Paper Thin

In The Paper, Peacock’s sort-of sitcom continuation of NBC’s wildly popular The Office (2005-2013), successful, idealistic toilet paper salesman Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) decides to revive his company’s failing Toledo, Ohio, newspaper, the Truth Teller.

He enlists several randos from the paper company (the same firm that in the interim acquired Dunder Mifflin’s operations), including Office stalwart Oscar (Oscar Nuñez), plus one experienced reporter named Mare (Chelia Frei), who previously worked at the military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper. Ned adds on some of the paper company employees to work as journalists without additional pay, using hours from their regular jobs at the company while they cover stories about sewage backups and fishing-limit changes.

Despite the constant interference of two corporate meddlers (Sabrina Impacciatore from The White Lotus and Tim Key), Ned succeeds in creating a news operation that in a short amount of time not only stays in business, but starts winning statewide journalism awards.

By journalistic standards at least, it’s the most far-fetched science fiction show on television this year, including Alien: Earth, a show that at least entertains with a tentacled eyeball critter.

The implausibility of The Paper is forgivable. It’s a mock-doc sitcom that exaggerates in every direction, from its portrayal of unskilled, untrained workers becoming published newspaper reporters on the same day they start their volunteer jobs (for a print newspaper that apparently designs, copy edits and prints itself seconds after the stories are written), to the non-firing of Esmeralda (Impacciatore), a character who undermines Ned and actively works against the newspaper’s new direction for the entire season. Esmeralda can be a funny character, but is out of step with the rest of the show; Impacciatore, great as she can be, belongs on a different, much broader TV comedy.

Less forgivable is that the show simply isn’t as funny, or as interesting, or as well-executed as it needs to be.

I don’t say this with any pleasure or rancor toward a TV series that — at least in its first episode — states plainly through Ned, that it believes in and wants to honor American local journalism. It goes on to spotlight a black-and-white ‘70s documentary-within-the-show featuring Tracy Letts leading the Truth Teller in its glory days when 1,000 staffers filled its bustling news headquarters. Sadly, the show makes a lot of promises about its interest in journalism that don’t really bear out for the full season.

I worked at a mid-sized local newspaper for 21 years and much smaller newspapers before that while in college, covering city council meetings and laying out my own stories on the front page of publications like Oklahoma’s Harrah Herald. For someone like me, The Paper is preaching to the choir. I’m a firm believer in the power of local news who would love nothing more than to see a great TV show about the hardworking journalists still doing the work in the era of vlog influencers, TikTok and Google’s current AI-driven decimation of the news industry.

But by the end of its 10-episode first season, The Paper has proven to be a lot less interested in the challenges that local news operations face than whether several of its main characters will have romantic relationships and if the newspaper can survive Esmeralda’s constant embarrassing scheming. The Paper mentions, then glibly glides over, issues such as the increasingly thin firewall between advertising and editorial operations, why journalists are needed to keep local politicians in check and why journalists shouldn’t use personal vendettas to pursue news stories (in the show, that type of behavior tends to get rewarded). It’s the type of show that’s happy to bring up ethical dilemmas or financial challenges that news organizations face, but the stakes are so low for Ned and the Truth Teller that those issues never get explored or resolved in a satisfying way.

One reason why The Paper can’t fully find its footing over 10 episodes — apart from a fundamental shortage of great jokes and memorable characters outside of Ned, Mare and Esmeralda — may be because of how tethered it is to The Office. In the fiction of the show, the same camera crew that followed Michael Scott and his employees over that decade in the spotlight has tracked down the remnants of the business and continues to shadow these workers and shoot in the same style.

What at first feels comfortable and familiar, though, starts to bog the show down after a few episodes when it becomes clear that The Paper has no intention of breaking out of that format or evolving a comedic rhythm and visual style that’s now over two decades old. TV comedy has moved on, but The Paper hasn’t, and as a companion to The Office it doesn’t set itself apart. The show is hermetic; we rarely see people in the community who are being covered or any other news operations competing with Ned’s newspaper except for a snarky teen blogger who seems much better at his job than Ned’s crew. Not mining those areas for comedy seems like a missed opportunity, which may be appropriate. Newspapers know from missed opportunities.

Despite their crusty manner, however, most local journalists still carry hope in their hearts that things will get better and that good work will be rewarded, eventually; we couldn’t do the job without some optimism. There are moments in The Paper when the show sparks to life, particularly when Ned and Mare’s characters are in a professional groove together. It could get better.

So there’s hope: other sitcoms, most famously Parks and Recreation, didn’t find their proper footing until their second season and The Paper has already gotten a renewal commitment.

With some course correcting, The Paper could be great. But so far it only seems like a faded photocopy from the recycling bin.