Angel Baker

Fine but not fantastic. I loved the background characters and side story lines more than the painfully forced romance/relationship between Ned (weird and awkward) and Mare (trying too hard to be Pam-esque without the endearing quality). To the point that I found myself wanting to just skip past their scenes. I get they were trying to give us Jim and Pam 2.0 but I just didn’t buy in. I loved that The Office had little touches of romance that slowly built over time. In the first season of The Paper, we had at least three couples building/built up (Ned and Mare, Esmeralda and Ken, and Nicole and Detrick) - which frankly felt forced, rushed, and waaaaay too much. I did LOVE Detrick and Nicole’s relationship, but even that moved too quickly. The Office was gold - awkward, uncomfortable, hilarious, and heartwarming at times. The Paper is bronze for me - slow, a lot going on, mildly amusing, and lukewarm at best. There needs to be more comedic and uncomfortable moments. And less of what this is currently. I plan to watch S2 to see if it’ll get better but man The Office S1 was so strong… and The Paper? Meh, 50/50.