'The Newsroom' on HBO - Page 7  

Both sides have essentially given up and simply pander to their base of mindless idiots. Claiming the right is somehow less evil than the left is blindly ignorant. You don't hire Sarah Palin because your goal is doing hard-hitting, intelligent news. You hire her (and people like her) for one reason and one reason only - to pander. To feed morons morsels of stupidity that they appear to need/crave. Sorkin is essentially creating a newsroom he wishes existed, but wouldn't work if it did since the country is so completely polarized.

Narcissism is certainly not unknown in the broadcast industry. It seems to be a disease that runs rampant in that territory.

Remember where you are guys...no political discussion.

Mike,

With all due respect, this is a political show and while I completely understand your concern that the wheels may off at any moment, so far it looks like everyone has intentionally stayed away from the cliff. I would hope that the moderators would give a small amount of give on this.

Thanks

And no zombie talk in The Walking Dead thread!

 

As long as they don't resort to insults, I can usually find most non-politicians at least worth listening to.

Edited by Rammitinski - 7/12/12 at 2:31pm

Now THAT I won't stand for!

Just try to keep the conversation in the context of the show - and less on personal politics. The times it has strayed, it has remained civil so we've let things go - but if complaints come, we'll have no choice but to severely limit the conversation.

One thing I need to remember is that Sorkin is just writing about one hour of a news networks 24 hour cycle. At least at this point. There's been hints about the content of the news hour that comes after Will's. I actually found the anchor of that hour to be semi-interesting, and I hope we see more of it.

It should be the point, IMO.

I liked Sorkin's previous shows, but this one feels like a compilation of all his worst traits as a writer.

So who are these "reviewers" that watched the first 4 episodes and called it an unmitigated disaster by the end of the 4th episode? I want to know who exactly I should never give an ounce of my consideration to. The 4th ep was far and away the best of the first four episodes and it actually feels like its now building to something. It wasn't just a good episode, it was really good TV. I'm in for the rest of the season. Hooked for sure. Loved tonight's episode. The only part that bothered me was Will giving a **** about the stupid Big Foot story, but I'll just chalk that up to Sorkin's bad sense of humor. Otherwise I loved the episode start to finish. Can't wait to see more.

Agree completely. Given what Leona is doing to Will to create a pretext for firing him, it almost makes me paranoid about the intentions of those reviewers.

I readily concede that the second episode was mostly a disaster.

I agree with Skyehill and URFloorMatt (what a handle ) - this was a very good episode. The highlight of the show was Will's on-air statement that Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show) I guess some of the early reviewers might have been taken aback at such unabashed forthright criticism from a protagonist on a TV show - maybe due to their personal politics or media preferences. It was an absolutely master stroke of a dialog! The rest of the plot devices in this episode are absolutely logical, but of course right-leaning audience might find them uncomfortable as they are directed towards their political camp.

I continue to enjoy the show. Sorkin's work is just plain entertaining, so much so that I have no trouble ignoring his occasional silly rants, such as the one against conservative politicians and talk snow hosts in the latest episode. Absolutely loved the scene in Will's apartment with the gun toting psycho woman. Also thought Will serially getting drinks thrown at him was a hoot. Funny stuff!

I also really enjoyed the 4th episode. The last 10 minutes were intense and just great TV. I will the say the train wreck I was waiting to see has not happened and now The Newsroom has a season pass on my DVR. I also think the opening credit sequence of The Newsroom is really well done which is the norm for HBO shows.

Honestly, I'm not that much of a fan of the opening credits sequence. Entirely too reminiscent of The West Wing, with a theme song that isn't nearly as captivating (although it is growing on me).

The first 4/5 of this episode was a waste of time. I am really getting tired of the preachy politics. I don't want to hear what Sorkin thinks about the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Limbaugh, Beck. I already know. He doesn't like them. He thinks they are evil. OK. Got it. Got it the first episode. If I want to hear Right Bashing, MSNBC is still here.

He started a good story line with the love triangle and Will in the tabloids and just when it starts to get legs, he kicks them out and goes on some Right Wing Bash. That is just bad writing, I don't care how well the words are chosen. I felt let down on those story lines due to the diversion into needless political rants that did nothing for the overall story lines. The Big Foot story is a good sub story that illustrates how someone with a bad idea just never sees it. That was good and felt real.

The last 10 minutes on the other hand was just great television and shows just what happens when breaking news hits. It comes out of no where. It falls like a ton of bricks. It comes fast. It comes chaotic. It completely changes your day in an instant. It doesn't matter what is going on, or who is pissed off at whom. It is all hands working to get the story. There are plenty of times when you know something but it isn't confirmed and you DON'T go on with it. You bust your butt to get it confirmed, FIRST. They showed very well what happens when one news service calls something, everyone else feels the pressure to go with it. You don't know what they know and you really don't want to look like you don't have it. Watching that, I started to get the adrenaline rush I get when breaking news happens at work. It wasn't quite the same. I mean, I know how it ends so it was more how would the characters deal with it. But I hope maybe others got a taste of what it feels like to be in wall-to-coverage on a big breaking story. That part was just flat out great TV.

Yeah, the opening is very West Wing-esc, but I like it. I like looking at the news history and calling out loud the different people and things in it. Drives my wife crazy!

I thought the entire episode flowed nicely. He bashes people that deserve to be bashed. It's fun, it's fitting, and it works as part of the show. His statement that certain people should come with warning labels was apt and hilarious. The relationships started to click too.

I just noticed than Alan Poul is involved with this project. That's interesting. I haven't seen him since Six Feet Under.

Anyone know if a reviewer explicitly stated 4 full episodes reviewed? Just guessing that maybe it was 4 highlight reels. The show really came together with this episode - the Charlie/Will conversations started to jell (Sorkin's other shows always have as part of the pattern a male on male element where both parties are accomplished and mutually respectful) and a nice heroic ending, where semi douche bags prove their worth (to themselves as well as us.) Nicely done.

You sound like me if I was going to post on just about any scripted USA program A viewer either suspends disbelief or not, and if not, it can be painful - everything is so transparent, you just see the component parts, never coalescing into a whole.

I have one huge complaint that I forgot above - I was hugely disappointed by the gross continuity error on the wet shirt - there were at least 3!! different shirts. I couldn't help wondering if they were that sloppy on something simple, what might be going on behind the scenes, shortcutting wise.

Is it? How would you have a show about a fictional newsroom set in the real world unfold? Should they make up Big News Stories out of whole cloth?

HBO's best currently running show, 'Treme' (IMHO) uses the real world events of Katrina to tell fictional stories about the real people of New Orleans (who are also fictional, for the most part). Any number of television shows and movies use real world events for their narrative launching points. It's a time-honored way of creating dramatic fiction.

Anchoring the adventures of ACN (and the evolution of Will McAvoy into a "real" crusading journalist in the Morrow mold) in recent real world events lends credibility and makes it easier for the audience to relate. Quite the contrary, it's a time-honored storytelling technique and Sorkin certainly isn't blazing any new dramatic trails here.

It seems that people who find fault with his message (and they know who they are) are searching for a way to find fault with the narrative structure in order to discredit the show. It's Sorkin. It's what he does. This is the template for the show. It's smart TV for smart people, and the audience for such fare is intrinsically limited to those who understand his narrative techniques - and enjoy them.

I didn't like the idea of being 2 years behind at first, but now I see why he's done it, and it works wonderfully. The problem with Sorkin is that he's going to get people with the opposite agenda critiquing him for reasons they'd never critique another show simply because he's Sorkin. And quite honestly he's not attacked anyone on the show yet unfairly. The people he's called liars are proven liars etc.

+1. He hasn't said - or more to the point, hasn't had Will say - anything that's not demonstrably true. No exaggerations or caricatures either. This stuff happened; those people actually said and did those things. That accurate rendition of events that forms the skeleton of the show is enough to earn both Sorkin and McAvoy plenty of enemies in both the real and fictional worlds. And neither one much cares.

They should do exactly what they did on The West Wing. It worked perfectly, and let them tell the stories of how the characters changed and were changed by the issues, without the distraction and awkwardness of dealing with mixing real people with fictional people.

Sarah Palin is never going to appear on The Newsroom. But if there were a fictional analog of Palin, they could have Will interview her on the air.

Eventually, a show about a news operation covering the real world where no real newsmakers ever interact with the characters, and where the characters are always smarter than the real news media ever were (but nobody notices) will become impossible to believe.

It's not a documentary. It's HBO.

I was going to post this, but I get sick of saying it over and over, especially in Mad Men, etc. threads.

It still has to be believable.

That requirement leaves out most any movie or TV show. It is fiction, after all.