Pity the poor TV writer foolish enough to make a show about journalism. The world is full of inaccurate and illogical medical dramas, but they survive because real life doctors and nurses only tend to grumble about them to themselves. But when you make an inaccurate and illogical show about journalists, real life journalists get to yell about it from the streets. This is probably why Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom ended so early, because we all got to bleat about it through our little megaphones.
The makers of The Paper must have been anticipating a similarly rough ride. It is, after all, explicitly a sitcom about the death of print media, and, Lord knows, nothing wounds us like staring the truth in the face. And yet last year’s first season emerged as one of the best new comedies on television.
Technically, a spin-off from the American version of The Office, it centred around the reporters of the dwindling Toledo Truth Teller newspaper. Forced to share an office with a (much more successful) toilet paper company, its skeleton staff were made to either copy and paste wire stories on to its content management system, or write clickbait drivel. It was bleak but, you had to admit, at least it knew the state of things.
Things turned around with the appointment of crusading new editor Ned Sampson ( Domhnall Gleeson), who strived to return the paper to its former glories. Last season ended on a moment of glory, with the paper winning a prestigious local award for journalism. As season two begins, it becomes clear that this did not change much.
This is still very much a show about a struggling operation. A billboard bought to trumpet its success ends up reminding locals to cancel their subscriptions. An obituary of a beloved colleague goes off the rails when it becomes apparent that he had a comically dark secret life. Everyone gets annoyed by overzealous push notifications.
A show with such devotion to an issue – make no mistake, this is a love letter to journalism – always has the potential to come off as unpalatably worthy, but The Paper avoids this thanks to its absolutely stacked cast. Gleeson, in the lead role, has a Leslie Knope-ish can-do spirit that sometimes overtakes him. Tim Key returns as a slightly villainous corporate strategist, although for some reason he only appears fitfully this time around. Lisa Gilroy makes a very strong first impression as an oversharing HR officer.
But, really, the show belongs to Esmeralda Grand, played impeccably by Sabrina Impacciatore. Esmeralda feels like she’s been beamed in from another show entirely. While everything else about The Paper feels like a naturalistic workplace comedy, Impacciatore’s Esmerelda is big and broad and loud. She’s a whirlwind of pratfalls and gesticulations and wildly overcooked reaction shots. At one point this season she gets nailed into a crate. At another she dresses up as a teenage boy and beats up her own son. None of it should work, but somehow all of it does. There are, quite honestly, not enough awards in the world to give her.
The Paper is also becoming a masterclass in the sort of will they/won’t they romantic storylines that tend to propel US sitcoms to the big leagues. The main one exists between Gleeson’s Ned and Chelsea Frei’s Mare, who shared a kiss in last year’s finale and now have to navigate a secret on-off relationship, but this time almost everyone in the cast finds themselves in the same situation. There are definitely two more will they/won’t theys, one of which comes about during an exceptional piece of physical comedy in a tornado, but there might even be more than that. It’s a lot to keep up with.
But, if that’s overload, then so be it. You get the sense that this could be The Paper’s chance to become as big as its mother show, and the producers are throwing everything at the wall to get it there. By no means does the show have a guaranteed future – a recent interview with Gleeson hinted at the uncertainty of a third season – but a show like this deserves to come back year after year. A warm, funny workplace sitcom that actually has something to say is a rare thing indeed. It would be a terrible thing to see it go the way of local newspapers.
The Paper was on Sky One and is on Now. In the US, it airs on Peacock. In Australia it airs on Binge and Foxtel.
