IT’S PERHAPS SURPRISING that more series haven’t been made that are based in a newsroom. The high-energy atmosphere, the dramatic stories, and the constant need for iteration in a digital world… there’s a lot there to mine from.

One of the most recent looks at newspaper life is The Paper, which premiered last year on Sky. Now it’s back for season 2. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

What’s it all about?

To refresh your memory, The Paper was created by Greg Daniels (who adapted The Office US) and Michael Koman (executive producer of Nathan For You). 

It’s set in the same universe as the US version of The Office and is also a mockumentary. The company Dunder Mifflin from The Office has gone out of business and been sold to a company called Enervate, which owns the Toledo Truth Teller.

So we now get a mockumentary from inside the Toledo Truth Teller, which is a Midwestern newspaper in the town of Toledo, Ohio. The newspaper is failing, and into the role of editor comes Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson), a former Softees toilet paper salesman who wants to overhaul the publication.

He works with the exuberant managing editor Esmeralda Grand (Sabrina Impacciatore), the shy Mare (Chelsea Frei) who is compositor on the newspaper, corporate strategist Ken Davies (Tim Key) and Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez), who is reprising his role from The Office.

What’s the plot?

Sabrina Impacciatore as Esmeralda Peacock Peacock

Ned tries to get settled into his new job and rescue the Toledo Truth Teller from the doldrums. But this isn’t easy, and to make things more interesting he starts falling for his colleague Mare. 

Meanwhile, among his challenges are the fact that Esmeralda and Ken often team up against him. 

Lots of quirky and odd things occur, but Ned keeps trucking on.

Yet underneath the quirk is a serious topic: the decline of newspapers. And Gleeson has really done his homework on the issue, as he told The Guardian:

Months before starting, he went and hung out with real journalists on some of Ohio’s surviving daily newspapers, shadowing them, attending editorial meetings, asking questions. It was eye-opening but also depressing. “By the time we were doing press for the first season, this person who I had shadowed a little bit, who was a very well-established journalist, was out of the job,” he says. She’d moved on because she could no longer make a living.

What’s happening in Season 2?

Peacock Peacock

When we get back to the Toledo Truth Teller, the team are riding high after winning several awards at a journalism event. But can they keep their great reporting going?

Plus, Ned is trying to negotiate a relationship with Mare – made more complicated by the fact he’s her boss, and he’s not sure exactly how much information he should tell his own bosses about what’s going on.

Plus, Esmeralda is as over the top as always. If you’re a fan of comedies like Arrested Development, The Office and Veep, you will enjoy this. The laughs don’t always completely land, but it’s a sweet watch.

When can we watch it?

It’s streaming on NOW.