The Paper: Season One [Blu-Ray]

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Sabrina Impacciatore, Chelsea Frei

Release Date: July 28, 2026

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Release Rating: 7/10

Synopsis:

Emmy® Award-winning° executive producers Greg Daniels and Michael Koman return to the universe of The Office with the new hit mockumentary series, The Paper. The documentary crew that immortalized Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch now focuses their cameras on a declining Midwestern newspaper whose newly arrived editor-in-chief Ned Sampson sets out to restore the once-heralded Toledo Truth Teller back to its former glory. Follow the daily lives and struggles of dreamers in love with journalism as they face urgent deadlines, tight budgets and everyday chaos in The Paper.

Set in the universe of ‘The Office’; the debut season of ‘The Paper’ joins the documentary crew that followed the Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch as they return twenty years later and soon set their sights on the Toledo Truth Teller, a struggling local paper that was lost in irrelevance some time ago, and their new editor-in-chief as he takes over the daily operations with the sole purpose of bringing the printed paper back into the limelight. Unfortunately it’s going to take more than a little effort and some hilarious struggles to turn things around.

‘The Paper’ was created for television by Greg Daniels (The Office US) and Michael Koman. The new series stars Domhnall Gleeson (TV’s White House Plumbers), Sabrina Impacciatore (TV’s The White Lotus), Chelsea Frei (TV’s The Moodys), Melvin Gregg (TV’s Snowfall), Gbemisola Ikumelo (TV’s A League of Their Own), Alex Edelman (Unfrosted), Ramona Young (TV’s Never Have I Ever), Tim Key (The Ballad Of Wallis Island) and Oscar Nuñez (reprising his role from TV’s The Office), with most offering capable and amusing performances in each of their roles that contribute to the fun and laughs in their own right.

The first season of ‘The Paper’ is a fun, often very funny and frequently heartfelt look at a struggling low-end local newspaper and its staff along with their new boss who struggle to return it to some semblance of relevance. Unfortunately in addition to trying to bring the paper back into the limelight, the new boss is also forced to deal with the strange staff populated with quality writers, some who do just about nothing and others who thoroughly believe that a clickbait article promoting irrelevant items is considered true journalism.

It does play it a little safer to the current state of things and much of the risqué and more questionable humor that The Office embraced is absent here, although there are a handful of moments that brush the line. It may not have quite captured the overall charm of its predecessor in one season, but then again it’s still better than the first season of that show in many regards when it comes to tone and humor. If you enjoyed the dry humor and offbeat tone of ‘The Office’ though, you should find plenty to love about ‘The Paper’ and if you haven’t yet had the pleasure I would strongly encourage giving it a whirl before the sophomore season debuts this fall.

All ten episodes from the debut season of ‘The Office’ spinoff ‘The Paper’ make their way home on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Pictures Home Entertainment ahead of the sophomore season’s debut this fall. The 2-disc Blu-ray set offers all ten episodes sporting very good full High Definition video presentations that hold up nicely and shouldn’t disappoint, and the solid HD video presentations are only perfectly complemented by fully capable, although unsurprisingly tame 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtracks for each that together have the entire first season looking and sounding about as great as you’d expect from a series of this nature. Even while the season set is absent of any extras, any fans that want to add the debut season to their collection on disc should be pleased with the results and the release is recommended to anyone already considering a purchase, especially if you can pick it up at the right price.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘The Paper: Season One’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the show’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio on all of the debut season’s episodes. The video presentations look great as a whole and they deliver clean, sharp and capably detailed presentations from start to finish of every episode, with no notable problems to be uncovered along the way. Detail is good on characters, backgrounds and the various other locations visited throughout, while colors are solid and clean and black levels are decently deep and rich as well. Overall, these are very nice High Definition presentations that never disappoint or lose their way and fans should be satisfied with the results.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on all 10 Season One episodes. These multichannel soundtracks offer clean, sharp and fully capable audio presentations for each episode of the season. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that these multichannel soundtracks are often extremely tame and tend to keep the majority of activity relegated to front and center, although they do occasionally take advantage of all five available channels in order to send some music or general office noise and background chatter throughout the speakers, while always making certain that everything remains fully clean and audible. Overall, these are solid 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtracks that won’t test the capabilities of your system but they do their job well and shouldn’t disappoint.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘The Paper: Season One’ does not include any extras.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Release Rating: 7/10

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‘The Paper: Season One’ Arrives on Blu-ray & DVD July 28, 2026 from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

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You can Purchase ‘The Paper: Season One’ on Blu-ray at Amazon HERE!

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