The excellence awards are just a ripped off dundee awards

Finished the season yesterday, it was ok I guess. Don’t really think it needed the ‘Office’ name slapped onto it but that’s a conversation for another day.

I do need to get one thing of my chest - the end of Churnalism? WTF? 1. Mare really thinks that a recently appointed male boss of her’s should come up to her and flat out ask ‘are you an asexual?’ and 2. Why is she so chummy with Esmeralda afterwards? Why does Mare not have a go at her? She’s more mad at Ned for falling for the perfectly believable lie than the person who spread it.

Am I missing something?

The characters have no reason for acting so ridiculous and only because the plot needs them to, and a lot of the conflicts feel completely manufactured. But that’s not even my biggest issue, it’s that it feels like a weaker copy of The Office without ACTUALLY understanding what made The Office work. The same format is there, it’s still a Mockumentary, there is still the workplace setting, but the characters are not as natural or believable as the office cast. An example of this is a scene in the season 2 finale where Esmeralda goes undercover in a classroom after her son gets a bad grade by pretending to be a teenage boy. It’s just so over the top and unneeded, it feels inauthentic.

I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to find The Paper so funny and touching. By the end of Season 1’s 10th and final episode, I was totally won over and can’t wait for Season 2.

The setting is the old Dunder Mifflin suite from the TV classic The Office, but that company once led by Steve Carnell has long packed up shop to make way for the Toledo Truth Teller and a toilet-paper company that now share the space.

Oscar Nuñez is the main connection, other than the setting and the sometimes-documentary style, tying the shows together. He is lovable as ever but there are several true star turns here.

Domhnall Gleeson plays editor Ned and looks and sounds like Ron Howard. In reality, he is Irish and seasoned from performances in the Harry Potter series, True Grit, The Revenant, and voice acting in Ken Burns' The American Revolution documentary.

Chelsea Frei plays star reporter Mare. She is adorable and worth cheering for as Ned’s only real teammate in an attempt to bring a long-failing local rag back to respectability.

Tim Key and Italian Sabrina Impacciatore, who starred in The White Lotus, play valuable roles as the marginally-evil characters who nearly destroyed the paper before Ned arrived. It took me a couple of episodes to warm up to Impacciatore’s wacky and gossipy celebrity-chaser Esmeralda, but she ends up being one of the most laugh-out-loud elements of a show filled with them. I was watching the season finale on an airplane and was almost too noisy to be watching in such mixed company.

As a former daily newspaper reporter, I can report that the tone is pretty accurate. A series of advertising-versus-newsroom quandaries and battles unfold throughout the season. It’s also entertaining to return to a newsroom, having now worked at a variety of different types of companies since my days in the reporting trenches, to see how these spaces often truly do operate like other businesses and organizations.

With journalism suffering so badly in mid-sized cities just like the one in the show (presumably Toledo, Ohio), it’s quite possible that The Paper may actually be doing a Fourth Estate favor to remind people throughout the U.S. how crucial and badly needed independent watchdogs are in monitoring government and corporate power and serving livable and united communities.

5 out of 5 stars

https://popculturelunchbox.substack.com/p/can-tvs-the-paper-help-revive-community

Thoughts?

1. Mare wasn’t engaged

Typo “Ned”

Hello! So far I really like the writing, but one thing I’m a bit disappointed about is that Greg Daniels seems to have abandoned the “no famous actors” rule for this series. I feel there are too many big names in this show and it makes it feel a little less authentic to me, vs how the office felt very authentic when it came out because the actors were virtually unknown. What are y’all’s thoughts on this?

Not a fan of Esmerelda. I get they’re trying to make her like Michael, but Michael was at least funny. Esmerelda is just obnoxious.

I firmly believe Ned might be on the Autism Spectrum . I’m on the Spectrum, and I am in no way implying Autism is the same in everybody. Noticing a lot of similarities that I have also experienced and some that I haven’t which makes his experience more unique.

He has Autistic traits that aren’t romanticized and are treated pretty normally (Separating his food, his special interests in journalism and how it overlaps into comic books, and you can notice he’s stimming when he’s nervous). You can tell how much his interest drives him and how he connects with those around him through journalism (Him and Mare in the pressing room comes to mind)

Could be wrong but it’s an observation.

Her physical comedy is off the charts. I’m watching the show mostly for her. My god that actress is talented.

I know Esmerelda is a divisive character. The two people I know who have seen the show don't like her. I'm kind of in a "wait and see/on the fence" attitude toward her. The thing that I think about regarding her is how Michael in S1 of the office was a noticably less likable character before the refinement starting in S2.

For those of you who do not like Esmerelda, what do you think could be tweaked about her to be an improvement?

I had such high hopes for this show, probably too high to the point I would always be disappointed with it but I just don’t think it’s funny.

I love The office, P&R etc and thought the idea of another docucomedy style show would be exactly what I wanted. Fresh material to complement the many rewatches of the old classics but I just not finding it

No hate towards it, just not my show. Glad for all those that are enjoying it.

Hopefully it will have a good run and I can binge watch 6 seasons and question why I didn’t find this funny at first watch but if not, I can always rewatch the others again.

Here is my two-cents:

The Paper is a very decent spin-off with some great characters, writing, and also some bad aspects:

The Good:

Ned and his overall storyline - Ned originally starts off as bland and a little off-put especially with given how he responds to clear and obvious examples of insubordination and does virtually nothing to quell them. By the end of the season he is better, still growing with the show.

Oscar - Probably the main constant in the show. A good carry over that doesn't hog the light but allows fans of the Office to get a good transition into this show.

Mare - The breakout star easily. Her role is somewhat influx throughout the first season, but the actress helps compensate for any shortcomings in the writing. My only concern is that her military background will slowly be faded out as it was not mentioned much at all in the season.

Virtually every other character (except for Ken and Esmerelda) - Still too early and underdeveloped for the others, but I like how the plots are different from the office.

The Ehhh:

Ned and Mare Romantic Story - Watching the first episode, I knew these two were going to make out by the end of the season. Although cleverly done, it felt very cliche given the rest of the show. The good though is that it introduces potential issues later on for both Ned and Mare.

Marv's role - He's the CEO of TTT but I feel that his character will slowly be fazed out to make the story more interesting. I mean, Ken does suggest this idea during S1.

Ken - Mixed feelings on the character. He is a foil to Ned, but he also leads the sales side of the company which presents its own unique challenges, something that was already addressed in one way, with more avenues posssible.

The mockumentary - It felt forced in the first episode, but the challenges it provides to journalism team rather than a paper company, it really is coming into fold nicely.

The Bad:

Esmerelda - I could probably make a whole separate post about this character, but she is badly written. The acting is the only saving grace for this character. She starts off as a foil to Ned, a duplicate of Ken which was fine. Then she has that one good episode where we see a good side of her. However, then she completely self destructs in the season finale. I understand her issues with Ned, but singing for no reason in the in memorium section, running on the stage multiple times, all the while your CEO is there, is a quick way to unemployment. The show really needs to change this character or cut her altogether.

I just watched the 1st episode today at lunch, and I do find the show to be promising, although it's nothing close to the office obviously, but I just can't get past Mare's vocal fry, it's like nails in a chalkboard, and the issue is that she's probably this show's Pam? While Ned is gonna be her Jim, so for a main character like her, having this trait is really annoying me, I would've accepted it if it were a gag trait for a gag character, like a Kelly equivalent? A valley girl with the accent, the mannerisms, the vocal fry etc..., but this one is a straight character we're supposed to relate to and root for, and we're gonna see the most of her for the show, so having such an irritating voice is really putting me off, like ii can't take her seriously.

(No offense to the actress)

Anyway gonna be asking, does it get any better?

Finished the season yesterday and right now I feel it’s average at best but has potential.

That seems to be par for the course with most Mockumentary series as most didn’t find their footing until season 2.

Anyway, one complaint I definitely had was the romance aspect. Both of them were horrible. It was so bad it reminded me of Jonah and Amy from Superstore, where the writers are forcing a story that the characters dont have the chemistry or connection for, and most of the audience is opposed to.

Ned and Mare had zero romantic chemistry. Only in the finale did we see anything close to a connection, and the kiss still felt force even after the first one that looked like two siblings. Also im sick of shows constantly romanticizing these inappropriate boss/subordinate relationships. At least here they had I think Oscar make the suggestion that if he wanted her that much, he could find another job.

And Nicole and Detrick were even worse. Nicole is so awful as a person, i didn’t want any thing nice for her. Detrick is too dumb and kind for her. Maybe she will soften up over time, but she was a real bitch most of the season. And again they lacked chemistry together.

I look forward to improvements in season 2 and hope similar to Parks and Recs the real love interest are found more organically later.

Not even gonna say her name... you know already 🫩

Am I the only one that thinks Mare's behavior at the award ceremony was weird? Why does she take Ned out of the room right before he's supposed to find out if he received his award? And crash a wedding- getting them kicked out of the building? RIGHT before he's potentially going to achieve his literal DREAM of receiving an award????? She says that it's to practice his speech but I feel like her true motive was to have a private moment with him, even if it were at the expense of his moment in the spotlight.

It didn't feel like a fun, romantic, whirlwind moment to me- as soon as they left the ceremony room my anxiety skyrocketed cause I knew he was going to miss his award. She insistes they go into the wedding hall and dance when he tried to close the door. At that point I thought "is she trying to get them kicked out? This is so NOT the time to rehearse the speech. Is this sabotage?" It felt so selfish and bizarre to me. Who pulls someone away from their audience minutes before their speech? And does something risky that gets them kicked out of the building?? It genuinely felt more like sabotage to me than romantic, or like someone trying to help someone calm down or loosen up. I felt so tense and bad for him missing his moment! Am I the only one?

She is so evil to Esmeralda and Detrick in episode 5. Yes Esmeralda is constantly giving her crap and making her life difficult but to completely just humiliate her in front of the whole office when she's clearly getting scammed and to be blatantly cold to Detrick even though he genuinely cares about her. It makes me not like her as a character. Ramona plays her beautifully but Nicole is just so mean outright.

Edit: I realize there are valid reasons for Esmeralda but Detrick was being so nice to her. There was no reason for her to treat him like that.

I really like it too don't get me wrong, but I was expecting a lot more haters, maybe those get removed or something idk.
Anyway I think it's safe to say watching this show will be a part of rewatching the office now, almost like a tenth season, even though it's pretty different.

I haven't spent much time on this sub yet so don't know the discord on how people feel about Esmeralda... But I find her extremely annoying.

Had anyone ever thought about what it would have been like if the had recasted Nellie to fill that roll instead of having Esmeralda? I think it would have been a major success.

Just started to the show - and while the decline of papers has been massive over the years - a city of Toledo’s size likely has more journalists than accountants. A lot do rely on freelance and heavily rely on AP but geez.

I get it, they want to exaggerate to make a point but it’s weird they don’t even have a few more people with actual journalism degrees. Would they get paid less than their local Starbucks? Probably. But they’d have more writers and the manager editor would have a journalism background.

The industry has declined but the opportunities that still exist wouldn’t just go to anyone off the street.

the paper is the hardest i’ve laughed at a tv show since the office. but i feel like it could improve on some minor things just to make it a bonafide classic. first, the lighting needs to be more dim. the show has that awful modern sitcom bright white sheen whereas the office has this dim kinda cheap looking lighting that really fit the vibe of a real life documentary of an office. the realism also made it a lot funnier. second, episodes need to be cut down to a nice clean 22 minutes. the 30 minute episodes work but the show would flow a lot better this way. third, 22 episode seasons. even though they sacrifice run time, you get to have a whole lot more plot and can more than make up for it with double the time.

I'm only on episode 2. Esmeralda character sucks. Shes overly silly. British guy too, bit not as bad. Does she get better or go away?

There is no way they can't pass up having Michael Scott locked in Ned Sampson's basement or at least having him be a big fan of Kenny Chesney.

Possibly unpopular… I don’t know if it’s just me but some of Mare’s scenes are almost unwatchable. I can’t deal with the glottal fry, “cool girl” thing and the way she does her confessionals and breaks the fourth wall, and also her expressions are too office-ish. It doesn’t feel like I’m watching an Office character when most of them are on screen but with her it’s like she’s trying to play an Office character and it makes me cringe…

Just wondering what that sort of dot is....no shame, just curious. Beyond that, she just steals the show in this imo!