The Paper vs. The Office

Introduction

The Paper is like the TV equivalent of refried beans. It’s good, but it’s not a whole meal. And at the end of the day, you’d rather just eat the beans.

I am a fan of The Office, US and UK for that matter. Although, in this case, I’ll strictly be talking about the US version as that is what this is a sequel to. It was edgy, but not as depressing as the UK version. Cozy would be a perfect word to describe it, in fact. Even though the setting and the environment were kind of depressing, it still had colour to it, and some sort of warmth.

The Paper’s first obvious mistakes

That’s my first critique of this reboot. The Office is trying to go for this classic print paper, almost Daily Planet feel, but instead, it just feels dull. We are in a grey, boringly lit environment consistently. There’s no real delineation between this and any other office building, except for one or two little props (Ned’s typewriter for example) that give that distinction. However, the original office set had life to it. You knew where the characters were placed in the space, their relation to each other as a result, like Jim and Pam being close to one another, and Dwight’s desk being opposite to Jim’s. The annex being a more secluded, isolated area where Michael put people like Toby, or people that weren’t quite related to the sales of the office. I don’t believe it’s that deep, but you see my point nonetheless.

The characters don’t feel like real people either, just caricatures of people, including Oscar. Why is he the exact same person as he was in The Office, why has he not evolved or changed at all? It’s just depressing, which The Office could be at some points, but it misses that spark, that flare, that soul.

The Paper has no soul

Not having a soul, that’s ultimately what stops The Paper actually being anything more than a shitty, boring TV show that you may throw on when you don’t want to think. Even the romance feels soulless. There’s not much reason for us to like these characters, let alone like them to get with each other and share romantic connections. Some of them barely have any redeemable qualities, and some have none. Why should we care about these characters at all, let alone that they will have any kind of happiness?

In The Office, we’re rooting for Jim and Pam because firstly, there’s a substantial buildup, and secondly, we empathize with them. Jim is a friendly guy who often challenges Michael’s authority, is honest and decent, and likes to take the piss about the office smartass, Dwight. We all have met someone like Jim–a person whose just trying to get by, could be friends with a ton of people, and is just decent. Pam is a passionate artist trapped in an abusive relationship with her fiance, Roy-who doesn’t seem to really care about Pam. Pam wants to get out of the situation she’s in, not just relationship-wise, but also professionally. But, if we’re going to focus on the first season, we’ll ignore her other passions. Personally, I’m not a big Pam fan, especially after watching this one video that details how she’s actually not the best of people, which I’ll link in the description. But at least she feels like a person.

Throughout the first few episodes of The Paper, it’s clear that the narrative is trying to set up a romance between the main character and Editor of the Newspaper that the show takes place in, The Toledo Truth Teller, and one of the paper’s reporters, Mare. The two of them are incredibly different. Mare is quite chill, and the typical “cool girl”, while Ned is quite uptight, straight and narrow. We do see in moments why they may work out, but, unlike Jim and Pam, we don’t really care about them. Mare, like most of the characters in the show, is just that–a character. She's an ex-military reporter whose defining attributes are that she's easygoing, and like an everyman who is just decent. Remind you of anyone? Yeah, she's basically a ripoff of Jim but without all of the charisma and willingness to face up against authority like Jim had. Like most of the characters in this show, I just don't know who she is, or what she'd do in any given circumstance, apart from say "this is annoying, urgh." like she seems to do 393 times per episode. Now, maybe Ned has something that makes him more interesting, and feel more like a real person? Only a bit. He's flawed, which we see through many social interactions in the show, but then he simply goes to being 2D in the blink of an eye. For example, in the episode where Marv (the owner of the Truth Teller) can't be on his floor due to renovations and painting, he tells Ned casually "I love you." This transforms into Ned suddenly becoming the equivalent of a desperate 5 year old vying for attention and approval from Marv, throwing his entire character out of the window for something that wasn't even funny and was just something I ultimately rolled my eyes at every time it was referenced. How can we feel that your show has strong characters that we care about and are interested in when you throw out basically their entire character for one joke that only lasts 7-10 minutes?

The Office is better than I remember

It's clear to me that The Office really does have something more than the obviously successful formula that keeps the show together--it has balls, integrity and most of all, it feels alive, unlike The Paper. For a long time, after watching The Office, then rewatching The Office, I thought it was alright. I believed it was pretty run of the mill and actually wasn't something too special after having watched it so much. However, The Paper has put a new perspective on it that few things could--that it does have life, character and its own atmosphere that is distinct, for which I am grateful for The Paper giving to me.

It's a clear win from The Office as a result, which is disappointing given how many years of TV that the creators of The Paper could have learned from, before and after the original Office series. Instead, they went with the safe bet and made something that is largely forgetful.