Review: ‘The Paper’ Season 1, Episode 1 “Pilot”

At the beginning, we meet Bob Vance, who explains that Dunder Mifflin, the old office building they’re in, has been closed for a long time, and the building they’re in is now a refrigeration company. We then arrive at the Truth Teller Tower, where we meet a guy named Ken, who talks about Innovate, a company that sells things like toilet paper and other toiletries, as well as newspapers. He then shows us through the Softees Toilet Paper company, and then to the Toledo Truth Teller office, where the newspaper is made. 

We meet characters like Mare Pritti, the compositor, Barry, the slightly out-of-it old timer reporter, Esmerelda Grande, managing editor, Nicole Lee, who’s in circulation (keeping track of subscribers), Detrick Moore, who gets the ads for the paper and is the guy who tries to cheer everyone up, and a few others. We also meet Ned, a new employee at the paper. Ned is mistaken for a possible intruder and is locked in a copy room by the other employees. He is then saved by Mare, who tells everyone that she saw him talking to the camera crew about being hired there, and they have a lunch conversation, where Ned shares how he got where he is.

Ned starts talking to Esmerelda and Ken about ways they can save the paper from going under, including focusing on basic, straight-to-the-truth stories, and ditching the clickbait news articles, and having multiple local beats like city and sports beats, different categories that could make the paper worth reading again. Ken responds by saying the company is fine and healthy because of the Softee Toilet Paper business (basically wanting to avoid too much work and money spending). Ned confronts Esmerelda about sending an email to the company that he wasn’t #MeToo’d, and he then stands on someone’s table and tells everybody that he is going to do the best he can to save the company, one way or another. Detrick unsuccessfully tries to cheer up Esmerelda by saying that Ned’s idea is stupid, and they shouldn’t change, and she walks off frustrated.

When Mare walks into Ned’s office and sees him watching a 70s documentary about the paper company, she brings him to the basement and shows him the old paper-making machine that’s still there. Ned pushes a button on the machine, which is later revealed to feed the information the reporters gathered (along with the paper to put it on, of course) gets fed into it. We then get an end-credit scene with Oscar. 

 To be honest, while this is the first episode/pilot, it really wasn’t that interesting or funny. There was a little smirk at most about 2 or 3 over the course of the episode, but nothing that was super funny. The format is similar to The Office, where it’s meant to be like a documentary with the camera crews and the little interview scenes. Since this is a spinoff of that show, that makes sense, but it just didn’t sit right (The Office wasn’t that interesting either). Maybe the show will get a little better as the episodes go by, but first impressions aren’t so good.  

Rating 6.6/10