Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: April 14, 2008
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The Paper, “The Race for Editor-in-Chief” (Season 1, Episode 1) [Watch on MTV.com]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Jersey Shore premiered in December of 2009 and set the template for the trashy, trashy future of MTV. But there’s an alternate timeline out there were another MTV show became a smash hit instead. How different would the television landscape have been if MTV hit it big with the sweet, oddball charms of The Paper?
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you’re not alone. At times, it feels like The Paper never existed. It has no legacy. It didn’t get a second season. Even when it was airing originally, beyond the two or three friends I knew who watched it, it didn’t make any kind of impact. BUT IT SHOULD HAVE. For eight perfect episodes, a ragtag group of Florida high-school students lived and loved and strived to put out the best damned school newspaper they could. The star of the show was clearly Amanda Lorber, the try-hardiest of try-hards, whose ambition was only rivaled by her desire to talk about her ambition, like she was narrating her own PG-rated remake of Working Girl. None of the other kids liked Amanda much, partly because she was insufferable and partly because she was better than them. Of course, the other kids were secretly just as dorky as Amanda: Alex the spurned sports editor who wanted to be liked more than he wants to be good; Trevor and Giana the insufferable couple; wonderful, hyperactive, super-gay Adam who won prom king.
The drama of The Paper was never very high-stakes, but that was the charm of the show. It was in the screamingly relatable ways that kids on the margins of popularity worked hard to recreate those social structures within their own little kingdom. The show never let the audience lose sight of the fact that, no matter who was being mean to whom, these were still the newspaper kids. The kids who showed up a week before summer vacation was over to get started on the new year.
Every once in a while, I will come across some other kindred spirit who was there for those few weeks in spring 2008. It’s like sharing a secret handshake. Because that somebody will have appreciated The Paper for what it was: one shining moment when dorky relatabilty trumped trash-humping schadenfreude on reality television.
[You can watch the entire series of The Paper on MTV.com.]
Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.
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