The Paper, the streamer's spinoff series to NBC's classic comedy The Office, has been renewed one day ahead of its release date. The series hails from former Office showrunner Greg Daniels and Michael Koman. All 10 episodes release on Thursday.
The renewal was announced on the Today show Wednesday morning. The move is a big vote of confidence from NBC. A source says Daniels has already started ideas for the second season and the network wanted to keep up the momentum. The early renewal will also give the show a regular cadence so it can premiere same time next year.
The Paper sees the documentary crew from The Office landing on a new subject as it follows the publisher (Domhnall Gleeson) and staff of a historic but struggling newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, called Truth-Teller.
Daniels told The Hollywood Reporter during an interview for an Office oral history that The Paper will employ much of the same crew that worked on the former mockumentary series. "It's about this struggling Midwestern newspaper that's much reduced from its glory days. A lot of the story lines are about how Domhnall Gleeson's character is trying to restore this paper, and he just doesn't have the budget for hiring reporters, and he has to use all the staff that work there on a volunteer basis to be reporters," Daniels said. "The villain here is the internet and the ability to look at everybody's news for free, and all the ad revenue going to Google."
Oscar Nuñez is the only star so far who will reprise his The Office role, as Oscar Martinez.
The Paper also stars Chelsea Frei, Melvin Gregg, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Alex Edelman, Ramona Young and Tim Key. Duane Shepard Sr., Allan Havey, Nate Jackson, Mo Welch, Nancy Lenehan, Molly Ephraim and Tracy Letts have guest roles. Ikumelo, Edelman, Rahill and Welch are also writers on the series.
The series is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group. Co-creators Daniels and Koman are co-showrunners and executive producers. Writer Daniels produces under his banner Deedle-Dee Productions. Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Howard Klein, Ben Silverman and Banijay Americas (formerly Reveille) are also executive producers.
