The Paper (2025)

The Paper will inevitably be compared to The Office, and in largely unfavourable terms. But the question of whether it is good enough to survive on its own is moot. It doesn’t have to. Fans of The Office will give it a go, and over the course of a slow-burn first season, come to feel some affection for the denizens of the Truth Teller Tower.

The Paper has forged an enjoyable path and gleans power from Gleeson’s chipper charm, but has yet to find its voice as a standalone sitcom.

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.

The Paper has funny jokes and enjoyable performances, and is pretty instantly forgettable — a disappointing outcome for any show, but doubly so for the follow-up to an unforgettable one.

The show itself struggles to match what it seems to think viewers want from it, and is best when it goes in its own direction. (Kudos to the cameos from the great Tracy Letts as the former editor, who shows up in newsreels from back in the day, when the paper was mighty.)

Playing it safe and familiar, however, is a recipe for mediocrity, as Daniels’ latest is a likeable enough half-hour affair that, at least in its maiden season, fails to find its own voice.

No one comes off too badly, and everyone looks nice, but after the season’s five hours fly by, there’s nothing left but a vague sense of warmth, a puff of pleasantness that dissipates in an instant.

A show like “Parks and Recreation” abandoned that formula altogether and I respect that “The Paper” also wants to change things up by putting a dedicated but somewhat hapless Jim Halpert equivalent in charge. A worthy experiment. But one that ultimately doesn’t work.

“The Paper,” like the publication at its heart, is intermittently charming—and inevitably outshone by what came before it.

The Paper doesn’t really work as a direct Office replacement, since even at its strongest, it never remotely approaches the comedic levels of its parent show. But it may at least function as a methadone-like substitute for fans who love the original but feel like they need to stop rewatching “Casino Night” and “The Lover” over and over again.

Starts fast, funny and competent, with an easy command of its mockumentary template. But the template is also a problem; the show feels too much like a Mad Libs version of the characters and dynamics from “The Office” and similar shows, without a firm identity of its own.

A wildly uneven new series.