‘The Paper’ brings ‘The Office’ universe to Peacock streaming 20 years later

In 2005, the quirky British television comedy “The Office” launched its American version, which, after a bumpy start, became one of the century’s most beloved sitcoms. Twenty years later, Peacock is offering a new slice of this TV universe with “The Paper.”

The setup is simple: Scranton’s Dunder Mifflin was bought by a big corporation in Toledo that, along with a variety of paper products, including Softee’s toilet paper, also owns the local newspaper, the Truth Teller, where our story takes place.

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Anyone unfortunate enough to have watched the pilot episode of the American “Office” knows that it’s among the worst 30 minutes in TV history. The problem was that they used the British script almost word for word, and it just didn’t work.

The writers quickly learned that in the American version, Michael Scott had to be more redeemable than David Brent, Jim Halpert had to be manlier than Tim Canterbury, and Dwight couldn’t be a complete moron — because our cultures, sensibilities and comedy are different.

Just as British cultural sensibilities differed from American ones in 2005, the American sensibilities of 2005 are very different from those of 2025. The original “Office” had to compensate for geographical distance. For “The Paper,” the distance is measured in time.

This is evident from one of the first jokes, in which the villain, Esmerelda the managing editor, sends out an email on new editor-in-chief Ned’s first day saying that he “was not #MeToo’d” in an attempt to undermine him.

It’s a subtle dig at the overzealousness of the #MeToo movement, and it makes one wonder if the reason we had to wait so long for a reboot of “The Office” universe was that it had to wait out the puritanical #MeToo period.

After all, from the beginning, when Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created this documentary-style office sitcom, all the shows have essentially been about boundaries and social norms. You spend most of your life with co-workers — but what is your actual relationship to them?

As in “The Office,” the romantic relationships in “The Paper” are the parts of the show that are the most fun and funny. Sparks fly immediately between Ned and Mare, the only other person at the paper with journalistic experience, and those scenes jump off the screen as they casually judge everyone else, à la Jim and Pam.

Likewise, the charming flirtations between Detrick and Nicole also sparkle in a disjointed and awkward late-Millennial way, with Nicole embarrassed by the attention that, deep down, she really wants.

Another thing that stands out across the 10 episodes Peacock dropped all at once for binge-watching is that the central joke of the original “Office” doesn’t work anymore in 2025.

Both David Brent and Michael Scott regularly transgressed the emerging identitarian attitudes of 2005 — such as when Michael apologized to Oscar for calling him a Mexican, as if it were a slur, or Brent told the camera how much cuter Dawn was when she first got hired.

Brent and Scott were blissfully unaware of the new sets of rules about how one can talk in the workplace. That conflict created comedy. There is none of this in “The Paper” because, in 2025, everyone knows all of these workplace rules better than a Catholic priest knows the Nicene Creed.

Two decades of relentless corporate trainings worked — in real life and on TV.

In place of misunderstandings about office etiquette, “The Paper” often substitutes journalistic ethics, as this wacky band of newcomers to news-gathering learn on their feet how to fairly present local stories.

One aspect of this show that screams 2025 is the relationship between Esmerelda and Ned. Ned is her boss, and yet somehow, this 51-year-old woman who knows nothing about the news undermines him again and again without getting fired.

Thankfully, as the show goes along, Esmerelda becomes a bit more human, but we’re still left with the sense that Ned is mainly cowed by her for fear of being viewed as a sexist.

Perhaps in part because of the unique visual tricks of “The Office,” it’s fascinating to walk back into this universe so many years later. It feels a bit like visiting a city where you used to live for the first time in a decade — much is exactly the same, but just as much is very different.

The one holdover character is Oscar Martinez, and there’s an absolutely hilarious moment when he first sees the documentary crew, with a mix of fear and anger, and promises he will not be participating this time.

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Quickly, though, Oscar relents, falling easily back into the role of documentary subject, mirroring the experience of the viewer as we reenter this fictional world.

“The Office” might be the last major sitcom that Americans over 30 (and many under, due to reruns) all have in common. It’s a cultural touchstone. When JD Vance mugged for the camera in the vice presidential debate last year, he instantly became Jim Halpert in the public imagination.

“The Paper” would seem to have little chance of becoming another such cultural phenomenon. It’s not even on NBC, and in the world of streaming, no scripted program can achieve audiences like “The Office” had.

Watching the show, however, feels like we’ve been given back something that was lost — that foibles and honest human error in the workplace don’t have to be fireable offenses; they can sometimes just be hilarious.

With the excesses of the #MeToo movement in our cultural rearview mirror, “The Paper” is once again free to play with the emotional and love lives of its employees. And after so long — much like after COVID lockdowns — it feels good to get back in the office.

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