The Paper: The Pilot
- Melanie Weir
- Sep 9
- 10 min read
Updated: Sep 13
Peacock’s new series The Paper dropped all 10 episodes of its first season last week, and I’m honestly glad I had a dozen essential post-vacation errands to run, because otherwise there’s no way I would have paced myself.
I already love this show.
I feel like you usually get a little bit of ramp-up on a Greg Daniels show; the series usually needs the course of a short introductory season in order to really find its voice and its footing. I always tell prospective viewers of The Office to start at Season 2 and go backwards, because even years later I still find some of the more emotionally bleak moments of that season - lingering themes from the much less optimistic British original - hard to get through.
With Parks and Rec, depending on who they are, I might tell them to start right before Ben and Chris show up— enough time for Leslie to stop being a female Michael Scott, and for them to realize that they needed Adam Scott and Rob Lowe to complete the cast.
If this is the ramp-up for The Paper, though, then I absolutely cannot WAIT to see what it becomes when it gets going—because this is already incredible.
The Premise
The opening was a major tearjerker. The immediate nostalgia of that font over the screen, then the unexpected sucker punch of actually SEEING the old Dunder Mifflin building had my roommate and I with our mouths open in delight even before we saw any actors. Then Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration appeared on screen, and we both simply squealed. Like teenage girls at a One Direction concert. (I can feel myself eroding away at my keyboard as I realize that reference dates me now.)
Of course it shouldn’t be surprising that, when the documentary crew went back to check on Dunder Mifflin twenty years later, they were gone; honestly, the fact that David Wallace (or whoever eventually bought the business from him first) managed to keep it going until 2019 is kind of amazing in its own way. (“Wonder what he’s up to now?” is one of the many questions this opener left me with that I’m dearly hoping a later episode will answer, even briefly.)
The fact that Phyllis and Stanley keep in touch, and have SCHNOODLES (that’s a schnauzer-poodle mix, a little tiny floofy puppy dog) makes my heart well up with glee. I bet they send each other photos every day. I bet (I hope) Phillis made an Instagram account for her dog, and made Stanley get one too.
But anyways. Back to THIS show.
The theme song is so endlessly charming, and getting stuck in my head already. I love all the little nods to the many things people do with newspapers, how we still think of them as everyday objects even though we don’t really read them anymore.
They used to be ubiquitous because they were necessary—something highlighted by the cute little 70s documentary we see woven into the footage of the opening, as a cherub-cheeked, softified-David-Brent-type man named Ken Davies (Tim Key), complete with English accent and air of unearned confidence, tours us around the offices of Ennervate (a company that sells "products made of paper”) which used to be the Politics floor of the once-great Toledo Truth-Teller.
I was right: while in the previous mockumentary we saw signs and results of the declining sales industry—something we didn’t think we’d miss until it was gone and we were being overcharged by faceless big box companies—in this one we will see the (admittedly much more obvious) results of the decline of journalism, an issue already staring us in the face even harder than that one did.
The Problem
The man in the 70s documentary (played by actor Tracy Letts, and interestingly credited as John Stack - implying this character may make a comeback and be named later on) makes a point that journalism keeps democracy alive, which is one of those sayings that is only a cliché because it’s true.
What he says, about three Toledo city council members being indicted on bribery charges because of their reporting, is something that happened often at small papers like that. When the small papers stopped getting read, people didn't stop committing those crimes; they just stopped getting caught—because what reporter was going to do all that work to catch them when they were barely being paid to do their job? What will it matter, when no one reads the paper anyway?
Add together years and years—decades—of that erosion, and you’ll arrive at the root of how we ended up with so much corruption in our politics today: If you don’t weed those people out at the local level, inevitably, more of them are going to go on to hold higher positions of power, and probably commit more impactful crimes while they’re up there.
And look what’s been left behind: A tiny cubicle of desks, mostly accountants, with one surly, mostly checked-out reporter, and one very bored compositor who basically just copies and pastes meaningless AP News fluff onto paper that will later be used as fish wrappings and puppy potties.
Oh, and of course, Esmeralda Grand. (Sabrina Impacciatore)
I know Esmeralda Grand. I have WORKED FOR Esmeralda Grand; she’s a composite of several people I worked with while writing Entertainment News, and, before that, straight-up clickbait. I can already tell that this woman is going to drive me insane in the most cathartic way. (Even her accent reminds me of a specific former boss, one whom I would love nothing more than to hurl an incredibly sticky pie full of hard nuts at.)
The way she drinks her own kool-aid is infuriating. It’s incredible. Her boastful claim that her meaningless endless-scroll article about a tip Brad Pitt gave to his limo driver (which takes you through the history of tipping and the colors of cars) was her best article….
She’s barely been on screen for five minutes before I hate her. THAT is good writing, and good acting.
I’m glad I was wrong about Esmeralda. Would it have been fun, to watch people underestimate her, and digital news, only to find out there was something in it after all? Sure. Is it even more fun to watch a caricature of every bad boss I’ve ever had combined get torn to shreds over the things I would silently seethe over at my desk with a bland smile pasted on my face? Hell. Yes.
What I love even more, though, is that she’s clever. She’s not just a dumb scarecrow to shoot rubber bullets at; she’s crafty, she’s manipulative, and she is determined to get what she wants—even if what she wants is incredibly petty and kind of stupid.
The People
Esmeralda wasn’t the only noteworthy character, of course, not by a long shot. Mare (Chelsea Frei) saying she actually wrote for a military newspaper after all of Esmeralda’s “nose for news” talk was a beautiful punchline—she looks every bit as done as I felt in those early days of work. The dynamics they’ve set up here have so much potential, even if some of the characters haven’t yet gotten a chance to shine.
Nicole (Ramona Young) is great; she’s so straightforward. Between her, who tells it like it is and says very little; Esmeralda, who tells it the way she wants it to be and says too much; and Mare, (our Jim, who says everything with little more than a look,) they’ve already got a great communication dynamic set up for future episodes.
Add in Detrick, (Melvin Gregg) who is obviously being set up to have a crush on Nicole in a somewhat April/Andy-type pairing, and this is already shaping up to be an incredibly strong core cast dynamic. Detrick is also little bit of an ass-kisser, which is an interesting trait for a romantic lead—I’m predicting that part of is arc is going to be about finding his balls (and hopefully part of Nicole’s is finding her feelings, because I’m already getting the vibe that she doesn’t think she has any.)
Now let’s talk about the accounting department: They gave us what appears to be a combination of Angela and Kevin in Adam, (Alex Edelman); as religious and bland as Angela and as dumb and sweet as Kevin; and though Adelola (Gbemisola Ikumelo) doesn’t speak much, her straightforward delivery and trendy dress remind me a lot of Donna Meagle of Parks and Recreation (a character I always thought deserved more of the spotlight.) Ironically, she’s kind of the Oscar of the group.
That’s ironic, of course, because we actually HAVE Oscar (Oscar Nunez)—though he’s insistent, in this first episode, that we do not “have him” at all, purposefully evading and recusing himself from any situations involving the cameras. I’m loving the evolution of the doc crew’s “voice” in this situation, and I cracked up at them just adding in that Always-Sunny-esque intercut of typed commentary after Oscar insists they can’t use his face or likeness.
Honestly, THAT is the way you incorporate the voices of the doc crew. Don’t make them characters like they did with the Boom Guy on The Office—let them make commentary in edits, like a peanut gallery. It puts them about halfway between us, the audience, and their subjects, which is exactly where a real doc crew would be too.
It was also really fun watching Oscar get to realize in real time—along with us—that this man he’s talking to about hitting a deer, Travis (Eric Rahill) is just Dwight Schrute all over again. (Actually, if you watch The Office’s audition tapes, this guy reads a lot like Seth Rogen’s audition for Dwight—a great alternate take on This Type Of Guy that I’m really excited to see play out here.)
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Barry (Duane Shephard), our crazy Kramer character, a combination of perpetually asleep, puzzle-loving Stanley, and the slightly demented and inexplicable Creed. Steed. Cranley. I’m looking forward to the chaos he will undoubtedly cause.
There’s also Marv (Allan Harvey), the big boss in charge, who has not said much of anything yet. He looks like a man who is perhaps humoring Ned now, but might become an adversary if those changes he wants to make ever become any kind of an inconvenience. (But that’s based on a nod and a smile, so don’t quote me on that one.)
(Also, I need to know why the Toilet Queen was crying on her Toilet Throne. Don’t think I missed that, guys. I know that’s going somewhere.)
Then, of course, there is the star of the show: Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) is so sweet. I’m already in love with him. (They timed that Clark Kent reference really, REALLY well, especially considering that we hadn’t actually had a Good Superman Movie before the James Gunn one for quite some time, and there was almost no way they could have known this one would be so amazing.)
He’s reminding me of a lot of my favorite past Daniels characters as well—he has all of Ben Wyatt’s awkward stiffness and all of Leslie Knope’s unflappable can-do-the-right-thing attitude. (One of those triplets probably turned out a lot like this guy.)
The Point
They’re very clearly setting up Mare and Ned as the real romantic leads of the show, (the slow burn compared to the more overt efforts of whatever’s going on with Detrick and Nicole.) They started off on the wrong foot, but then they had a cute little lunch where they were honest about their motivations, and when she hears what she has to say about where he wants to take the paper, she looks at him with hope in her eyes.
Well, hope and amusement, because she definitely knows that Esmeralda is not going to react well to finding out she has a new boss.
Mare seems like someone who used to genuinely believe in journalism. She seems like someone who once had a fire inside of her that was snuffed out by something (what could THAT have been), leaving her the blasé and jaded character we see today...but we saw hints of it in her face when she was listening to Ned’s little sweet, inspiring speech at the end.
(You know, the things he said while he was standing on that desk, other than “Me didn’t. Me wouldn’t. Me believe in respect in workplace,” like a caveman who just attended sensitivity training.)
Watching Ned draw the hope out of her like a timid alleycat is going to be delightful, and we got a little taste of it at the end of the episode, when Ned himself was watching that old black and white doc we keep seeing pieces of. Mare, the last one there, sees Ned so charmed by the magic of the printing press…and she takes him down to the machine, still sitting in the same spot, herself.
In that moment, looking at Ned’s face (and when they start getting emails volunteering help for the paper, an admittedly more material factor), you can see Mare allow herself to hope.
It’s poignant, what the man says at the end, about the magic button that turns the work of 900 people into the truth. We used to have that. Before whatever rich person bought all the local papers and turned them into whatever we have today, people were proud to hold these positions in papers small and large all over the country.
I’m not so sure we do anymore—but there have to be more Mares out there somewhere, and Neds to inspire them. Maybe this show will become well-loved enough that they’ll realize the world needs them.
It’s far-fetched, sure, the idea that one show could make such an impactful change to a culture…but like Mare and Ned, I can choose to hope. (And I can have fun trying to help.)
(The P.S.)
This is both hilarious and an excellent illustration of just how little anyone cares about this paper: When you zoom in on the first copy of the paper they hold up, it says: “SEEN AROUND TOWN: If your name is on this list, our reporter saw YOU around Toledo!” Followed by a list of just….names. Just random people's names.
Also, if you look around the side of the list, most of the other text is almost certainly pulled verbatim from the Communist Manifesto. (Guess it’s better than lorem ipsum epsolum.) Aside from that, there is also an article about a “Foreclosure at 23%,” presumably about a man who was injured in a workplace...which, actually, may also have been taken from the Communist Manifesto, because it does seem to get rather ardent when it speaks about how he’s being exploited.
Relevant to the episode? Only tangentially. Hilarious props choice? God yes.