Spoilers ahead for ‘The Paper’ Season 1, Episode 1.
When Greg Daniels and Michael Koman first set out to launch The Paper, they weren’t sold on the idea of dropping the entire season at one go. In fact, both creators pushed back against it. After all, The Office that made Daniels a household name thrived on week-to-week anticipation by fans, back when it aired for the first time in the year 2005
Recently, on an interview with TheWrap, The Office creator Daniels admitted that they “weren’t the ones lobbying for a binge release. The original Office rolled out weekly, so that felt natural to us.” But things turned out differently when the people from Peacock, the production house that is currently airing the first season of The Paper told reminded them that the modern fans didn’t watch The Office in real time and they discovered it years later and devoured it in long, late-night binges on platforms like Netflix or via Peacock subscription. At that point, Daniels realised that their resistance to waiting for a weekly episode“kind of evaporated.”
Koman, for his part, didn’t need much convincing because he admitted in his interview that he prefers binging on a show till it’s over. “If I’m hooked, I don’t want to wait a week to see what happens.” And of course, if the co-creator admits that it is a good idea, Daniels eventually came around for the same, pointing out that dropping a full season gives us more to chew on and enough to decide if the show clicks with us without being overexposed to promos in between episodes.
From Scranton to Toledo
More than a decade after The Office wrapped its nine-season run, the mockumentary cameras have finally found a new workplace to invade, all the way to The Toledo Truth Teller, which is apparently a struggling local newspaper company. The pilot wastes no time nodding to its roots as Bob Vance (Robert Ray Shafer) of Vance Refrigeration shows up, casually mentioning that Dunder Mifflin was sold to an Ohio-based company in the year 2019. Phyllis (Phyllis Smith) and Stanley (Leslie David Baker) from Dunder Mifflin are still in touch, but Scranton’s paper-slinging days are long gone.
Daniels explained that it is important that this new show should either live or die on its own. The creators didn’t want to lean on cameos from The Office every single week. It was equally important for them, and they wanted to protect the original’s emotional finale, making it one of the priorities while making the new show. After all, the ending of The Office was just as beautiful as we saw Michael surprising Dwight on his big day. Everyone who once participated in the making of The Office had moved on, and the creators don’t want to undo that.
Still, Daniels left the door cracked, saying that in case The Paper ends up becoming a huge success like its predecessor, maybe we will see more familiar faces.
Why Not Just a Reboot?
We have been clamoring for an Office reboot ever since it dominated Netflix’s most-watched charts, especially after NBC revived ‘Will & Grace’. But Daniels never entertained it. “There’s no way to recreate that cast or those characters,” he said firmly. After all, as fans of the show, nobody truly wants to see someone else playing the character of Dwight or Pam.
Instead, he landed on a fresh idea which revolved around a new workplace, a new cast team, but the same documentary crew who caught Kevin running over a turtle. It wasn’t until encouragement from his old Office colleagues, who reminded him that the original show was untouchable and that Daniels gave the green light.
Koman, who initially wasn’t interested in an Office spinoff, admitted the newspaper setting won him over. He somehow loved the idea of a dying newspaper company, and someone is trying really hard to breathe life back into it, but he lost all interest as Greg pitched the idea as a spinoff. Koman joked, but stated that he is still interested.
Behind the scenes of the first season of The Paper Daniels, reunited with Office alum Paul Lieberstein (aka Toby the HR), who penned the finale. In that episode, we saw Ned’s leadership finally paying off, earning the paper major accolades and ending with a surprising kiss between Ned and Mare (Frei).
With new romance, new newsroom chaos, and subtle nods to Scranton, The Paper doesn’t feel like a copy-paste of The Office because it feels like a scrappy, modern cousin. By the time it premiered on Peacock, the series had already been renewed for a second season, proving that twelve years later, the Office universe still has plenty left to say.
