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NBC’s The Office had such a huge impact that it’s easy to forget the show was, itself, an adaptation. It made major Hollywood players out of cast members like Steve Carell, John Krasinski, and Mindy Kaling, and fostered a generation of brand-name TV creators, including Mike Schur and Justin Spitzer. Though its single-camera setup was not unprecedented among primetime comedies when it premiered in 2005—M*A*S*H and Arrested Development, among others, got there first—its more naturalistic style quickly became the mark of a modern sitcom. (Even Seinfeld had a laugh track.) And its mockumentary conceit set the conventions of a subgenre that has since yielded Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, What We Do in the Shadows, Abbott Elementary, St. Denis Medical, to name just a few of the biggest hits.
Now Greg Daniels, the Parks and Rec and King of the Hill co-creator who lightened up the British black humor of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s original Office for an American audience, has teamed up with Nathan for You’s Michael Koman for a spinoff of sorts. The Paper, whose full 10-episode first season will arrive on Peacock Sept. 4, follows The Office’s documentary crew to the headquarters of a struggling newspaper. There’s something comforting about returning to the familiar rhythms of the last sitcom everyone seemed to be watching at the same time, even if only one member of the original cast, Oscar Nuñez, reprises his role. And The Paper has the potential to evolve over time. But the show feels dated—and not just because so many sitcoms have taken so much from The Office in the 20 years since its debut.
Aside from Nuñez’s Oscar Martinez, what binds the two series together is, well, paper. The PBS filmmakers arrive at the Scranton, Penn. office building that once housed the Dunder Mifflin…
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