A thought hit me when bingeing the first series of The Paper on Sky’s Now streaming service this week: how on earth did it take this long for someone to make a sequel to The Office?
Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a glowing verdict on the comic merit of The Paper – an Office-style mockumentary set in a struggling regional newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. Rather it was a reflection on the usually mercenary economics of big television. During the pandemic, the American version of The Office racked up an astonishing 57 billion streaming minutes, despite its final episode having aired in 2013. The show premiered in 2005, inspired by the British sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant that ran from 2001 to 2003 (and which is itself still a big hit on iPlayer). The US series went on to run for 187 more episodes than its UK predecessor, yet it hadn’t been tapped for a proper spin-off – until now.
It wasn’t like there wasn’t money on the table. In 2021, the American streaming service Peacock paid $500 million just to secure the US exclusive streaming rights to The Office and take it away from Netflix. Last year another US media company, the podcasting giant Audacy, paid an undisclosed sum – likely in the tens of millions – to become the new home of Office Ladies: a companion podcast in which two of the actors watch each episode in turn and share their reflections.
When I reviewed the podcast for The Spectator during lockdown, I attributed its success to the ‘rewatch’ phenomenon: the tendency of millennials in particular to binge-watch back-to-back episodes of old hits, as a form of comfort viewing. Since then, the titular Office Ladies have completed their first full rewatch of the series, only to end up going back to the beginning again – this time with more special guests involved.
All of this goes some way to explaining why The Paper – produced in the US by Peacock and released in the UK last week – goes out of its way to reinforce its credentials as an Office sequel. The very first scene involves a cameo from one of the US Office’s characters (Bob Vance!), explaining exactly what happened after the conclusion of the last Office episode. For that two minutes of comic exposition, actor Robert R. Shafer probably pocketed the largest pay cheque of his career.
Then there’s the jaunty theme song, sounding so similar to its predecessor that anyone else would have received a legal letter had they written it. At this point, we’re less than five minutes in – and have already had two reminders that we’re back in the Dunder Mifflin universe.
Is that such a bad thing? As a recovering Office ‘rewatcher’ myself, I came to The Paper expecting to find these kinds of crossover moments. What I didn’t expect was to end up watching the whole first series in a state of cat-like alertness, focused more on spotting the next Easter egg than enjoying the gags. Naturally, I had to watch it again afterwards to rectify the situation.
Now for the secondary question: is The Paper any good? I’m happy to give it a tentative thumbs-up. But while the first season is funny enough, you have to wonder whether anyone would have given it the time of day had it been packaged as a standalone show rather than the heir to The Office. In that way, it has something in common with its nepo-baby lead: the impressively versatile Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson (son of Brendan).
The more interesting question, though, is what the show tells us about the future of television. In an age where streaming platforms have an abundance of cash and viewing data, it’s not surprising they’re willing to throw huge amounts at the most successful shows (including their writers) in order to bring them back.
In some ways, this has been going on for years – just think of Cheers and Frasier. Three of the most successful series of the past decade (Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and The Big Bang Theory) all ended up getting long-running spin-offs. In the case of Game of Thrones, its spin-off is now getting its own spin-off.
For a darkly amusing example look at what happened when the American streamer Hulu scored a big hit with their adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood’s Booker Prize-winning dystopia. What began as a standalone novel ended up being stretched out over six seasons, with new characters and world-building galore – the equivalent of turning Nineteen Eighty-Four into the Marvel cinematic universe.
Of course, none of those can hold a candle to The Office, which is widely considered to be one of the most-watched series in the history of Netflix. And yet strangely it has taken over a decade for someone to persuade lead writer Greg Daniels to return to his most successful creation
From a creative perspective, the concept of sticking with tried-and-tested creations might be a bit depressing – but that won’t worry the streaming platforms. If nothing else, jaded types can comfort themselves with the thought that it could be much, much worse. After all, what is the one show that smashed The Office’s record of racking up 57 billion streaming minutes when it arrived on Netflix in 2023?
That honour goes to Suits, the schlocky legal drama best known for launching the career of Meghan Markle. Now imagine how much money the big streamers would pay her to step back into that role…
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