‘The Paper’ review: ‘Office’ spinoff an insult to comedy and journalism | Entertainment

TV review

In the opening credits of “The Paper,” the painfully strained and almost impressively unfunny spinoff to the hit sitcom series “The Office,” we see a sodden newspaper being peeled off into a recycling bin. The gag is that its best use is as bird cage lining and, now that it is covered in waste, it must be disposed of. It’s a fitting metaphor for the toothlessly saccharine show itself, which feels recycled from better sitcoms. Only instead of being recycled once more, this show will likely go straight in the trash. 

From the opening moments when we learn how “The Paper” dubiously connects to “The Office,” you can already feel the foundation starting to crumble. The basic premise is that the documentary crew that followed the Scranton, Penn., branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. has decided to turn their cameras on the community of Toledo, Ohio, and the declining newspaper the Toledo Truth Teller. When sincere yet naive Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) decides to take the new top editor job in an attempt to turn it around, he’ll find that he has his work cut out for him.

Despite making superficial references to the perilous state of journalism here and there, “The Paper” is not a show about a small community newspaper in any truly meaningful way. There is boundless potential for a series about local journalism where the often ridiculous stories you encounter could be complicated by the growing constraints overworked reporters are under; this sitcom squanders it at every turn. The more it goes on, the more you realize it’s merely a reheated workplace comedy where the newspaper of it all is secondary to the slapped-together jokes and stock characters. There are halfhearted office romances, silly rivalries and lazily contrived conflicts, all of which are tired right from the jump. That it boasts a talented cast just proves to be even more of a waste as they struggle to give the empty material comedic life. 

“The Paper” is the sort of show where the moments it pauses for when you’re meant to laugh just become agonizing silences where you awkwardly wait for the next bit. In the 10 episodes of this first season, there are few memorable lines to speak of and even fewer actual scenarios that elicit even a chuckle. Where “The Office” was largely sharply written and earned its more absurd moments, “The Paper” never has any of that same spark. All the forced modern jokes about everything from catfishing to clickbait fall completely flat and there is no Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) to cut away to. At every turn, the humor is consistently broad and safe without any real bite; the only way it could be considered a comfort watch sitcom is if it puts you to sleep. 

When it culminates in a finale that literally keeps patting itself on the back and making it seem as if these characters were actually doing groundbreaking journalism, you wonder if the writers were watching the same show. It’s then you realize that “The Paper” is not a series that is meant to offer any genuinely funny jokes about journalism and the challenges it is facing. No, it is meant to wrap you in a delusion where no matter how inept the characters are and how dire the state of journalism is for small communities, all it takes is a bit of heart to save the day. One can certainly wish this were true, but that doesn’t make it so, and comedy requires truth in its setups to be even moderately funny. It’s too easy to imagine an episode of “The Paper” where the gang stops a vulturous hedge fund from gutting the paper just by Ned giving an impassioned yet cringey speech atop his desk. It’s just not honest or funny. 

Without any deeper truths or the subsequent humor that comes from them to call its own, “The Paper” is not able to do right by journalism or comedy in a world that desperately needs both. Though the fictional paper is used to soak up avian feces in the title sequence, it’s the show itself that’s for the birds.