Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Paper

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

The Paper is a spinoff of The Office, and like its predecessor, it’s a mockumentary about a workplace that's facing financial and cultural headwinds. The Peacock series focuses on a local newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, and stars Domhnall Gleeson, Sabrina Impacciatore, and Chelsea Frei – and brings back a familiar face from The Office, Oscar Nuñez. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The paper is a comedy told in a mock documentary format about a workplace that's basing financial and cultural headwinds. If that sounds a lot like The Office, well, it's a spin-off of the office, just barely. And this time, the industry in the crosshairs is local newspapers. I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about the paper on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is Ronald Young Jr. He's the host of the film and television review podcast leaving the theater. Hello, Ronald. Hello, Linda.

And also with us is New York Times food reporter and author of the best-selling cookbook, Indianish. I recommend it. I have cooked out of it. Priya Krishna. Welcome back, Priya. Hi, Linda. All right. Great to see you both. The paper was co-created by Greg Daniels, who developed the U.S. version of the office, alongside Michael Komen, who co-created Nathan for you, which makes like a weird kind of sense to me, I have to say. The conceit is that Dunder Mifflin was devoured by, a paper conglomerate, and that conglomerate has lots of businesses that use paper. And in Toledo, Ohio, one of the things it has ended up owning is the Toledo Truth Teller, a local newspaper that has become sparsely staffed and mostly cuts and paste's wire stories or on its digital side, clickbait stories. But a new editor-in-chief named Ned, played by Donald Gleason, comes in with determination and pluck, only to find that there's not a lot of determination and pluck left in the truth teller.

The most powerful person there is an editor named Esmeralda, played by Sabrina Impacatore, who you might recognize as the hotel manager in the Italy season of the White Lotus. Esmeralda does not want to share power. She likes things how they are. And so she seeks to undermine Ned at every opportunity, like cutting the wire service. Sorry, I'm a little distracted. The wire's not working. Yeah.

That was supposed to be a surprise. But, yes, I canceled it. You cut the wire? Yes, for my little office. There are allies to be had, though, especially mayor, played by Chelsea Frey, who gave up a while ago but would like to be doing real journalism. This setup allows for stories about chasing down local stories, trying to survive in a hostile media environment, local politics, and of course the ins and outs of the personal dynamics among the staff. And one member of that staff binds the paper to the office. Oscar Nunez is back playing Oscar Martinez, who is now a jaded accountant in a whole new messy situation.

There are 10 episodes of the paper streaming now on Peacock. Ronald, I want to start with you. What did you think? So I came to this show very interested as a super office fan and expecting, you know, I love the mockumentary format. There's so many other examples of this that have gone well of the quirky office comedy. You have Parks and Rec, of course, which is like a direct descendant of this. So I came in, eyes wide open, ready to enjoy something else. I also came in as someone who loves Abbott Elementary.

I think this is a mid-show. This is very mid. Having all of those examples set before it, I think this show could be a lot better. That being said, the bones of this show are very good. And we know that historically Greg Daniels stumbles out of the gate. He stumbled out of the gate with the office season one, and he stumbled out of the gate with Parks and Recreation Season 1. This also feels like another stumble out of the gate because there's stuff and storylines and people that I like here, but they're all being used incorrectly, in my opinion.

So I did laugh, but the laughs I even had felt out of sequence. So I'd say I'm like middling on this. Yeah, I think you make a good point that both the office and parks and rec are shows that I think for a lot of people, they're like, well, you know, the first couple are a little weird and they don't feel like the show feels later. Yeah. Priya, where did you come down? How'd you like it? I largely agree. I love all of the shows that you listed.

I think I've watched The Office and Parks and Recreation at least 10 times. Dozens of times. Beginning to end. And I think people who are coming to this show are going to be expecting the same type of sort of cozy, all-enveloping comfort watch that a show like the office and Parks and Recreation can be. And I would say it like sort of provides that. I think the premise is great. You know, as a journalist, the premise that like a paper company owns a local newspaper is very funny to me.

I just found that it like just didn't quite get there. Like just in terms of the storylines, in terms of the humor, like the characters don't fit together as a unit in the way that they do with these amazing ensemble cast. Like if you think of a show like Parks and Recreation, each of those characters could have. had their own spin-off show, and I think that's kind of what made that show so good. I don't feel that way about this. I feel like some characters are shortchanged for others. I'm very surprised at just how much they're really trying to just reuse what has already worked. We've got a grumpy guy. We've got the absurd caricature. We have the budding romance between two young white straight people. Domhall doesn't quite work for me as a leading

character. It might be because I can only think of him as his character from ex machina, but I'm not getting the like pluck and spirit that I sort of want from like the Amy Polar type of figure in this show. I will say the thing that worked so much for me was Sabrina in Pachatore. I feel that she is like a scene stealer in this show and I want to watch anything with her in it. There is an episode called Scam Alert that I think is the best episode in the entire season where that character is sort of being scammed by someone pretending to be Josh Holloway, the actor from Lost. And it is so funny. And it reminded me of like the best episodes of The Office. I would love to see more of that.

But I agree. There's like potential here, but it just didn't land for me. It's so interesting to me because I came down roughly in the same spot as both of you. But Priya, for me, as Maralda, is the thing that keeps the show from working. I agree. I think she is way too broad. There is way too much of her. It is impossible for me to understand how she would still have a job.

She is incompetent and she is also kind of trying to undermine everyone who works there. I don't understand. I think you can go up to a certain point. And they found this sometimes with the office as well. I think you can go up to a certain point with people being. absurd and then it just becomes like too absurd and I think out of the gate with her she's too absurd it's nothing against the actress I really liked her in the white lotus I don't think she's doing anything other than exactly what they've asked her to do but I think she has written way

too broad I do think this show I started out feeling like yeah you know the notes are obviously very familiar and I don't necessarily think that's a terrible thing I think when you see spinoffs like, you know, Angel and Buffy or, you know, I mean, every James Bond movie has similar elements. It's like you can go back to what makes your thing work. That's fine. But I was feeling kind of mid about it. And I was like, I don't know if this really has me. But then I would say the last two episodes of the season, I was like, oh, they did get me actually. I actually do care about this. And I actually do like these people. And I think Donald Gleason, I liked him in this. I thought he was very charming in this.

When I was a kid, I didn't want to be Superman. I wanted to be Clark Kent. Because to me, Clark is the real superhero. He's saving the world too by working at a newspaper. And that to me is much more noble and much more achievable. It's an interesting, he's the boss, but he's not. He's both kind of a little bit buffoony, but he's also kind of your leading man. He's very earnest.

He clearly means very well. is not bad at his job. He's just kind of prone to bumbling kind of stuff. I really enjoyed him a lot. And I really like Chelsea Frey in this. I think she's got a really grounded quality that I really felt like it kept, it felt like she kept kind of bringing it back down to earth a little bit when it would get extraordinarily silly with the Esmeralda stuff. I have an idea. Oh my God. How long have you been there? The whole time. I thought you were a pile of shirts. Yes, Mayor. I think we all landed somewhere in the middle, but for really different reasons. Like, my feeling has been like, if they don't tone down Esmeralda, which they still might, then I'm going to eventually lose interest in the show because I can't do that this much. I think the issue with the Esmeralda character is that she is written too broadly.

I agree with you, Linda, but I also agree with you, Priya, that she is seasoning to the entire show. She brings that kind of chaos agent that we need for a show like this. If you look at Abbott Elementary, if you look at Ava Coleman, who is kind of this agent of chaos, but she also cares about the student. She has some sort of heart of gold that kind of endears you to her. If you look at Dwight Shrewd, he is an agent of chaos, but he also is a very good salesman. And you actually like him. There's a lot of parts about his character that make him extremely likable. He has this moral code that makes sense to him.

With Esmeralda, she's a bad mom. She is sabotaging everybody at the paper. And she also, like, she generally doesn't care about journalism. And so when you put all of those on her and then also try to make us laugh at her jokes, there was stuff that she said that. I was like, I don't think that's funny because you're being a jerk. And I'm hoping that in season two, they realize what they have with Esmeralda and kind of hone it down or at least like narrow the focus a little bit. I think that's why I liked the scam alert episode so much because the end really humanizes her.

Yes. You know, you feel really bad for her. understand why she is this like big larger than life character. And I, yeah, I hope to get more of those moments. Yeah. I think that's fair. And I do think that that episode is funny. I enjoyed the scam alert element of that. And I enjoyed the Josh Holloway element, which like, good job, Josh Holloway. You got him for this. And it's probably not going to surprise anybody given me and who I am and what I am known to like that I was sort of drawn. to the rom-com elements of this, this kind of sort of flirtation between Ned and Mayer that takes

a long time to kind of start to be anything. And at first I was like, oh, I don't know for a to learn to watch this because, of course, he is her boss, which he's super, super conscious of, which at least that helps a little bit that, you know, this is not something that is unspoken or unacknowledged or like nobody cares about it. As they got to the end of the season, I was like, I actually did feel like their ability. to kind of learn to cooperate with each other. And I think one of the things that I think works in this show that wasn't part of the office is that one of the things that made the office genuinely a melancholic show was that nobody there cared about anything they were doing except for the purposes of like a kind of a very detached, like I believe in being good at my job, which is sort of how some of them were. It's kind of how Michael was.

It's kind of how Dwight was. it's important to be good at your job. These people actually are trying to do something that they think is meaningful. And I think that potentially does give the show some more shape and some more depth. And I think they start to get into that close to the end of the season when you realize that these people are sort of afraid to admit that they have pride in their work. Because they feel like if I admit that I have pride in my work and that I care how other people receive my work, it's going to just disappoint. me in the end, right? Because it's just easier to not care about your job, which is, I think, something that a lot of people have felt at different times. So, like, by the end, when it started

to pick up those threads a little bit more, I did like it. One of the things that the office has in common with this show also is that there is a large group of kind of people who work in the office who don't do a lot, who aren't brought into a lot of stories. Alex Edelman is in this, and I think is excellent and very funny as this guy who just kind of says, at his desk and thinks about all the kids he has at home. And I like him very much. I think he's sort of the supporting one who's working the best for me. But I do think that this show makes the mistake that season one of The Office made,

where it was like, we are really only going to invest in these few characters' storylines at the expense of all of these other character storylines, even though we have an amazing ensemble cast. Yeah. And then I think part of what made The Office. so great is that it started to realize, oh, my God, like, our ensemble is amazing me to invest in all of these characters. I think that's right. I also am, like, charmed by the mayor, Ned romance, but I'm also just like, I feel like as a result, the Nicole Dietrich

romance, I'm sort of stuck being like, what is happening here? Who are these people? But I feel like maybe that's just like a Greg Daniels signature that we have to wait until season two to see Untangled. It's another reason why, if they had had had to. 22 episodes like a broadcast season. I feel like maybe you would have seen more of those characters start to get more shape to them because they do have a lot of promise. You know, you mentioned Melvin Gregg as Detrick, who I think is really funny. And Ramona Young, who plays Nicole and the two of them kind of have, it's not a flirtation exactly. It's like a whole other weird kind of works for them kind of maybe sort of thing going on. And I did,

I did like them. I'm always happy to see Oscar Nunez, I think he still understands how to make this exact guy funny. Yeah. He's the place where they allow him to indulge in a little bit of occasionally kind of callback humor. God, not again. I'm not agreeing to any of this. Don't you guys have enough after nine years? Nobody wants this.

You know what? You can't use my voice, my likeness, my face, nothing. They don't do a lot of direct referencing of the office except for the occasional, like, Oscar will occasionally say something and will be like, oh, he's talking about Michael. Those things were fun to me. But I do share your sense that like, it's in the middle. It's pleasant. It's fine.

I actually don't recommend binging it necessarily. I would watch it a little bit at a time. I'm not sure it's a bingy show. I think as a bingy show, it kind of started to get a little. Yeah, okay, I got it. I got it. Whereas when I would sit down to it again, I would be like, oh, okay, this is fun. This is cheerful.

I agree with the episode count. I think the benefit that a lot of, that any other television show has is that, and especially if you go to the office in particular, if you go back and rewatch it, reward you for saying that we thought about this, we thought about these slow burns. Like if you just go back and watch Jim and Pam and just look at Jim's face every time Roy is around, they thought about that. Look how Jim feels in this moment. And this one, I did like the Ned and Mayor romance.

And towards the end, I did like it because he directly addresses the fact that he is her boss. And there's some conflict in him struggling with that before, you know, they continue exploring or deciding what they're going to do at that point. It also feels like it's forced. It feels like they're making me deal with this romance because every other show that is like this has a romance at the center. And I don't mind that being there. I like romantic comedies. But I feel like when you put them in the paper in the very first episode, you can those two. There it is.

Oh, sure. Oh, sure. We're going to watch that. Sure. But then it also feels unfocused in a way because, like, there's no Roy. You know what I mean? Like, there's no way that we're like pulling them apart except for these kind of like false obstacles.

So like looking at it in that way, it makes me say, what is your plan for the paper beyond season one, especially with all of the knowledge that listeners and us all have now, knowing what happens in subsequent seasons of these shows, I don't know what it is for the paper, especially because they really didn't spend enough time talking about reporting. Yeah. Right. Like I said, I didn't think they had me. And I got to the end of the season.

And I was like, oh, you did have me actually. On a couple of fronts, I got to the very end of it. And I was like, yeah, I actually do care about this. I enjoyed this. I'm with these people. I want them to be happy. And I appreciated that. So let us know what you think about the paper.

Find us at Facebook.com slash PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show. Priya Krishna, Ronald Young Jr. Thank you both for being here to talk about our favorite thing, journalism. Thank you both. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Linda. This episode is produced by Jenei Morris and Mike Katzif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy.

And hello, come in, provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next time.