THE PAPER Review: Finding Its LOL Rhythm

Don't bury the lede.

The Paper S1
All 10 episodes premiere Thursday, September 4, only on Peacock TV. I've seen all 10 episodes.

Though I became a regular viewer of The Office (U.S.) during its original broadcast television run from 2005 to 2013, I never felt compelled to rewatch any episodes. It was a moderately entertaining show, though the reliance on the cast members looking into the supposed documentary camera and rolling their eyes or staring with incredulity was a continued irritant.

The Paper supposes that the same documentary film crew has now moved on to a new subject: a weekly community newspaper in a small Midwestern U.S. town attempts to reinvent itself by returning to its roots as a paper that reports the news rather than simply cutting and pasting wire service stories.

This is the brainchild of newly appointed Editor in Chief Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson), who wants to see the Toledo Truth Teller return to its glory days. A journalism student in college, Ned quickly ditched that idea and became a very successful sales person at a paper company whose boss (Allan Havey) rewarded Ned by indulging his dream job at the newspaper, which the company also owns.

Full of idealism and a peppy spirit, Ned finds himself dealing with only a couple of people who have training as journalists: young and disillusioned Mare (Chelsa Frei) and an old and grumpy reporter. The rest are volunteers who work on the other side of the room as bored company employees, with only a vague interest in journalism.

Three wild cards liven things up. Esmeralda (Sabrina Impacciatore), a passive aggressive Italian "editor" who was running things before Ned's arrival and is none too happy that he has arrived to shake things up; Ken (Tim Key), an exec at the overseeing company, who constantly disrupts Ned's plans; and a very familiar face, Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez), a holdover from The Office, who is none too happy to have the same documentary film crew return to plague him with their presence again.

Terribly uneven, yet also wildly funny when it hits its mark, The Paper needs all 10 episodes to establish its comic rhythm and to distinguish itself from The Office, to some extent. Created by Greg Daniels (The Office, U.S.) and Michael Koman (Nathan for You), the show's early emphasis on stereotypes, largely the characters' exasperating lack of knowledge and common sense, is irritating at best and insulting at worst.

It's as though the show has predetermined that all Midwesterners are blithely unaware of life beyond their small town border and are still living in prehistoric times. That's highlighted by the casting, with an Irish actor put in charge of a Midwestern paper and an Italian actress whose character is thickly-accented and rather dense.

As the episodes progress, however, some of those characteristics are downplayed and the show becomes more enjoyable. There's good comic chemistry between Gleeson and Chelsea Frei, which helps to paper over some of the other shortcomings. Oscar Nunez is very good at playing Oscar Martinez.

And Tim Kay is rather brilliant at playing a middle management stooge who thinks he's better than that. It helps that he doesn't have to pretend he's a native Midwesterner.

This is the kind of show that is at a disadvantage in the modern streaming world. Fewer episodes, like the British The Office (only 14 episodes in two seasons), might allow it to be more pungent and biting. More episodes, like the U.S. The Office (201 episodes over nine seasons) might allow the characters to develop beyond their stereotypes -- and stop looking at the camera.

As it is, The Paper is just fine, edging toward good, especially when it gets rolling in the latter episodes and finds its LOL rhythm.

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