The Paper has only just returned with its second season, but Greg Daniels and Michael Koman are already looking beyond the latest chaos at the Toledo Truth Teller.
The co-creators and executive producers revealed in an interview with this reporter that work has begun on potential storylines for a third season of the Peacock comedy, although the show has not received a Season 3 production order.
"We just started," Koman said when asked whether they had already mapped out another season. "We just started the writing of it."
"We don't actually have the order for the production of it," he added, explaining that the team is nevertheless "coming up with storylines and sitting with the writers" as they begin the process again.
The revelation comes after The Paper Season 2 premiered Sept. 9 on Peacock, with all 10 episodes dropping simultaneously. The second installment picks up after the Toledo Truth Teller's unlikely success at the Ohio Journalism Awards, with Ned Sampson, played by Domhnall Gleeson, searching for a bigger journalistic mission while the rest of the newsroom faces its own professional and personal upheavals.
Created by Daniels, one of the architects of the American version of The Office, and Koman, whose credits include Nathan for You, The Paper exists in the same universe as Dunder Mifflin.
The documentary crew that once followed the Scranton paper company has relocated to Toledo, Ohio, where it chronicles an endangered local newspaper and the eccentric group attempting to keep it alive. Oscar Nuñez also reprises his Office role as Oscar Martinez.
But after two seasons, the creators and cast believe the Truth Teller has developed an identity of its own.
Melvin Gregg, who plays Detrick Moore, said the inevitable comparisons to The Office began changing once viewers actually became familiar with the new ensemble.
"I think it's natural," Gregg told this reporter, explaining that audiences initially tried to identify which new character corresponded to familiar Office personalities.
"This is the Michael Scott, this is the Pam," he said of those early comparisons. "I think now that people know who we are, they can watch the show and just enjoy it."
Season 2 also gives the characters room to move beyond the roles viewers first assigned them.
Chelsea Frei, who plays Mare Pritti, said her character may actually have become "a little too comfortable in Toledo" after the events of the first season. The new episodes disrupt that comfort and force Mare to consider whether she needs something beyond the life she has built at the Truth Teller.
"This is her home and it's her life," Frei said. "But maybe she does need, you know, to experience a little bit more."
For Frei, part of Mare's Season 2 journey is about stepping outside that familiarity in order to recognize what she already has.
"The idea of kind of experiencing more to remind you of what you have and why it's so amazing," she said. "I think she grapples with a lot of that this season."
Her relationship with Ned also becomes harder to avoid after what happened between them at the end of Season 1.
Frei noted that whatever occurred in the celebratory atmosphere of the journalism awards becomes considerably more complicated when everyone has to return to the office.
"They have to show up back to work on Monday and that's awkward," she said. "You can't really ignore each other or you can't ghost somebody. They're your boss."
The romantic complications aren't limited to Ned and Mare.
Gregg and Ramona Young, who plays Nicole Lee, said the Detrick-Nicole dynamic effectively reverses in Season 2.
Gregg described their relationship as two people who may be more alike than either realizes but whose timing has continually been wrong.
"They've been repelling one another in a way where Detrick is chasing and she's running," Gregg said. "And now she's, you know, Season 2, she's chasing and he's kind of running."
Despite that push and pull, Gregg isn't ruling out the characters eventually figuring things out.
"Once the timing is right, they'll make for a great couple," he said.
Other Truth Teller employees undergo less romantic but equally unexpected transformations.
Duane Shepard Sr. said Season 2 allows viewers to discover that Barry isn't simply the disconnected older employee introduced in the show's first season.
"I think that was the fun part of it, is to surprise the audience with the fact that Barry was just not going to be senile and dementia," Shepard said.
Instead, Barry becomes "a working part of the team" once his colleagues begin recognizing and using his experience.
"As happens in most workplaces, the elderly are kind of ignored, especially when they get as old as Barry is," Shepard said. After spending much of his time sidelined, Barry is now "being tapped for his expertise," giving viewers a different perspective on the character.
Eric Rahill's Travis also begins discovering where he belongs in the newsroom.
Rahill said Travis wants desperately to contribute even though he has never been certain what he is particularly good at. Season 2 rewards his willingness to try, although not necessarily in the way he expects.
"He puts himself out there and it doesn't work in the way he thinks it's going to," Rahill said. "But then he finds a new thing that he's good at through trying."
That new skill is photography, giving Travis an unexpected route into journalism.
The actors also teased just how much bigger the world around the Truth Teller becomes.
Rahill pointed to a natural disaster that hits Toledo as one of the season's surprises and said the series can move between very different tones, from broad comedy to much quieter character moments.
"There's like a lot of different shows happening at the same time in our show," he said. "You can have like a more broader comedic moment and then a really slow, soft, you know, interpersonal moment. And it's all in the same tent and I think it works."
Shepard offered another, considerably more unexpected tease: viewers will learn more about "Barry's sexuality" and finally see his apartment. He said Barry discusses a love interest during Season 2, although audiences have yet to meet her.
"I'm looking forward to that in Season 3," Shepard said.
Koman said the writers' corkboards become filled with potential directions, estimating that there may be "10 to 1 or 100 to 1" ideas for what could happen compared with what actually makes it into the series.
Season 2 demonstrates how far those possibilities can stretch.
The Truth Teller staff navigates everything from a natural disaster and storm chasing to the increasingly complicated relationships developing inside the newsroom. But for Daniels and Koman, the news story itself is only part of the equation.
Koman explained that the mockumentary format allows them to imagine what the documentary crew would find compelling about regional journalism. From there, the writers search for stories that intersect most effectively with what is happening in the characters' personal lives.
"The style of humor is very observational," Koman said, explaining that the fictional documentarians are essentially searching for stories within the larger subject of regional journalism.
Daniels said there are "two things happening at once": the news itself and what happens emotionally to the people trying to cover it.
The show, he explained, follows "our characters' experience in trying to tell that story," with the writers looking for journalism that can also provide an emotional experience for them.
That formula leaves an enormous number of possible stories for the fictional journalists of Toledo to chase.
And while Peacock has not yet given the creators the production order that would officially send the Truth Teller back into the field for Season 3, Daniels and Koman aren't waiting for that decision to stare at the next blank page.
