A day before its premiere on Peacock, Deadline reported that The Paper, the new Office spinoff set in the same universe, received a season two renewal. The series premiered all 10 episodes on Thursday, September 4.
According to Deadline, series stars Domhnall Gleeson (Ex-Machina, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) and Sabrina Impacciatore (The Passion of the Christ, The White Lotus) broke the news early Wednesday morning during a segment on NBC’s Today. Early renewals are mighty rare, and usually show the network has a show of confidence in a series. Season two is expected to come next fall.
Previously known as The Office spinoff, an expansion of the mockumentary comedy series had always been a goal for the network since 2019, around the time Peacock launched, according to Deadline. Execs left the ball in creator Greg Daniels’ (King of the Hill, Parks and Recreation) hands. Talks of hypothetical reboot surfaced in 2022, with Daniels unsure if fans necessarily wanted one.
“I can’t tell whether fans would want more of it, and when I say more of it, I don’t think it would be the same characters,” Daniels said in a Collider interview. “I think it would just be sort of like an extension of the universe, you know what I mean, like the way [The] Mandalorian is like an extension of Star Wars. But I don’t know if that would be something people would want or not, it’s hard to tell.”
Rumors continued for the next two years until April of last year, when Gleeson and Impacciatore were announced as leads. Thus, The Paper was born. In the new series, Gleeson becomes the new publisher for a failing newspaper in Toledo. He and Impacciatore’s editor butt heads as they to turn things around for the imprint.
Melvin Gregg (Snowfall, High Flying Bird), Chelsea Frei (The Cleaning Lady, The Moodys), Ramona Young (Santa Clarita Diet, Legends of Tomorrow), Eric Rahill (Friendship, The Bear), Alex Edeman (Just For Us, Unfrosted), Tim Key (The Witchfinder, This Time with Alan Partridge), and Gbemisola Ikumelo (Black Ops, A League Of Their Own) round out the new faces of the main cast.
Supporting cast members include Allan Havey (Night After Night with Allan Havey, National Lampoon’s Adam & Eve), Duane R. Shepard Sr. (Batman: Arkham City, No Way to Live), Molly Ephraim (A League of Their Own, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones), Mo Welch (Comedy Central’s Colossal Clusterfest, Life in Pieces), Nate Jackson (Love & Brotherhood Sequel, Curb Your Enthusiasm), Nancy Lenehan (Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off, Catch Me If You Can) and Tracy Letts (August: Osage County, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty).
To keep some connection to the original series, Oscar Nunez (The Proposal, The Office) reprises his role as Oscar Martinez from the Scranton paper office.
According to Deadline, Daniels is joined by Michael Koman (Nathan for You, Saturday Night Live) as co-showrunner and co-creator. The series is produced by Universal Television and Banijay Americas, with original Office star Ricky Gervais (Life’s Too Short), Howard Klein (The Sex Lives of College Girls, King of the Hill), Stephen Merchant (Extras, The Outlaws), and Ben Silverman (MacGruber, Untold) as executive producers.
Stream all 10 episodes of The Paper on Peacock.