Paper Girls Review: A Period Time Travel Yarn That Feels Lost in Time

The show's sci-fi elements are offered up in a piecemeal manner that feels more meandering than revelatory.

Paper Girls
Photo: Anjali Pinto

A recent USA Today article presents Paper Girls as part of a summer wave of ’80s nostalgia, which is somewhat odd given that only the first of its eight episodes takes place in the decade. Based on the comic books by Cliff Chiang and Brian K. Vaughan, the series revolves around Erin (Ridley Lai Nelet), an ambitious 12-year-old who starts her new job delivering newspapers on “Hell Day,” the day after Halloween. A plethora of period details—a Far Side calendar, political yard signs, a newspaper headline—informs us that it’s 1988 as she bikes through the fictional Ohio suburb of Stony Stream and meets three other girls (Camryn Jones, Sofia Rosinsky, and Finna Strazza) also tasked with paper routes.

When two men in dark robes steal the girls’ walkie talkies, it sets off a series of disorienting and, frankly, confusing events (the most disturbing involves Ronald Reagan speaking to Erin over an operating table) during which they’re transported through a kind of intergalactic war and into 2019, where they meet Erin’s adult self (Ali Wong). Strangely, rather than give the more recent scenes their own distinct style, these episodes are filmed with the same dark gray hues as the pilot. And because there isn’t much of a contrast—beyond superficial encounters with new technology and trendy coffee shops—the series itself feels lost in time.

Paper Girls’s sci-fi elements are offered up in a piecemeal manner that feels more meandering than revelatory. The core of the series is eventually revealed to be a governing body called the Old Guard who police time travel, attempting to stop any disruptions to the events that led to their hold on power. We don’t get much more explanation than this; in fact, the question of exactly how the girls’ time travel affects the overall timeline goes largely unaddressed.

Advertisement

What we get instead is an Old Guard representative, Prioress (Adina Porter), who would feel menacing if she didn’t spend a good deal of the series haplessly showing up on the scene mere moments after the girls have already left. Indeed, it’s unclear just how ominous the Old Guard is supposed to feel, especially after the arrival of its leader, played by Jason Mantzoukas, whose normally infectious comic energy feels consistently off, even verging on camp.

The sci-fi story often takes convenient pauses so the girls can bond with their future selves. The older Erin’s insecurity and emotional lethargy are greatly disappointing to her starry-eyed tween self. The character offers a stark contrast to the swagger Wong is known for as a stand-up comic, and the actress injects her with a bitter sarcasm that provides the series with its funniest and most spirited moments. When young Erin asks her adult self, “Are we sick?,” Wong’s character replies with a satisfying, self-aware growl: “That’s not entirely clear.”

These sequences provide the opportunity for the girls to negotiate the difficulty of unfulfilled expectations, of youthful fantasy meeting adult reality, in an honest and novel way. Instead, they often lead to circular discussions that find our main characters back where they started rather than pushing forward. By the time these conversations are over, we’re hurried back into the action of the time-space war, the muddled conception of which is less compelling.

Advertisement

Chiang and Vaughan’s comic books are advertised by the publisher as “Stand by Me meets War of the Worlds.” This adaption comes up short in its attempt to honor that analogy, its coming-of-age elements never really integrated into its sci-fi saga. It feels more reminiscent of teenage adventure films from the early aughts like Clockstoppers and Agent Cody Banks than the Wes Craven-esque vision of the ’80s that its creators intend it to be.

Score: 
 Cast: Ridley Lai Nelet, Ali Wong, Camryn Jones, Sofia Rosinsky, Finna Strazza, Adina Porter, Jason Mantzoukas  Network: Amazon

Samuel Harwood

Samuel Harwood is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Columbia University Graduate Film Program. His writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, LA Taco, and more. He also plays music with the L.A.-based band Trade Heroes.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.