The Paper Spinoff Reveals Dunder Mifflin’s Fate Since 2019

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for The Paper season 1, episode 1.

The series premiere of The Paper wastes no time in revealing what happened to the Dunder Mifflin paper company from The Office, where Michael Scott and his employees worked for the majority of the celebrated comedy series.

The Paper premiered exclusively on Peacock on Thursday, September 4, 2025, and has received a strong Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 86%. While it was initially thought that Oscar Martinez would be the only character returning in The Office spin-off, Bob Vance, the husband of Phyllis, makes a surprise appearance in episode 1 to explain what happened to Dunder Mifflin that led to a Toledo-based newspaper.

Bob Vance Confirms That Dunder Mifflin Hasn’t Been In Operation Since 2019

The Paper series premiere cold opens with a scene outside the Dunder Mifflin office in Scranton, Pennsylvania, twenty years later – but with one key twist. Vance Refrigeration, owned by Bob Vance, Phyllis’s husband, is still operating at Scranton Business Park, but Dunder Mifflin is long gone.

Bob was a supporting character in the original series who appeared in 25 episodes, the last of which was the series finale at the end of The Office season 9. He tells the camera crew in The Paper’s opening scene that Dunder Mifflin has been “gone for a while,“ although Phyllis and Stanley still keep in touch. A laser eye surgery and tattoo removal company called One and Done now operates in the office space where Dunder Mifflin once was.

Dunder Mifflin Was Bought By A Company Based In Toledo

The Paper's Domhnall Gleeson with his arms crossed — The Paper’s Domhnall Gleeson with his arms crossed

Bob helps the camera crew figure out what happened to Dunder Mifflin on the Chamber of Commerce website. He discovers that Dunder Mifflin was purchased by a paper company based out of Toledo, Ohio, called Enervate in 2019. This leads the camera crew to the Truth Teller Tower in Toledo, where a strategy exec named Ken explains that Enervate produces all sorts of paper products, ranging from newspapers to toilet paper.

One of Enervate’s paper products is the Toledo Truth Teller, a once reputable newspaper whose CEO is Marv Putnam. The ninth floor of Truth Teller Tower holds the offices of another Enervate brand, Softees toilet paper, as well as the Toledo Truth Teller. The newspaper is evidently not what it used to be back in its pre-Internet heyday, most significantly due to the rise of online journalism and social media.

Following Bob’s introduction into the world of the Toledo Truth Teller, following the demise of Dunder Mifflin, the rest of the premiere episode focuses on the new slate of characters, led by new Editor-in-Chief Ned Sampson. Ned previously worked in sales for Softees but transitioned to the journalism side of things at Enervate with the ambition of turning the struggling newspaper around in The Paper.