DUBAI: It’s a bold move, returning to the world of one of the most beloved comedies in US TV history. But that’s what creators Greg Daniels and Michael Coman are doing with “The Paper.”
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Set in the same fictional universe as the US version of “The Office” (for which Daniels was the showrunner) — itself an adaptation of Ricky Gervais’ and Stephen Merchant’s magnificent UK mockumentary series — “The Paper” finds the same documentary crew that covered the team at Dunder Mifflin searching for a new subject. They settle on The Toledo Truth Teller, a struggling local newspaper owned by Enervate — a company that treats it as an afterthought to its real business of selling toilet rolls and other paper-based household products. Coincidentally, one of Enervate’s accountants is Oscar Martinez (played by Oscar Nunez), formerly of Dunder Mifflin.
The Truth Teller has a new editor-in-chief, Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) — a good-hearted, idealistic, privileged man with no experience, but whose father is a friend of Enervate’s CEO Marv Putnam. Ned is keen to shake things up at the tired old paper, which now relies solely on wire services for its print edition, put together by compositor Mare Pritti (Chelsea Frei), while its online platform, headed by the ambitious anti-Ned, Esmeralda Grand (Sabrina Impacciatore), churns out the kind of awful clickbait even the Mail Online might baulk at.
