The Newsroom

[mezmorized]

Aaron Sorkin's new show premieres this weekend and it's already got some reviews:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/we-ju...ided-to,81499/

http://www.vulture.com/2012/06/tv-re...inspiring.html

http://tv.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/art...pagewanted=all

[isoS]

I don't wanna know! I just wanna watch! (Please be good please be good please be good no S60 just Sports Night)

[Umlaut]

I was excited for this show but it looks like it could be even worse than Studio 60. Still, that show was amazingly and addictively bad, so maybe this will be like that as well.

Reading the TV Club recap, it seems that Sorkin has pushed me directly in one of my hot buttons with Jeff Daniel's Howard Beale* moment culminating with him saying that Millenials are the “worst—period—generation—period—ever—period.” Not to defend my generation, which does kind of suck, but no more than any other generation when everyone is in their early/mid-twenties. We're dealing with a whole new set of challenges that his vaunted, idealistic and near-perfect baby boomers could never have imagined. Boomers benefited immensely from the generation before them building a robust middle class and now they, no offense to anyone on this board of this generation, will be the first to leave the country in a worse state for the next generation -- the environment is fucked, our nation's infrastructure is falling apart, and don't get me started on how the idea of any Millenial actually receiving real Social Security** one day is a hilarious joke, yet preserving 100% of all benefits to people over 50, like Sorkin, is sacrosanct. This attitude pisses me off to no end. Yes, Millenials have projected themselves as self-obsessed, materialistic weenies frequently -- but only because we've had these platforms like Facebook and Twitters and Tumblrs, etc. Could you imagine if these platforms had been available when Aaron Sorkin was snorting all the snow in Syracuse in the early 80s?

/ rant.

This has a really great cast, so hopefully I can see past the treacly, unrealistic idealism dripping everywhere and surrender myself to the alternate reality a la West Wing. At least the setting allows for more of this super serious attitude than a (painfully unfunny) sketch comedy show.


*/Judd Hirsch from Studio 60 -- seriously, can Sorkin start his series any other way?
**besides a Paul Ryan voucher that will buy you about 3 band-aids when we're of retirement age

[smartbunny]

I am looking forward to this!

[slothborn]

.

[Umlaut]

FYI guys - I told Berliner to read my post, not to derail the thread.


Sooooo Emily Mortimer is the Executive Producer of the news show, AND an ex of Jeff Daniels. Seriously, what is it with Sorkin and this dynamic? He's just determined to make that Mandy Hampton character work. Hopefully it's more Felicity Huffman than Sarah Paulson (edit: I know Felicity Huffman wasn't anyone's ex on Sports Night, but it was "Producer romantically linked with On-Air Talent" dynamic).

I'm not trying to be overly negative on this show. With any Sorkin product you take the good with the bad; this opening line of that Vulture review is dead on for me:

The Newsroom is the worst of Aaron Sorkin and the best of Aaron Sorkin; you can't have one without the other, and I'll wager that anyone who's ever enjoyed his work must know that.

While I can intellectually take issue with the naked sanctimony and far-fetched Liberal wish fulfillment like this:



...dammit if it doesn't get me on that gut level as well.

[smartbunny]

It's pretty good so far! I'm not in love with it like VEEP, but we'll see where it goes.

[Toddler]

This is neither an insult or a compliment: The first episode of Newsroom is total and complete Aaron Sorkin, much like Moonrise Kingdom is total and complete Wes Anderson.

I'm not sure how I feel about this show, but I'll give episode 2 a shot.

[Umlaut]

I liked this a lot more than I thought I would! I really dig the shooting style and cinematography, and John Gallagher Jr. is really killing it.

[kevin]

dude i think mark zuckerberg crank called acn as the well inspector. they must have edited out the bababooey.

[smartbunny]

I'm sitting here thinking Tom Sadoski is Jimmi Simpson, but that's because they both were in Loser (2000) and they both have girl mouths.

[Ian Brill]

When I saw Tom Sadoski I was worried that Samm Levine had started taken HGH.

[Fritz Zwicky]

Guys, um, am I the only one that kinda really disliked this? Aaron Sorkin (with his TV shows--I loved The Social Network) kind of strikes me as similar to Woody Allen in the way that he always seems to be trying to get perfect something that he's already done before. Except with Woody, I like that process. This felt like really out-of-touch pandering to people who don't like or understand technology/young people, as well as yet another (less successful) rehash of Network. I dunno. There's some spots that I like, but I'm increasingly picturing Sorkin as a bitter, 90-year-old man who would want nothing more than for the onslaught of information to shut down and to return to the times of the all-knowing news anchor deities, like Murrow.

[Kentock]

When he calls my generation the "worst period generation period ever period," is he counting all those generations that held slaves and didn't allow women to vote? Because I feel like we're probably the best generation ever, but we basically won by default.

That opening rant was the worst part of the episode.

[smartbunny]

But the opening rant WAS the episode. It was the whole series in a nutshell. You know what though, I have never watched a Sorkin Joint ever in my life, so It's New To Me.

[Hated Milk Machine]

When he calls my generation the "worst period generation period ever period," is he counting all those generations that held slaves and didn't allow women to vote? Because I feel like we're probably the best generation ever, but we basically won by default.

That opening rant was the worst part of the episode.

it's also kinda funny that he's used a hackneyed joke like "WORST. GENERATION. EVER." while complaining about people who talk like that. it's like delivering a speech on the danger of stupid trends while planking.

OR IS THAT THE LEVELS????????

[isoS]

Yeah, it's basically S60 in a newsroom. Sorkin has become a parody of himself. He's always been borderline embarrassing in his earnestness, but great character work and solid plotting used to save his stuff. Oh and a setting befitting the hyper-melodrama. (Somehow someone kept him in check on Sports Night, or maybe it was just before his ego got completely away from him.) But this? I mean, okay, news isn't sketch comedy, but it sure as shit isn't the White House. And cherry-picking news events from the recent past? Fish in a barrel.

Anyway, I will watch the fuck out of this show, because even bad Sorkin is crazy watchable. Any maybe it can improve! I don't know. I just know I will love it and love hating it in equal measures.

[Monty]

I kind of liked it! I don't mind the speeches, because Sorkin does good speeches. It might go all Studio 60 on us, but it also might be a good show.

[Fritz Zwicky]

Even as much as I had been putting up with the crazy bullshit of this show, the last scene with Emily Mortimer revealing that she had written those signs was too ridiculous to even consider for one brain-melting second. I think I'll finally do myself a favor and quit it before it engulfs me. (I'll save that for The Killing, The Walking Dead and True Blood.)

[Umlaut]

All I'll say is I'm glad I read those very negative reviews before watching the show, so my expectations were significantly lowered. While I was watching the show, I rolled my eyes more than a few times. However, the more I think about it, the more I think I actually really liked it. The best part by far was watching the news story and newscast come together, and presumably this will be what's driving the entire show. The whole scene between Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer took waaaaay too long and was waaaaaaaaay too heavy handed. Hopefully the grandstanding and this degree of preachiness is less of what is driving the story after this episode. And while it's not the White House, I think a newsroom is a perfect setting for what Sorkin is trying to say with this show, and it's certainly a more serious place than a sketch comedy (I'm sorry "high-minded satire") show.

Also, iSoS, if you go back and rewatch Sports Night, all of the trademark Sorkin-isms are there, even (especially) the preachiness. It took itself a little less seriously at times, but then it would turn around and be just as dramatic as the episode of West Wing where Mrs. Lanningham dies (spoiler?). It was just fresher at the time when it first aired, and the style has probably gone stale, especially in TV format.