The Office fans shocked as they ask 'what happened to Dwight' after The Paper revelation

Fans of The Office have been left shocked by the first episode of the spin-off series The Paper after finding out the fate of Dunder Mifflin.

The Paper debuted today, releasing all ten episodes in one go with a number of Easter eggs and references to The Office

The first ever spin-off from The Office has been met with a largely positive response, leading to a season two order being confirmed before season one was even out.

The spin-off follows the same documentary crew from The Office except this time they are chronicling the story of a failing midwestern newspaper company.

Starring Domhnall Gleeson as the Toledo Truth Teller’s hopeful but naïve new boss, the show has debuted to a score of 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a surprising amount of appreciation from fans of The Office.

One comment on a Reddit thread discussing the series said: “I'm shocked at how much I liked the pilot even if it leans a LOT in the direction of Parks and Rec but grounded in a 2020s cynicism.

"The callbacks to The Office feel very unnecessary and tacked on, hope they stop relying on that down the line. But overall I'm looking forward to watching the whole thing.”

Heading into the show many were unsure of how directly the spinoff would link to the US version of The Office, let alone expecting it to feature an unannounced character from the original series in the very first scene.

Spoiler warning for The Paper episode one below.

In the first scene of The Paper, the documentary crew decide to revisit the Dunder Mifflin offices in Scranton.

When they arrive, they are met with Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration who delivers the bad news.

Dunder Mifflin is gone.

The company which was the entire focus of The Office US has been bought out by another company Enervate who shut down the company.

Vance says that it’s been ‘gone a while’ and that everyone was told if they wanted to keep their jobs they’d have to move to Toledo.

This of course threw the cat among the pigeons, with many The Office fans considering the spin-off essentially kills off Dunder Mifflin in episode one.

The office from The Office and Dunder Mifflin are both gone (NBC)

One fan tweeted about this saying: “The Office spin-off reveals that Dunder Mifflin is over :(”.

Another posted with a crying emoji saying: “The first few minutes "Vance Refrigeration" outlived "Dunder Mifflin" as DM closed down 10yrs ago. I wonder what happened and how Dwight handled that if he was still the manager during that time lol.”

A third posted a distraught gif about Dunder Mifflin’s demise.

Most, however, were simply praising the show for how unique it is compared to The Office.

One Reddit comment about the show said: “The first episode is shaky but by the end of it you feel the soul of the show starting to wake up.

“This has potential to be something. It’s far enough from The Office to be its own thing. Worth the watch and has a lot of potential.”