Duane Shepard Sr.), noteworthy as the only true journalist in the newsroom, who nevertheless sleeps his way through most of the first episode!
But as Ned explains while standing on the desk of the young, quirky black female accountant Adelola (Gbemisola Ikumelo), all that is about to change, if his colleagues will buy into his new vision for vibrant local reporting. Why is Ned standing on an unphased Adelola’s desk? Well, to announce to the newsroom that he actually did not #MeToo anyone, an announcement he feels compelled to make because a jealous Esmeralda sent out messages to social media saying that he did not #MeToo anyone, a statement Ned feels would only have been necessary if he had indeed #MeTooed someone! As we soon come to find out Esmeralda’s social media posts about Ned were not the innocent mistake that she claimed, but a way to get back at him for taking the top job which she had expected to claim.
A major issue at the Toledo Truth Teller, however, is that the staff’s new roles as journalists must be on a volunteer basis because of budgetary restrictions at the paper. Another perhaps even more significant issue is that almost none of them has journalism experience. But it’s worse than you think! In the first team meeting when asked by Ned about their writing experience, one person responds that he had written an essay in junior high school and authored a group text, and the young black male employee Detrick (Melvin Gregg) announces that he has tweeted. Not promising! When Ned calls on Barry to confirm that he is currently employed as a journalist at the paper (hoping that he will perhaps say something inspirational), he stands up and repeats the fact before sitting back down and lighting a cigarette. Making eye contact with Ned, Mare shakes her head from side to side as if to say, “don’t bother”. To emphasize how ill-equipped this group is to become journalists, in episode one, the adjacent building in the city center is on fire, a fact that none of them notices.
Detrick’s character is interestingly out-of-the box for a young black man. Well-dressed in a rather conservative manner, but lacking swagger and confidence, he haplessly pursues his young Asian-American colleague Nicole (Ramona Young) who admits to several failed relationships (including one with a married man). Nicole is initially repelled by Detrick’s kind and persistent attentiveness. You see, she’s attracted to men who reject her, the opposite of caring, vulnerable Detrick.
To whom does Ned report? The churlish and completely unhelpful Brit Ken (Tim Key), who interrupts Ned’s attempt at an inspirational show-and-tell by seizing the framed photos of past black and white issues of the newspaper and warning him that he will electrify one of them so that Ned (and other employees) will dare not remove them from the walls again. (Ken, by the way, is soon caught embezzling money from the newspaper, money that gets redirected to Ned’s lofty goals of original reporting.) Ned’s first real test comes early in the first season when in episode 2 he discovers that Esmeralda has cancelled their subscription to the AP wire, meaning that Ned and the crew of volunteer non-journalists must produce a newspaper filled with local news from scratch by 6pm to send to the printers.
The Paper is a quirky, upbeat, heart-warming, comedy mockumentary with interesting characters and hilarious scenarios. Like The office, it is filmed on location, not on a sound stage, and there is no laugh track or studio audience. Much of the humour stems from Ned’s bumbling attempts to establish his leadership while re-establishing the newspaper, finding his footing with his bosses, and figuring out his eccentric colleagues.
The smart show introduction represents a cross-section of random people misusing newspapers for anything and everything but what they were intended – reading. Instead, they are mats for a card game, a tarp for dog to pee on, a hat for the beach, and a wrap for bread, fish, and plates. In short, they are discardable and overlooked like the Toledo Truth Teller, that is, until now!