A lack of originality isn’t merely a bug in the movie and TV business. It’s often a feature, as production companies and studios take the easy road and try to replicate earlier successes rather than risk something new and different. If creative cannibalism is going to happen, it’s a relief when the results are praise-worthy. Such is the situation with the TV shows Adults and The Paper. Each series recalibrates a familiar, well-loved comedy format and does it impressively, with genuinely amusing scripts. Both programs were renewed for second seasons that recently debuted, and the quality has been maintained. The fact that neither show is on broadcast television allows the content to be far less restricted in topic and language than networks generally allow, so strait-laced viewers should beware.
‘Adults’
To be fair, Adults is the latest in a succession of sitcoms about young or young-ish comrades seeking careers, love, and/or sex in the big city. Girls, You’re the Worst, and I Love L.A. have been among the most memorable of these sitcoms since 2012 — every one of them influenced to an extent by the mega-hit Friends, which ran for 10 seasons on NBC from 1994 to 2004. But the setting, in-group romantic shuffling, and shared living situation of Adults give it more in common with Friends than comparable ensemble shows, and it’s at least as consistently funny as its predecessors.
Like the six principal characters on Friends, the five 20-somethings of Adults live in New York, and some of them are in relationships with each other or want to be. The differences are significant. Adults is set two decades later in the here and now of social media, fluid sexuality, financial shortfalls, and the gig economy, and it mines those contemporary issues for abundant laughs. Instead of doubling up in Manhattan apartments like the flush Friends gang, the entire Adults quintet of Samir Rahman (Malik Elassal), Billie Schaeffer (Lucy Freyer), Paul Baker (Jack Innanen), Issa Damani (Amita Rao), and Anton Evans (Owen Thiele) share Samir’s childhood home in Queens rent-free while his retired parents travel across America in an RV. And unlike the pretty white, hetero friends on Friends, those on Adults include people of color, a Muslim, a bisexual or two, and a gay man.
Although the sexuality and multicultural aspects of the Adults group are dealt with as matter-of-fact among them, it does impact their interactions with normies, despite New York being a more accepting place than a random small town in the Deep South. Their devotion to one another helps them as they struggle with their jobs (or lack of them), dating and relationship fails, their funky communal digs, bureaucratic nightmares, and the ingestion of controlled substances. The core cast is a bonanza of up-and-comers with pinpoint comic timing, and it’s serious fun to observe them as they grapple with adulthood or try to avoid its responsibilities for as long as possible. Plus, there are choice guest shots from Charlie Cox, Julia Fox, Susie Essman, Ray Nicholson, and Zosia Mamet to name a few. Boosted by its likable players, Adults, which is the creation of former Tonight Show writers Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw, has as much vitality and flat-out laughs per episode as the painfully hilarious You’re the Worst, and that’s a high bar.
Adults airs Thursday nights on FX and FXX, and all episodes stream on Hulu.
‘The Paper’
The Office, developed and written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, took a mockumentary approach to depict staff interactions at a branch of a fictional British paper company and spawned an incredibly versatile international comedy franchise. Spinning off from the award-winning American version of The Office, The Paper is a workplace series that follows the endeavors of eager-beaver editor in chief Ned Sampson in his quest to save a failing Ohio newspaper, the Toledo Truth Teller. Greg Daniels, who adapted The Office format for the U.S. market, cocreated The Paper, which ostensibly features the same documentary crew that invaded the Scranton, Penn., offices of the Dunder Mifflin paper company in The Office and are now shooting their new project about Ned’s efforts to revive the moribund newspaper. One more major connection to The Office is Oscar Nunez reprising his supporting role as accountant Oscar Martinez, who moved from Dunder Mifflin in Scranton to take a job with the Toledo branch of the Softees toilet paper brand that splits office space with the Toledo Truth Teller.
As in the U.K. and U.S. iterations of The Office, the interpersonal dynamics of The Paper are the main attraction, and those playing Ned, the handful of newspaper staffers, the volunteer reporters, management, and the toilet paper salespeople are crucial to its appeal. Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson essays a serviceable Midwestern accent as earnest do-gooder Ned, a Softees salesman until he became consumed by the battle to keep a print publication alive in the digital age. Ned’s task is made even tougher by his belief that his attraction to Mare Pritti, the paper’s compositor-turned-star-reporter, is unprofessional. Gleeson is well-matched with Chelsea Frei, who brings part tomboy/part girl-next-door charm to the role of Mare, an ex-Army war correspondent. Further complicating Ned’s enterprise is the conniving Esmeralda Grand, managing editor of the newspaper and its sensationalistic online edition. Grand, played by the wonderfully over-the-top Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore, is furious that Ned has usurped her control, and she will do anything she can to undermine him.
If Esmeralda’s campaign to elevate her status and bring Ned down can get a little cartoony, it’s countered by the sweetness of the budding Ned-and-Mare affair and the spiciness of coupling the paper’s genial ad sales rep Detrick Moore (Melvin Gregg) with the circulation department’s wary Nicole Lee (Ramona Young). The Office and The Paper are both dryly witty in execution and occasionally heartwarming, and there’s continuity from one to the other with the presence of the camera crew and the documentary aspect. Obvious similarities and overt associations aside, Ned and Mare enact a different sort of love story than the will-they/won’t-they of Jim and Pam on The Office, and Ned’s crusade to support print journalism in the form of the Toledo Truth Teller truly sets The Paper apart from its antecedent.
All episodes of The Paper stream on Peacock.
