The Paper: Peacock’s Office Spinoff Premieres September 4 With a Familiar Face Returning ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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The Office has been among the most iconic mockumentary sitcoms in recent years. Originating as a BBC series created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant that debuted in 2001, the show received an American adaptation in 2005 that ran on NBC for nine seasons all the way until 2013.
However, the mockumentary franchise is coming out of hibernation with the upcoming release of The Paper, a Peacock original series set to debut on September 4 of this year. Here’s everything you need to know about the series premise and the cast members, including the one character set to return from the original The Office.
The Paper Is Set In The Same Universe As The Office
The Paper and NBC’s The Office take place in the same universe, and Oscar Martinez (played by Oscar Nunez) from the original show is set to return as a character in The Paper.
The upcoming Peacock original series follows a mockumentary focused on a newspaper called the Toledo Truth teller, headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, that has a storied history, but has been on a steady decline thanks to the changes in the news marketplace.
According to the official trailer, the newspaper is currently being managed under a parent company called Enervate, and at the start of the series, the paper has become an online trend chaser. That begins to change, however, when Ned Sampason (Dominic Gleeson) becomes the new editor-in-chief at the paper and wants to return the Toledo Truth-Teller to the era of hard-hitting journalism that made it such a valued name to begin with.
To that end, Sampson decides to shake up the staff and bring in a new team of seven volunteer writers to revitalize the Toledo Truth Teller. The catch? Most of these people have never worked in journalism before, meaning Sampson has to build his grandiose new vision from zero. Sampson will also have to deal with staff members like Esmeralda Grand (Sabrina Impacciatore) who’ve grown comfortable with the status quo, along with the demands of Enervate’s upper management.
The Paper’s first season is set to have ten episodes, all of them premiering on September 4. The series is created by Greg Daniels, who was also the one responsible for showrunning NBC’s The Office.
The series is being produced by NBCUniversal Entertainment, whose president, Lisa Katz, had this to say in a statement, per Variety:
“In partnership with Universal Television and led by the creative team of Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, this new series set in the universe of Dunder Mifflin introduces a new cast of characters in a fresh setting ripe for comedic storytelling: a daily newspaper.”
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who created the original BBC version of The Office, will serve as executive producers for The Paper.
