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READ ALL ABOUT IT (THE PAPER, S1 & POKER FACE, S2)

 


THE PAPER, S1

It looks like 'The US Office'.

It squawks like 'The US Office'

It even waddles like 'The US Office'.

However NBC's streaming service Peacock's new sitcom 'The Paper' is not a patch on 'The US Office'.

A spin-off and sequel to the hit show (which itself was a US version of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's hugely influential BBC sitcom 'The Office'), it is the brainchild of Greg Daniels and Michael Koman and it's another mockumentary.

The concept is that the same documentary crew behind 'The US Office' have returned to Scranton, Pennsylvania only to discover Dunder Mifflin was bought out by Enervate, a paper company in Toledo, Ohio.

The Dunder Mifflin office was closed down, with a new company One and Done Laser moving in instead.

Dunder Mifflin's employees were offered the chance to move to Toledo but only Oscar Nunez's accountant Oscar Martinez took up the offer.

When he discovers the mockumentary crew have decided to focus on the employees of Enervate's headquarters instead, Oscar isn't exactly thrilled and he sets about sabotaging any efforts to put him onscreen.

Tim Key's English chief strategist Ken Davies, however, is delighted to appear in a documentary and in the first episode he enthusiastically takes the crew on a whistle stop tour of Enervate's HQ where we discover that not only do they manufacture loo roll but they own a local newspaper, The Toledo Truth Teller.

Enter Domhnall Gleason's wide eyed and inexperienced Ned Sampson who has just been appointed editor in chief and has a romantic notion of print journalism.

Ned wants to get the Toledo Truth Teller back on its feet again and he assembles a rag taggle team of existing reporters and new ones recruited from other parts of the company with no journalistic experience.

They include Chelsea Frei's former soldier and compositor, Mare Pritti who is keen to dabble in journalism again, having written for the Stars and Stripes while serving her country.

There's also Duane Shepard Sr's veteran hack Barry, the Truth Teller's sole reporter.

Oscar Martinez, Ramona Young's circulation department employee Nicole Lee, Melvin Gregg's advertising sales rep Detrick Moore, Gbemisola Ikumelo's accountant Adelola Olofin, Alex Edelman's fellow accountant Alex Cooper and Eric Rahill's Softees toilet paper employee Travis Bienlien are all recruited.

However Ned's efforts to even produce a paper - let alone improve it - are regularly undermined by Ken and the eccentric Italian managing editor Sabrina Impacciatore's Esmeralda Grand who resents his enthusiasm and his ideas.

Good comedy is rooted in basic truths about our lives.

It can be a highly exaggerated and distorted version of the world we live in but the humour is still rooted in basic truths.

For example, family dynamics are at the heart of many great sitcoms from 'Only Fools and Horses' to 'Frasier,' 'The Royle Family' and 'Gavin and Stacey' to 'Modern Family'.

The absurdities of the priesthood in 'Fr Ted' and the survival instincts of prisoners in 'Porridge' provide a strong base for their writers to work with.

The banality of office life is what made the UK and US versions of 'The Office' and other workplaces in 'Black Books' or 'The IT Crowd' work, providing a solid canvas for the writers to push all sorts of comic boundaries.

The problem with 'The Paper' is that the central premise just isn't credible.

Yes, it's true that print newspapers all over the world are struggling with a declining circulation in the digital age and dwindling incomes.

However the notion that the Toledo Truth Teller would be put together, without wire service content, by a ramshackle bunch of incompetent, inexperienced reporters is too far fetched.

While the writers should get credit for avoiding replicating the model of the embarrassing idiot boss so brilliantly portrayed by Gervais as David Brent and Steve Carrell as Michael Scott in the UK and US versions of 'The Office,' Ned is a terribly bland central character and his enthusiasm and naivete isn't capable of mining comedy gold.

It's allso vanilla that it's actually distressing to see a talented actor like Gleeson flailing around for laughs in a sitcom that is devoid of any.

The same is true of Tim Key.

The writers do fall back on trying to recreate other elements from the US and UK versions of 'The Office,' though.

Nicole and Detrick have an office romance that's not dissimilar to the romances in their predecessors. 

Barry has the same world weariness as Leslie David Baker's Dunder Mifflin salesman Stanley Hudson. 

Ken has the same vanity and misplaced cockiness that David Brent had in the BBC show.

But it's hard to invest in these characters or in Impacciatore's exaggerated and at times quite monstrous Esmeralda because they don't ring true.

The mockumentary also feels really tired as a comedy genre - especially in the wake of shows like 'Parks and Recreation' and 'Abbott Elementary'.

Amazingly, a second season of 'The Paper' was commissioned before the first season even was dumped on streaming services.

That investment makes about as much sense as Enervate taking over Dunder Mifflin.

In fact, to make it work it will require a radical makeover on a scale possibly even greater than the one facing Ned at the Toledo Truth Teller.

Good luck on that score.

(Season One of 'The Paper' was broadcast on Sky Max in the UK and Ireland between September 5-October 3, 2025, with all episodes available for streaming on Sky Glass and NowTV from September 5, 2025)


POKER FACE, S2

When 'Poker Face' first hit our screens in the summer of 2023 it was the perfect post-COVID era watch.

It was a playful amateur sleuth series - tongue in cheek, undemanding and a bit of a throwback to TV shows where quirky drifter heroes walked the Earth.

It's good to see Natasha Lyonne back for another outing of the star studded show, with her character Charlie Cale still on the run from Rhea Perlman's casino boss Beatrix Hasp, who has Mob connections.

In Season Two, Charlie is still racing across America, trying to stay one step ahead of Beatrix's goons - stumbling into a series of murder mysteries as she lands a variety of jobs.

Fans of the first season will know the show's hook is that its Colombo style heroine has a particular gift that helps her expose criminals - the ability to instinctively sense when someone is lying.

Over the course of Season Two, she gets to test those skills in a variety of settings - at the funeral of the nasty matriarch of a family of grown up  child stars, at a funeral home which is used as a location for a horror movie, at an awards event for Florida cops, at a minor league baseball stadium, at a prestigious school, at a Washington DC department store, among con artists operating in Philadelphia, in a Brooklyn apartment bloc, in a New York gym and while working as an oyster waitress at an upstate wedding.

As always, Charlie encounters an array of quirky characters on the road - some of whom are wrongly accused of murder and others who kill because they are motivated by greed, envy or because they just want to cover up a fatal blunder.

To get away with their crimes, they must, of course, overcome Charlie's bullshit detector.

Season Two boasts scripts by Lyonne, Alice Ju, Laura Deeley, Wyatt Cain, Tony Tost, Katie Thulin, Taofik Kolade, Megan Amram, Tea Ho, Ralphie Cantor and Andrew Sodroski that see Charlie flirt with a lot of danger while solving crimes.

Episodes are directed by the show's creator Rian Johnston of 'Knives Out' fame, Ti West who gave us the 'Maxxxine' trilogy, Lyonne, 'The Last Seduction' film noir director John Dahl, 'Chicago Hope' star Adam Arkin, horror filmmaker Mimi Cave, Nigerian American indie director Adamma Ebo and actress and director Clea Duvall.

Among the stars lining up to appear are Arkin, Steve Buscemi, Cynthia Erivo, Giancarlo Esposito, John Mulaney, Richard Kind, Gaby Hoffman, Kumail Nanjiani, director John Sayles in a rare acting role, Carol Kane, BJ Novak, Margo Martindale, Melanie Lynskey, John Cho, Awkwafina, Alia Shawkat, Patti Harrison, Lili Taylor, Justin Theroux, Haley Joel Osment, Steve Earle and Simon Helberg who returns as FBI agent Luca Clark.

But does the formula still retain its magic?

Mostly, yes but occasionally no.

For the most part, 'Poker Face' is still frothy fun.

It often amuses.

Some standout episodes include a story about Beatrix trying to use Charlie to detect a rat in her gang, another where Nanjiani plays an award winning Joe Exotic style cop, a tale about a conman who scams a charity worker and an amusing mystery about a high achiever who tries to undermine a classmate who knocks her off her perch.

The final two episodes commendably shake up the show's formula, with the writers also resolving Beatrix's long running feud with Charlie

However some episodes stumble.

The first three episodes feel a bit stale and they drag a little and occasional episodes like the baseball and gym episodes don't quite fizz.

Nevertheless Lyonne remains a strong card, even when the episodes are not up to scratch - bringing a lot of fun to proceedings with her Columbo meets Marge Simpson persona.

Series regulars Perlman, Helberg and Buscemi who plays a CB radio enthusiast who befriends Charlie are good value.

Erivo, Esposito, Nanjiani, Hoffman, Martindale, Lynsey, Awkwafina, Harrison, Taylor, Theroux and Osment amuse.

Newcomer Eva Jade Halford especially impresses as a vengeful prep school A student.

And while it doesn't match the consistency of its debut season, the follow-up has enough gems in it to suggest 'Poker Face' still has legs.

Whether Johnston and his team of writers can sustain the show with enough mischief and intrigue is far from guaranteed.

However a third season of 'Poker Face' is worth a gamble.

Hopefully that gamble will pay off.

(Season Two of 'Poker Face' was broadcast on Sky Max in the UK and Ireland between May 8-June 12, 2025, with all episodes available for streaming on Sky Glass and NowTV)

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