"In the pandemic year of 2020, the show that dominated TV screens was not Tiger King or The Mandalorian, but a show that had ended seven years earlier. In that year of isolation and anxiety, millions of Americans returned to The Office for comfort. It was boosted by its availability on Netflix, by then already synonymous with streaming, but also by its cache of over 200 episodes, its deep bench of much-loved characters, and its recognizable style."
"The Office was built to spin off. Greg Daniels's version for American TV was itself an adaptation of a British show by the same name, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. As was noted by Michael Schur, a writer for The Office who later developed Parks and Recreation with Daniels, portability was part of the show's design. Beyond the walls of the series' fictional paper company, "you could do spinoffs that weren't really spinoffs";"
In 2020 millions of Americans revisited The Office for comfort during pandemic isolation, aided by Netflix availability, an extensive episode catalog, and beloved characters. The Office's American adaptation by Greg Daniels was intentionally portable, designed to transplant its comedic style into different workplaces and spawning numerous international versions. The Paper, premiering on Peacock and airing on NBC, is a direct spin-off that applies the same documentary-crew framing to a ghost newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. The Paper relies heavily on familiar comedic beats and audience nostalgia, and it often forgoes a distinctive, location-specific portrayal of contemporary local journalism.
Read at The Nation
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