US Office newspaper spinoff is serviceable but rarely hilarious

Two years after the British version concluded in 2003, American viewers got their own take on The Office.

- Hannah J Davies

Two years after the British version concluded in 2003, American viewers got their own take on The Office. Set at the Dunder Mifflin paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, it was in the spirit of the original, at least initially; but by the time The Office: An American Workplace ended in 2013, it was an award-winning sitcom juggernaut in its own right.

The showrunner Greg Daniels's new spinoff is set in this US Office universe, with the camera crew that followed Dunder Mifflin now decamping to a floundering local news outlet a state away (Oscar Nunez's judgy accountant, Oscar Martinez, is the only character to transfer to Ohio). The Toledo Truth Teller is struggling to survive in the digital age: cue the arrival of a plucky new editor, Ned Sampson (a very un-Irish Domhnall Gleeson).