The Paper

The show on it's own not comparing it to the Office is fine. It needs time to grow I guess, hopefully it will find it's legs in the second season. The "Me Too" joke on the first episode was distasteful and there is some cringe through the season. My biggest criticism is that the character Esmerelda is complete garbage and not in a way that you love to hate a character, she just is jarring to the entire growth of the entire cast. She tries to ruin everything in a sense that makes me want to go away from the screen or turn it off everytime she's on. Get rid of or change Esmerelda and the potential will grow.

The Italian has to go. I couldn't get past how she offsets the entire show. You could remove her from the entire first season and it would be excellent. To me it seemed that she is setup as a nemesis but it doesn't work. She's not Toby. She is just annoying and does nothing to help us care about other characters.

I'm enjoying the fresh take with a refreshing blend of old charter traits. Esmeralda though, absolutely insufferable. Please tone her down or something. She like all of the worst traits of the original casts characters all bound up into one incredibly annoying person. I want to like her but I just cannot.

The cast is good and the characters are well laid out. There are a lot of jokes and the pacing is good. I appreciate that they open the first episode acknowledging that mockumentaries are a stale old bit; however, by episode two I'm tired of it. It would be interesting to see an edit without these interviews and see how the show could stand on its own. I also like how they highlight in a joking way all the reasons this industry collapsed.

They are setting up a will they/won't they situation. But if you're already an old fashioned show why not drag out this old bit too.

This is an easy and low investment show that can be a fun watch. It is not innovative or creative in any way, and it doesn't need to be.

I didn't have much hope for this show. I figured it would be a bad attempt at recreating the Office. But it's actually pretty funny. Much better than I thought it would be. That being said, Esmeralda is absolutely unbearable and single handily ruins the show. I don't know if the writers thought people would like her, find her funny, or what their plan was for her. But her character is so bad it makes me want to turn the show off every time she's on the screen. If she were removed, season 2 could truly be great.