20 years ago, in 2005, the American network NBC debuted The Office. The comedy that launched Steve Carell to stardom was a bold gamble. His mockumentary style and his peculiar uncomfortable humor were already present over the years The Office original, the one signed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant in 2001 for the BBC. Time has transformed that comedy full of gags and immortal characters, capable of overcoming spatial and temporal barriers, into one of the most watched series on the platforms year after year. His spirit, and something else, is now within The paper (premiering Friday 14th on SkyShowtime).
“I started thinking about this project a while ago,” says Greg Daniels, writer and producer of both The Office starting from The paper. “The Office It became very big on Netflix and they started asking about it. The cast of the original series never wanted to reunite to do more episodes, so I thought the only option was a completely new series,” he explains in a video call interview in mid-October. The idea was to keep the original format and explain in fiction that the same documentary team that recorded daily life at the Dunder Mifflin paper company would now continue the work at a local newspaper in Toledo, a small town in Ohio.
Together with Daniels, The paper It also has as its creator the comedian, screenwriter and producer Michael Koman, an expert in the writers’ quarry of Saturday night live. “I really respected his work Nathan for you AND How to do it with John Wilsonhe is someone who has experimented with documentary and comedy formats. And one of our ideas was to be very rigorous with the documentary format. We have been working on this project for a long time, but unfortunately the issue of the decline of local journalism in the United States is becoming increasingly relevant,” concludes Daniels.
The credit securities of The paper They provide some clues as to why they looked to local journalism, and the local press in particular. The series header shows a succession of alternative uses for a newspaper: wrapping sandwiches, making a hat, covering windows, covering dishes, picking up pet droppings… Anything but being read. “In the United States, there are entire areas where we don’t have journalists to cover what’s happening in local government,” Daniels says. “Many local media outlets across the country have been bought by the same companies located far from location, their newsrooms have been shrunk, and they all publish the same stories, which come from a national news service,” adds Michael Koman from another window of the video call.
Faced with this crisis of journalism, the protagonist of The paper He is an unredeemed optimist, a romantic who wants to revive the local environment. Since he does not have the budget to hire experienced journalists, he will turn to clerks, clerks, accountants…, to act as reporters. Among these is Óscar Martínez, played by Óscar Núñez, the only character and actor in common in The paper AND The Office. “At the end of The Office, Oscar hadn’t changed much, to be honest. I remained friends with him and we worked together on another series and I felt like I could have a character there who connected the two and who could explain how the people making the documentary found this new environment,” explains Daniels.
Does the popularity of the original series hurt the new series or play in its favor? “Maybe both,” Daniels muses. “The Office has many very passionate followers who don’t necessarily want to transfer their passion into a new project. The same thing happened when fans of the British series saw the American one, they were very cautious. And even when fans of the American series have seen Parks and recreation (comedy co-created by Greg Daniels and originally developed as a spin off From The Office), were also very cautious. But I think it’s the kind of show you might like.” “I haven’t worked on it The Office” Koman says, “and what I liked about the idea was that we weren’t trying to do it The Office Still. It’s the same documentary team, but just as happens in reality, when a team finds another topic to tackle they don’t want to repeat themselves, they look for something new.
Both acknowledge that they felt the pressure of having the successor The Officebut everyone handled that pressure in a certain way: “The Office It was a fantastic format. In adapting it, I had the great advantage of attracting a lot of very talented people, a great team of writers and actors,” says Daniels. “But everyone involved felt the pressure of having fans of the British series watching us. Having experienced all this before, I am no longer afraid now. “Honestly,” Koman speaks, “I turned off the part of my brain that was aware of that exam, because it was inevitable. You just have to concentrate and try to do the best series possible.”
Beyond the small (or large) dramas of journalism, such as the difficulty in finding interesting stories or the competition with local bloggers, the essence of The paper remains the same as The Office: their characters. Together with the new editor-in-chief who has just arrived (played by Domhnall Gleeson) there are characters such as the exaggerated Esmeralda Grand (played by Sabrina Impacciatore), second head of the editorial team and staunch defender of the clickbait and newspaper headlines with bait, namely the incredulous Mare Pritti (Chelsea Frei), the only expert journalist on the team. Soon some relationships begin to emerge between them, which advance faster than the one between Jim and Pam, which viewers had The Office for several seasons. Does today’s audience have less patience? “It’s funny you say that because we recently edited episodes to cut out an extra eight minutes for free airing on NBC, so there’s a version where the pace is even faster,” Daniels laughs.
