A thought hit me when bingeing the first series of The Paper on Sky’s Now streaming service this week: how on earth did it take this long for someone to make a sequel to The Office ?

Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a glowing verdict on the comic merit of The Paper – an Office -style mockumentary set in a struggling regional newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. Rather it was a reflection on the usually mercenary economics of big television. During the pandemic, the American version of The Office racked up an astonishing 57 billion streaming minutes, despite its final episode having aired in 2013. The show premiered in 2005, inspired by the British sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant that ran from 2001 to 2003 (and which is itself still a big hit on iPlayer). The US series

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