Following the Paper Trail

The new fall TV season has arrived, and there are already some clear winners: CBS’s Madam Secretary, as well as ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder and Black-ish. Closer to home, there’s another hit TV show, this one airing on BUTV10. And if you aren’t watching it, you’re missing out.

BUTV10’s newest drama, Paper Trail, which debuted last week, is a smart, realistic look at the world of academic cheating. It premiered last Tuesday and is already creating buzz around campus.

The drama tells the story of a group of amoral college students who, after being placed on academic probation following a string of rowdy parties, resort to unethical means to keep their grades up. The characters engage in everything from sharing study guides to selling old tests to taking Adderall in order to boost academic performance. The show stars Northeastern University student Dario Sanchez, John-Michael Sedor (COM’15), Andrea Young (COM’15), Emmett Burke (CAS’17), Dale Mason (COM’15), and Gabi Fougner (CAS’16).

Wes Palmer (COM’16), the creator, director, and one of the executive producers of the show, describes Paper Trail as a combination of The Social Network and Breaking Bad. It’s an apt description. The principal characters are so morally ambivalent, they will seemingly do anything to get ahead. “Although we follow them closely throughout their journey and they do serve as our protagonists in this fictional collegiate world, we hope that the show proves to be a bit of a moral exploration for the audience as well,” Palmer says. “The lead characters really struggle with many of the issues thrown at them, and it’s not as simple as rooting either for or against them.”

The multidimensional personalities in Paper Trail make for compelling TV; the richly drawn characters are part of what drew the show’s actors to the project. Sedor, who plays Preston Edwards, the group’s resident ladies’ man and the person who first comes up with the idea to cheat on exams, says that it’s fun to play someone who is so different from himself. “He’s an in-your-face kind of guy,” Sedor says. “He loves the flashiness of the whole idea of the academic black market. He wants the popularity of it. I don’t think I’m like him, but it’s great to pretend to be him.”

Young plays Zooey Wheeler, a computer science major who, despite her initial misgivings, gets involved in the black market scheme out of allegiance to her friends. “She is challenging to play in the sense that she is almost loyal to a fault,” Young says. “She cares so much about her friends and would basically do anything for them, even if it’s not beneficial to her. Part of me wants to just stand up for Zooey, but I know I can’t!”

Palmer, along with co–Executive Producers Andrew Fewsmith (COM’15) and Amanda Domuracki (COM’15), pitched the idea for Paper Trail to BUTV10 last fall. Once it got picked up, the three started writing, casting, recruiting crew members, and scouting locations. They began shooting shortly after winter break, working 20 hours each weekend. “The trick was to not sleep,” Palmer jokes.

The hard work has paid off. The show has a polished look rare for something produced by a college TV station. “We placed a huge emphasis on cinematography, as we felt that was one of the areas most lacking in student work,” Palmer says. “We felt it would be a major factor in setting our show apart from other student productions, We’re really trying to push the boundaries of what people expect from college television and student filmmakers, and trying to deliver something that might be similar to something that BU students would catch up and binge-watch on Netflix or elsewhere online.”

BUTV10 General Manager Claire Dorwart (COM’17) describes Paper Trail as “among the most impressive work we have ever broadcasted.” She says that in addition to the show’s intriguing subject matter, Paper Trail’s advanced production values put the drama in a class of its own. “It’s one of those things that when you see the first episode, you’ll feel hooked right way,” she says. “It looks professional, which is something that I think speaks to the education that the College of Communication provides its students.”

Palmer says the show’s season will be split up over the fall and spring semesters. The first half of the season will air on BUTV10 at 5 p.m. on Tuesdays through mid-November. The second half, which has already begun production, will air next semester. Additionally, episodes will be available online via BUTV10, Paper Trail’s website, and YouTube. The episodes are short and fast-paced—perfect for unwinding on a Tuesday evening (or binge-watching this winter break in anticipation of the new episodes airing this spring).

Palmer says he hopes the show both entertains audiences and gets them thinking. “Academic dishonesty is a widespread phenomena that’s really been in the spotlight in the last couple of years,” he says. “We want to start a dialogue about academic dishonesty and explore the morality of cheating in an interesting and visually entertaining way.”

The first six episodes of season one of Paper Trail air on BUTV10 on Tuesdays at 5 p.m. through November 11. Episodes are available via the BUTV10 website, and YouTube. The second half of the season will air this spring, on dates to be announced.

Samantha Pickette can be reached at pickette@bu.edu.