LOS ANGELES, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Most sitcoms, even the American adaptation of The Office, take a season to find their rhythm. The Paper, taking place in The Office universe and premiering Thursday on Peacock, benefits from the established format but also introduces fully formed characters and relationships.
The Paper sees the documentary crew that filmed the Dunder Mifflin paper offices in The Office return to do a follow-up. The fate of Dunder Mifflin is shown in the series premiere.
The crew finds a subsidiary, the Toledo Truth Teller, and decides to film the local Ohio newspaper. Domhnall Gleeson plays Ned Sampson, the new editor-in-chief, who has an idealistic plan to prove the value of local news in the online/social media age.
The series premiere is full of perceptive jokes about digital media, clickbait, data scraping and the state of newsrooms. That won't last 10 episodes though; it's the characters who prove to be worth following for many potential seasons.
Chelsea Frei also stars as Mare Pretti, the compositor aggregating wire stories for the Truth Teller's website. She's the closest to The Office's Jim in the newsroom, a young woman just doing the job to get by, who sometimes finds inspiration in spite of her aloofness.
