Spoilers for Season 1, Episode 1 of ‘The Paper’.
When Greg Daniels and Michael Koman first ventured out to bring this show into existence, they certainly did not like the thought of dropping the whole season at once. In fact, the two minds behind it were against it. After all, The Office, which brought Greg Daniels mainstream success, relied on week-by-week anticipation from its fans in the year 2005.
However, in a recent interview with TheWrap, the Office creator Daniels confessed 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 took a different turn when the people from Peacock, the production house that is currently airing the first season of The Paper reminded them that the new generation of fans did not get to watch The Office in real time, but years later when they found the show and binge-watched it late at night on sites like Netflix or the Peacock subscription service. At which point, Daniels said that their reluctance to wait for a weekly episode “kind of evaporated.”
Koman, on the other hand, did not have to be convinced because he confessed that he likes binge-watching a series until it’s finished. “If I’m hooked, I don’t want to wait a week to see what happens.” Of course, if the co-creator thinks it is a good idea, Daniels finally came around for the same reason, explaining that we get to enjoy more and enough to decide if we’ll like the series without being bombarded with promos in between episodes.
From Scranton to Toledo
More than a decade since The Office ended its nine-season run, the cameras are finally back in a new working environment, all the way to The Toledo Truth Teller, which appears to be a struggling local newspaper company. The pilot episode does not waste any time paying homage to its previous form as Bob Vance (Robert Ray Shafer) of Vance Refrigeration appears, nonchalantly revealing that Dunder Mifflin was sold to an Ohio-based firm in the year 2019. Phyllis (Phyllis Smith) and Stanley (Leslie David Baker) from Dunder Mifflin are still in contact, but Scranton’s paper-throwing days are over.
As Daniels further clarified, it is vital that this new show either lives or dies on its own. The reason for which is that they didn’t want to rely on cameos by The Office every week. It was also a priority for them to preserve the emotional finale of the original show, and thus one of the priorities is making the new show while preserving the original. Needless to say, the finale of The Office was as beautiful as the one we saw between Michael and Dwight on the day of his major triumph. Everyone involved in the production of The Office had moved on, according to the creators.
However, Daniels kept the door ajar when he said that in the event that The Paper turns out to be a huge success, like its predecessor, perhaps then more familiar faces will appear.
Why Not Just a Reboot?
Actually, we have been begging for a revival of Office ever since it topped Netflix’s most-watched lists, particularly when NBC brought back ‘Will & Grace’. However, Daniels never considered it. “You can’t recapture that cast or those characters,” he said. Well, as fans of the series, we all know that no one wants to see another actor play the role of Dwight or Pam.
Instead, he ended up with a new concept that featured a new work environment, a new cast of characters, but the same documentary crew that had Kevin running over a turtle. It wasn’t until he was encouraged by his old Office colleagues, who informed him that the original show was untouchable and that Daniels gave the green light.
Koman, who wasn’t interested in the Office spinoff at first, revealed that the newspaper environment was what drew him in. He somehow managed to like the notion of a newspaper business on its last leg, but someone is working hard to keep it alive, before he completely lost interest when Greg pitched it to him as a spinoff. He joked that he is still interested, however. The inside scoop on the first season of The Paper Daniels: Reunited with Office regular alum Paul Lieberstein (a.k.a. Toby the HR Guy), who wrote the finale episode. In this episode, Ned’s efforts were finally paying off, and the paper was getting rave reviews, culminating in a shock kiss between Ned and Mare (Frei). With new romance, new mayhem in the newsroom, and winks at Scranton, The Paper doesn’t feel like a repeat of The Office because it feels like a gritty, contemporary cousin. By the time it launched on Peacock, The Paper had already received a second-season renewal, proving that even twelve years later, the Office universe has a lot left to say.
