A day before The Paper is set to release its first season on Peacock, The Office spinoff has been picked up for a second.
The early renewal was revealed Wednesday morning by series stars Domhnall Gleeson and Sabrina Impacciatore while promoting The Paper’s launch on NBC’s Today. It will allow the comedy to return next fall.
This is something streamers have been doing more of lately to keep the gap between seasons to a year but early renewals are typically being bestowed on popular, established series. Pickups ahead of the debut of a new series are rare and represent a major vote of confidence.
Of course, The Paper is not a completely new series as it carries some of the DNA of The Office, including the same mocumentary premise, The Office developer Greg Daniels as its co-creator, executive producer and co-showrunner and Oscar Nuñez reprising his role from the NBC series. Additionally, The Paper directors include Daniels, The Office pilot director Ken Kwapis and the mothership’s writer-producer-director (and actor) Paul Liebersten.
Daniels already is said to have ideas for a second season. It is likely his Season 2 plans and the NBCUniversal brass being happy with the competed episodes that paved the way to the renewal.
Expanding The Office franchise with a new series had been a top priority for NBCU since the company announced in 2019 that it was launching a streaming service, Peacock. The decision had always been left in Daniels’ hands. By the end of 2023, he had warmed up to the possibility and in early 2024, he opened a writers room to explore ideas for a followup series. It ultimately became The Paper, which Daniels co-created and executive produces/co-showruns with Michael Koman (Nathan for You).
In The Paper, the documentary crew that immortalized Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch in the Emmy Award-winning series The Office find a new subject when they discover a historic Midwestern newspaper and the publisher trying to revive it.
All 10 episodes of the series’ first season will be released tomorrow, Sept. 4. Its cast also includes Chelsea Frei, Melvin Gregg, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Alex Edelman, Ramona Young and Tim Key.
Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Howard Klein, Ben Silverman and Banijay Americas (formerly Reveille) also executive produce. Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, is the studio.
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