A few years ago, Greg Daniels was looking for a partner to help executive produce “The Paper,” his new mockumentary chronicling the cubicle drones tasked with saving a dying Toledo, Ohio, newspaper. But as he pitched the idea to “Saturday Night Live” alum Michael Koman, he left out an especially key fact: The show was going to be a follow-up to “The Office.”
“When Greg brought the idea of a documentary covering this newspaper, I just thought it was a good idea. I didn’t know until later that it was going to be connected to ‘The Office’!” Koman says. Here’s what’s makes that even funnier: Koman is married to actress Ellie Kemper, who worked with Daniels as one of the stars of “The Office.”
“I didn’t want to scare Michael off,” Daniels explains. “The notion of doing some follow-up to ‘The Office’ is, I think, very fraught with danger. The fans are so protective, and I’m super conscious of that.”
With good reason. “The Office” was a sizable hit during its nine-season run on NBC (2005-13), starting out as a U.S. interpretation of the original U.K. series from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant before developing its own identity. And then came the show’s monster success in streaming. “The Office” repeats became a juggernaut on Netflix (and later, Peacock), where multiple generations have binged all 201 episodes — over and over. Ask a Gen Z fan how many times they’ve watched the entire run of “The Office” on their phones, and you might get a double-digit response.
So yeah, a new show in the “Office” universe is a big deal. And it’s something that has been on others’ wish lists too. Executive producer Ben Silverman, who was instrumental in bringing “The Office” to the U.S., says he grew frustrated over the years as other shows, commercials and memes imitated its mockumentary format.
“I could say ‘ripped off,’ but we were being continuously honored in every media you could imagine,” he says. “Imitation is a sincere form of flattery, but why don’t we take a stab as well? We kind of kept circling: ‘Well, we can’t do anything that makes the fans upset.’ Anything we do is potentially going to have a comparative lens. Greg didn’t want to do that again, so how do we approach it?”
But Daniels makes it clear: “The Paper” is not an “Office” reboot. “I knew that this shouldn’t be recasting the show ‘The Office,’” he says, “or keeping the same characters but with a new cast that would be compared to the original and come up short. If it was going to happen at all, it would be the same documentary crew finding a different story to talk about.”
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Daniels had been thinking about the state of newspapers around the same time that he began kicking around ways to revive the “Office” universe. “There are these great historical newspapers like the Cleveland Plain Dealer,” he says. “And I remember hearing about what a ‘ghost newspaper’ is: When a regional newspaper is bought by private equity or something, they get rid of all the reporters and just go on wire service stories. But they keep the ad salespeople, the accountants, the truck drivers and all the support staff.”
That’s when Daniels’ ideas came together. The original “Office” was set in the Scranton offices of fictional paper manufacturer Dunder Mifflin; what if its parent company, Enervate — which specializes in all sorts of industries related to paper — wound up also owning a failing newspaper in a small Midwest town like Toledo? Then came the hook: What if the documentarians who followed the worker bees in the original “Office” decided to return to Scranton for an update? Turns out that office is closed, but the filmmakers hear that Enervate is trying to revive Toledo’s newspaper by transferring in a salesman from its toilet paper division. And so the new film project begins.
“That felt like a documentary I would actually watch,” says Koman.
Daniels first laid this all out for NBCU’s Pearlena Igbokwe as they went on a stroll through the Universal Studios backlot in early 2020. As it began to rain, Igbokwe was so invested that she wasn’t about to interrupt Daniels’ pitch, even as they got drenched.
“We must have walked for 45 minutes to an hour as he was downloading the story,” says Igbokwe, chairman of TV studios, NBC Entertainment and Peacock scripted. “He had a clear vision … he was just a little wary of making it seem like it was directly related to ‘The Office.’ For Greg, it was about creating a show that stands on its own, that is as strong with different characters, but certainly providing a little bit of that connective tissue for the fans. I think so many people, because they love ‘The Office’ so much, are desperate for a reboot of the series. We wanted to send that clear message that ‘We hope you come and enjoy all the things you love — the mockumentary style, the DNA of it — but it’s a different show.’”
We can call it a “spinoff,” thanks to the return of supporting actor Oscar Nuñez as the office accountant Oscar Martinez.
Near the end of “The Office”’s run, most of the actors had started to move on with their lives. Daniels was loath to pack the Scranton digs with new characters and drag the show on. But with the character of Oscar, whose private life as a closeted gay man was slowly revealed over the course of the series, Daniels felt like there was more to say.
“Oscar Martinez had been always one of the most private people, who always seemed the most reluctant about sharing, and had the most dignity,” Daniels says of the character. “He didn’t really end up all that different from where he started, and it felt like there was still more that he could react to.”
So the idea is that, when Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton office closes, Enervate relocates Oscar to its Toledo newspaper.
Nuñez was there from the get-go, but beyond that, casting and production moved along slowly, as Daniels has been busy with his own Amazon Prime series, “Upload,” as well as the well-received revival of “King of the Hill” with Mike Judge. Behind the scenes, “The Office” alums like writer Paul Lieberstein (who also played Toby) and director Ken Kwapis brought more of that institutional knowledge to assist Daniels and Koman in building “The Paper.”
Eventually, Daniels and Koman found their new lead in Domhnall Gleeson (“Run,” “The Patient”), who stars as Ned Sampson, an idealist who went to j-school but then became a superstar salesman in Enervate’s toilet paper business. Now he’s been tasked by his corporate bosses with reviving the Toledo Truth Teller — with a staff that knows nothing about journalism.
But again, this isn’t “The Office.” Where that show’s boss (played by Steve Carell) was a bit of an inappropriate fool, Gleeson’s character is more idealistic. “If Michael Scott was a particularly inept leader, I like the idea that Ned Sampson could possibly inspire his staff,” Daniels says. “And the issue is not that he’s socially incompetent; the issue is that he has an enormous task, and people are excited by it, but it’s going to be a risk to their personal careers to follow him. Is he capable of doing it?”
The story opens on both Ned’s and the documentary crew’s first day at the Truth Teller. “It’s an interesting place to set a show,” says Gleeson, who prepped for “The Paper” by spending time in Ohio and shadowing local journalists in Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo. “It was clear, talking to Greg and Michael, that the reason they were looking at this world of journalism — which is under a lot of threat — was because they cared a lot about it.”
Having moved to Toledo, Oscar is shocked and not happy to see the doc crew again. Beyond him, Gleeson’s Ned must contend with a cast of characters that are each eccentric in their own ways (and yet different from the personality types that populated “The Office”). That includes Esmerelda (Sabrina Impacciatore), an Italian woman who was content running wire copy about celebrities in the Truth Teller — and is the show’s chief foil, as she undermines Ned’s high-minded plans. Supporting characters are played by Ramona Young, Melvin Gregg, Tim Key, Alex Edelman and Gbemisola Ikumelo; the last two also are on the show’s writing team. And then there’s Mare (Chelsea Frei), the one true reporter on staff. Mare has mostly given up on her dreams and is in a cynical place when Ned arrives. Don’t call them Jim and Pam, but yes, they’re the potential love interests to watch.
“I think they’re dynamic,” Frei says of Ned and Mare. “They’re such foils to each other in a lot of ways. But they want the same thing, which always makes for a fun conflict. They bring out the best and worst in each other.”
In a last-minute change of plans, Peacock released all 10 episodes of Season 1 as a binge on Sept. 4. Igbokwe says they made the switch once they realized that that after spending a decade on those “The Office” binges, that’s just how fans consume the show’s universe. And they want to make sure viewers stick around to the very end, where there’s quite a cliffhanger.
“These are characters you just grow to love and appreciate what they’re doing in the show,” she says. “I think they do an incredible job of landing the season. So I am very hopeful and optimistic that the audience will feel the same.”
On Sept. 3, “The Paper” was given a firm Season 2 renewal, following strong reviews and early buzz. “We definitely have ideas,” Daniels says of continuing the show. He and Koman are also not opposed to doing more episodes next time. But for now, Daniels admits he’s antsy. He remembers how much the fans of the U.K. “The Office” thought he was a fool to try to tackle a new version for American audiences.
“I’m braced for tons of negativity,” he says. “Just because it’s my personality. But you have to push through it. I feel like there may be some grumbling in the beginning, but hopefully this is really made for people who love ‘The Office.’”
“The Paper” is now streaming all 10 episodes from Season 1 on Peacock.
From Variety US