The Office Successfully Replaces Michael Scott After 15 Years

Published Oct 13, 2026, 10:15 AM EDT

Tom is a Senior Staff Writer at Screen Rant, with expertise covering everything from hilarious sitcoms to jaw-dropping sci-fi epics.

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It's difficult to overstate just how important Michael Scott is to the popularity and enduring legacy of The Office. Steve Carell’s hilariously incompetent regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Scranton was responsible for many of the sitcom's funniest and most memorable moments. His combination of misplaced confidence, desperate need for approval, and occasional flashes of genuine brilliance made him one of television's most beloved comedy characters. So integral was Michael to The Office that many fans still skip the seasons following Carell's departure in 2011.

While having a character as uniquely hilarious as Michael Scott helped secure The Office's reputation as one of the greatest sitcoms ever made, it also created an unexpected problem for the franchise. When its first spinoff, The Paper, was announced, many fans questioned whether a sequel to The Office could succeed without Steve Carell. However, attempting to simply create a new Michael but with a different actor and name would have been equally disastrous. The Paper needed a central character capable of capturing the magic of Michael Scott without being an inferior imitation of him.

Against all odds, The Paper has managed to do precisely that. Domhnall Gleeson's Ned Sampson, the enthusiastic editor-in-chief of the struggling Toledo Truth Teller, is simultaneously nothing like Michael Scott and the perfect successor to his sitcom legacy. Their personalities, professional backgrounds, and approaches to leadership are dramatically different, but Ned possesses the qualities that made Michael so key to the formula. By understanding what made Carell's character essential to The Office, rather than attempting to replicate him, The Paper has finally found a worthy replacement.

The Paper Wisely Avoids Trying To Introduce A New Michael Scott

The genius of The Paper is that it successfully replaces Michael Scott by not really replacing him at all. Ned Sampson may be the new boss, but he's not a Michael stand-in. The Toledo Truth Teller's editor-in-chief and the Dunder-Mifflin Scranton regional manager are almost polar opposites in terms of personality and professional competence. However, despite this, they share a crucial function. Both are absurdly passionate about their jobs, and this shared enthusiasm is fundamental to their respective shows. Each will go to ridiculous lengths to achieve success, even when their ambitions seem completely disconnected from the realities of their workplaces.

The crucial difference is how The Office and The Paper approach this enthusiasm. Michael is an incompetent manager surrounded by mostly competent employees, creating comedy through his inability to recognize his own flaws and limits. Ned, meanwhile, is a capable journalist surrounded by inexperienced rookies and volunteers. His frustration comes from knowing what his newspaper could become while lacking the resources and experienced staff needed to realize his ambitions. Michael is often the biggest obstacle to his employees' success, whereas Ned's employees are frequently obstacles to his.

Interestingly, both are also surprisingly talented salesmen. Michael repeatedly shocks his superiors and subordinates alike with his ability to close deals, revealing that his ridiculous behavior disguises some genuine professional talent. Ned's relationship with sales is almost the reverse. Having abandoned a successful career in sales to pursue his passion for journalism, he actively tries to conceal his abilities in his former profession (which is hilariously explored in full in The Paper season 1’s “Church and State.”)

These similarities and differences make Ned the ideal successor to Michael Scott. Both characters are relentlessly enthusiastic leaders whose ambitions generate much of their shows' hilarity. However, The Paper achieves this without imitating Steve Carell's performance or relying on the bumbling incompetence and lack of self and social awareness that defined Michael. It's the workplace comedy formula of The Office, but approached from a completely different direction.

The Paper Handles Its References To The Office Incredibly Well

Aaron Epstein/PEACOCK

Finding a replacement for Michael Scott was far from The Paper's only challenge when it came to following in The Office’s footsteps. Ignoring the original sitcom entirely would have made its position as a spinoff seem pointless, but excessive references would inevitably invite accusations of exploiting nostalgia. Remarkably, The Paper manages to strike an almost perfect balance between honoring The Office and establishing its own identity.

It does this by keeping its references restrained. The premier episode of The Paper revisits Scranton and the former Dunder Mifflin building, incorporating references to the company's history, including Ed Truck (Ken Howard). However, after this blatant example, nods to The Office are limited to references made by Oscar (Oscar Nuñez), the only returning character. Oscar’s subtle callbacks, such as stating that being forced to see work as fun gives him “PTSD from an old boss”, establishes the shows inhabit the same universe without allowing The Office to overshadow the new story.

Perhaps The Paper's cleverest decision, however, is making Oscar a stand-in for The Office's skeptical fandom. Initially, Oscar is deeply resistant to participating in another documentary, mirroring the reluctance many viewers felt about revisiting the franchise. He even yells “nobody wants this” directly at the camera crew in The Paper’s premiere. Having already endured years of cameras documenting his professional life, he understandably has little enthusiasm for repeating the experience.

Yet, as the first season progresses, Oscar gradually becomes more invested in his new workplace and the documentary surrounding it. It's a wonderfully self-aware approach to the challenges facing The Paper. Just as Oscar gradually accepts the new documentary, skeptical Office fans that stick with the spinoff soon discover a show that justifies its existence on its own merits. Especially since the arrival of season 2 in September, The Paper continues to prove that the franchise can thrive without relying on Michael Scott or the legacy of The Office.

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  Domhnall Gleeson

  Ned Sampson

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  Sabrina Impacciatore

  Esmeralda Grand