Part of The Office’s success came from finding humor in an average, unremarkable office, and there was another workplace TV show airing on HBO that was like The Office’s dramatic, political counterpart: The Newsroom. Set at a fictional cable news office, The Newsroom was a show that explored the lives of the people in front and behind the camera. Both The Office and The Newsroom use the setting of a workplace as a way to tell the stories of the personal and interpersonal lives of the ensemble casts.
Fans of the show were not tuning in to hear about Dunder-Mifflin’s paper sales, but The Newsroom was more focused on the work of reporting the news. Created by Aaron Sorkin, The Newsroom covered real news topics from the hindsight of three years in the future from when the show is set. But the real hook of The Newsroom was the relationships between the characters, and even if The Office’s Jim Halpert and Pam Beesley are an iconic will-they-or-won’t-they couple, The Newsroom has its version as well.
The Newsroom’s Workplace Comedy Felt Strangely Similar To The Office
Even Their Titles Have Something Interesting In Common
The Office and The Newsroom have similarities, being ensemble workplace TV shows. The Office utilized its mockumentary format to allow characters to share their thoughts and opinions directly to the camera. The Newsroom delivered monologues through the platform of a news broadcast, a similar effect to talk-head interviews but with more gravitas. While The Newsroom is a scripted show, the camera style follows the characters closely in a way that can feel reminiscent of a documentary.
Even the titles of the TV shows reflect the importance of the workspace to the relationships between the characters: The Office and The Newsroom are both names that are general descriptions of the workplace setting. Aaron Sorkin brings his characteristic levity and wit to The Newsroom, breaking up the seriousness of the news stories. For a half-hour sitcom, The Office was funny but not in a sentimental, light-hearted way, like Parks and Recreation, instead veering towards the uncomfortable or cringe. The Office and The Newsroom find a tonal space between comedy and drama.
The Newsroom’s Jim And Maggie Romance Was Its Version Of Jim And Pam
Jim and Maggie’s Relationship Timeline Follows This Jim And Pam Tradition
The Newsroom follows the lives and romances of the ensemble cast, just like The Office did with its cast. Jim and Pam were the new Ross and Rachel of Friends, a will-they-or-won’t-they couple that audiences desperately wanted to get together. The Newsroom follows its own rocky romance between two coworkers, John Gallagher Jr.’s Jim Harper and Alison Pill’s Maggie Jordan.
Jim, a new senior producer, immediately has feelings for Maggie, a rising associate producer, but Maggie has a boyfriend. Her boyfriend routinely ignores her concerns at work, while Jim goes out of his way to cover for Maggie when she makes a mistake, leaving viewers to root for Jim and Maggie’s unspoken attraction. This is reminiscent of audiences yearning for Pam to leave her endlessly long engagement for the office nice guy. By season 2, Maggie is single but Jim is now dating Maggie’s roommate. The stars finally align in season 3 by the series finale.
The Newsroom must be directly drawing inspiration from The Office , or the names Jim Halpert and Jim Harper are a complete coincidence.
This follows a similar timeline to Jim and Pam’s early relationship, as Pam’s engagement then Jim’s other relationship prevent them from becoming a couple until the season 3 finale of The Office when Jim finally asks Pam on a date. If The Newsroom had run longer than three seasons, perhaps Jim and Maggie’s relationship would have continued to model Jim and Pam’s. While many shows since Sam and Diane in Cheers have had a push-pull romance, The Newsroom must be directly drawing inspiration from The Office, or the names Jim Halpert and Jim Harper are a complete coincidence.
The Newsroom & The Office Are Very Different Shows That Somehow Belong Together
Workplace TV Shows Differ In These Tonal Ways
The TV shows have tonal commonalities for series with different genres, but The Office is ultimately much more comedic and absurdist, while The Newsroom thoughtfully covered weighty topics. Someone falling into a vat of their own famous chili or Jim Halpert trying to convince a coworker that he has always been Asian exists in a heightened universe that would not work in The Newsroom, where they covered stories like the BP oil spill.
While at the extremes the tones diverge, The Office and The Newsroom are wildly different shows that still make sense in conversation with each other. Both The Newsroom and The Office are shows with humor and heart that focus on the lives of their ensemble casts at their workplace. While The Newsroom features more reporting than The Office does paper sales, fans of The Office might want to check out The Newsroom.
