THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ON CABLE TV LAST NIGHT: I speak, of course, of the trailer for HBO's The Newsroom, which looks like SportsNight (without the sports, and with Sam Waterston in the Robert Guillaume slot and Emily Mortimer and her brittle bones as Felicity Huffman), crossed with Judd Hirsch's rant in the Studio 60 pilot, plus cursing, and unlike Studio 60 this time it's intentionally not-funny.
Related, and I didn't see it first: Linda Holmes' The Ten Most Sorkin Things In The Trailer.
And John Gallagher, Jr. and Allison Pill as Jeremy and Natalie, it looks like (though it's not 100% clear whether Gallagher's other half will be Pill or Olivia Munn from the trailer).
ReplyDeleteDaniels seems to be surprisingly fluent in the Sorkinese, so that's a good sign.
Finally, going to be some serious whiplash between this and True Blood, right? They don't seem particularly compatible. (Veep, which seems to be an odd pair with Game of Thrones, would have been the logical pairing.)
Except that they want to pair each new show with a veteran show to get it more sampling.
ReplyDeleteI get that, but tonally, it's whiplashy. (Pairing Boardwalk Empire and Luck? Sensible. Pairing Luck and Eastbound and Down? Not so much.) I'm not sure there is a good fit (Game of Thrones obviously has the cuthhroatness in it, and Treme has a similar preachiness to it, but isn't a good launching pad from a ratings perspective).
ReplyDeleteKnowing it was Aaron Sorkin, I was already in. But once I saw Jeff Daniels and Allison Pill, I got excited. And Daniels doing a trademark Sorkin rant? Can't wait.
ReplyDeleteThis gave me slightly more of a Studio 60 vibe than a Sports Night vibe, but c'mon. I watched all of Studio 60. I didn't like it but I watched it. So I'm definitely in for this and am hoping, obviously, that Sports Night Sorkin emerges as the master.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I can go into this much further without breaking the "No Politics" rule, so all I'll say is "I'm out."
ReplyDelete"I didn't like it, but I watched it." Me too. Why do we do that?
ReplyDelete(I think Smash is starting to fall into that category for me.)
Ugh, Guest was me. My computer has amnesia today.
ReplyDeleteCan I threadjack to talk about another trailer I saw on HBO last night?
ReplyDeleteI had no interest in "Girls" despite some good buzz here and there online until I saw the trailer last night ahead of Game of Thrones.
I agree it's giving me more of a Studio 60 feel.
ReplyDeleteI love me some Sorkin but that trailer is not going to make me run-out and subscribe to HBO again.
I also kind of think this is like the guy you date who does this cute thing (you know, has some line or schtick that you find just absolutely charming) the first time and you LOVE it (sports night), then he does it again and you LOVE it (West Wing), then he does it a third time (Studio 60) and you're like, "Eh, okay, but you already did that a couple of time and I now I was kind of expecting it and, can you do something else?", and he does it a forth time (The Newsroom) and you think, "I really just have to break up with this guy if this is all he has."
I have a feeling The Newsroom is going to be like that.
I wish there were a way to watch this show without actually ordering HBO or waiting for the DVDs. Think it'll be on Hulu or itunes?
ReplyDeleteHBO typically does not put its shows online (save through HBO Go, which requires a subscription to HBO) until they hit DVD (and sometimes not even then). HBO Go's vast library makes HBO a pretty solid deal--in addition to pretty much every HBO series of the past 10 years in its entirety, there are a bunch of movies that rotate every month--this month includes Star Trek I-VI, Inception, Do The Right Thing, and Boogie Nights. I'm going to be very interested to see when/if HBO starts selling HBOGo subscriptions apart from cable.
ReplyDeleteThis will be pretentious and self-righteous and overheated and I will love it.
ReplyDeleteExcept I tried to watch the season premiere on HBO Go last night and the quality was lousy, the feed kept spontaneously starting and stopping, and it was so frustrating I went over to my friend's house and watched it there. (She's out of town and I'm catsitting.)
ReplyDeleteCompare to Hulu, which usually runs really smothly for me under the same conditions.
Likely because of server strain, I'd bet. I haven't tried it yet, but both Go and the Blu-Rays for Season One of GOT apparently offer a "pop-up" annotation track along the side/at the bottom that reminds you who these people are and what the relationships are between them so that you're not wondering things like "who's that creepy old guy, and why's he skinning a deer?"
ReplyDeleteWhat did they pair True Blood with its first season?
ReplyDeleteIt made my Sports Night-lovin' heart ache a bit, because there were a few moments that seemed cribbed from SN scenes and had me thinking "why oh why couldn't HBO have picked up Sports Night when it had the chance?"
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Studio 60 vibe comes from the defiantly petulant or petulently defiant vibe coming off the anchor (which seemed more Danny/Matt than Danny/Casey) Well, that and the fact that it didn't seem very funny.
I'm a sucker for Sorkin's writing but he seems actually incapable of not being misogynistic and that bothers me.
ReplyDeleteI am so excited for Girls. A funny young lady writing a show about funny young ladies who are awesome and also a mess? Yes, please.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that they did True Blood/Entourage/Life and Times of Tim--they let True Blood lead off the night.
ReplyDeleteWorse still, he seems incapable of recognizing that he's being misogynistic. He seems to think that criticism is out-and-out WRONG.
ReplyDeleteHere, here. But he's a REGISTERED REPLUBICAN! How ironic (and balanced)! I'm not enough of a hipster doufus to like Sorkin shows.
ReplyDeleteI think I may have to break down and get HBO.
ReplyDelete