PUSSY-ASS COWARD-ASS PUSSIFIED PUSSIES: So, um, The Newsroom. Yeah. It got better, and I didn't hate it, but I so much would prefer the show which this could be to the one which it actually is—even if in my dreams the show consists 80% of Sam Waterston yelling at people, 18% political content and 2% failed romcom. I think Alan's right to focus on the fact that in a show based on our recent past, NewsNight with Will McAvoy cannot actually end up being effective in changing what happens, in improving the discourse, etc., which leaves, what? The bus scene?
Let me ask this: would you rather see Season 2 of this, or of Studio 60? Related: The AVClub's summer-long recap of season 4 of The West Wing today takes it to the worst episode of Sorkin's era on the show.
You're kidding, right? What about Isaac and Ishmael, an episode that tells you exactly what the Newsroom will be? (I assume - I only made it a few episodes in and bailed before I got too much misogyny on me. But I've been keeping an eye on the recaps.)
ReplyDeleteI stand behind that assertion. CJ Goes Home is really bad, and doesn't have any excuses.
ReplyDeleteAdlai took my comment. Isaac and Ishmael was three standard deviations worse than the worst 48 minute clip-show of the other four seasons.
ReplyDeleteIt has both Matthew and Modine.
ReplyDeleteI'll take I&I over "CJ rescues the kid in the drain pipe" for terrible tv, but in my opinion Jed yelling at god in Latin in Two Cathedrals beats them both.
ReplyDeleteEasily Studio 60. Newsroom is like Studio 60 with the misogyny pumped in through all vents and none of the somewhat humor 60 had. (And for all of it's faults, Studio 60 never achieved the air of self-congratulation and smugness that Newsroom had. It was there on 60, but never that bad.)
ReplyDeleteI can't believe The Long Goodbye was Sorkin-era. I guess I conflated "not written by Sorkin" with "post-Sorkin."
ReplyDeleteIsaac and Ishmael is nonsense, but my personal least favorite Sorkin-era West Wing episode is Night Five, for very Newsroom-related reasons.
I'm utterly perplexed by the Sex and the City stuff. I'd take it as an affectionate tribute if every other female-centric moment in the season weren't, you know, terrible. The timing of it was well done--just as I was thinking "oh this reminds me of that scene from SATC" was when the music started up. But I couldn't help but wonder (only half-intentional wording there) if the message was supposed to be "hey you might think this is ham-handed but at least you're not watching some girly crap!"
Still I do think setting the show in the real world is its true fatal flaw. They could have done a lovely thinly-veiled thing. I know they already did that with West Wing but you know...this show could stand to be a bit more like West Wing.
What a strange season of television, really.
So looking forward to Treme, and Homeland, and Boardwalk Empire, and even Dexter coming back.
Long Goodbye is pretty bad (though Janney's pretty good in it), but it's unfair to blame it on Sorkin--they brought in playwright Jon Robin Baitz (Brothers and Sisters creator) to write the episode. It's one of only 3 episodes from the Sorkin years where he doesn't have a writing credit--the other two are "Enemies" and "Swiss Diplomacy," both of which were wholly unmemorable. My guess is that due to external issues (Sorkin's lateness, Lowe wanting out, etc.), they needed to bring in someone for a oneshot, and figured they'd give it to Janney.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering to what extent Sorkin's own personal life came into play in the weird insertion of the SATC stuff. Remember that he was apparently dating Kristin Davis at the time this was written/produced, and given Sorkin's prior history with turning his shows into weird apologies/retributions to prior girlfriends, certainly seems like that could have come into play.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that I would say that Studio 60 had that the Newsroom doesn't is that I actually liked and rooted for one of the major characters, specifically, the one played by Matthew Perry. Unless you count Sam Waterston's eyebrows (which I do, as it happens, like a lot) as a major character, that really isn't true here, at least not for me.
ReplyDeleteI will admit that Don's explanation of a segment of Nancy Grace was entertaining.
I wondered about that too. Another layer of weirdness to the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteOh I forgot to answer the question! I don't know why, but I think I'd rather see more of Newsroom (lucky me, I guess I can). Maybe it's the cast. I think I like the cast way more on Newsroom.
ReplyDeleteI tried to remember which episode of WW had the clumsy, doesn't fit at all Leo interrogating a staffer....and found it was Isaac and Ishmael. So yes, I'm going with that over CJ and her father.
ReplyDeleteTwo points on Isaac and Ishmael:
ReplyDelete1. I think it has to be read as what it was--a very in the moment reaction to 9/11 that was written, filmed, and shot on a very short calendar and on a very cheap budget. It was one of the first reactions to 9/11 that went beyond anger and mourning. With distance, it seems simultaneously facile and heavy-handed, but as an immediate response, it's not half bad.
2. Interestingly, it really presages a lot of the problems we've seen with Newsroom--not the relationship stuff or the issues with women (which are largely, if not completely, absent from I&I), but the tendency Sorkin has to want to lecture the audience.
And I actually like the sections with the staff and the students, which feels (yes) a good lecture and an attempt at dialogue. It's the Leo sections that fall flat to me, one of the few times a Leo scene doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteOne cannot count Sam Waterston's eyebrows, BECAUSE SAM WATERSTON'S EYEBROWS ARE INFINITY.
ReplyDeleteThat it was in the moment doesn't mean that it was a good idea in the moment or well executed in the moment. Quick, impulsive, cheap, and well-intentioned can describe the process of creating Isaac & Ismael, but it can also describe a trip to Taco Bell, and it's fitting that one can use the same word to describe the ultimate end result of both.
ReplyDeleteAs I thought further, I remembered that there is one great glaring example of Sorkinian women issues in I&I--there's an opening bit explaining that this isn't in the chronology of the series with rotating talking heads from the cast, and it ended with "tune in next week when we'll get back to our regular stories..." and it ended with Donna proclaiming "and I get a boyfriend!"
ReplyDeleteYes. I do not care for that episode.
ReplyDeleteYou can forgive Sorkin his missteps-- the overweening self importance to assume that his take on a recent tragedy through his mouthpieces is necessary-- if he made that mistake once and learned from it. He made a show about it. He had more time to think about what a solid idea that was to do. And he thought the biggest problem with it was waiting two weeks instead of two years.
ReplyDeleteI feel like both Newsroom and Bunheads are a good example of what can happen when a network gets out of an auteur's way and gives them "the space they need to create." The resulting product will still draw enough attention to make it a worthwhile effort for that network, and of course, some people will adore it. But sometimes, you do need a network person to step in and be all "Y'know you've created a lily white town in California where no one ever shuts the hell up, right?" or "Y'know all the women in your show appear to not be able to make a single decision on their own and seem a little crazy, right?" (NOTE: I have not seen a single episode of Newsroom--I am guessing based on twitter comments)
ReplyDeleteIt's that kind of off-putting stuff that network notes can be good for, and why these shows are well-suited to their niche networks.
Within a week, The Onion had produced one of the great responses to 9/11. So speed is less the issue than Sorkin's confidence he had figured it all out and needed to tell everyone. Which is the general problem with Sorkin.
ReplyDeleteYour mission: identify one instance of a network giving a showrunner a note that says "this cast is too lily-white," where the note is not a direct response to public criticism.
ReplyDeleteI hated that Donna talking head SO MUCH.
ReplyDeleteI quit Newsroom half way through - episodes piled up on the DVR and then got deleted without watching. Studio 60, on the other hand, I watched to the bitter end. So I guess the answer is Studio 60, if for no other reason than it introduced me to the brilliant Merritt Wever.
ReplyDeleteI intend to catch up NR but the last one I saw was the "we got Osama" episode. All it did for me was bring up all those feelings I had when it actually happened that "methinks we doth celebrate this guy's death too much." I was surprised that Sorkin was as jingoistic and gung-ho about the bin Laden kill and the reactions in New York and elsewhere as he apparently was in that episode. The only hint of conflicted emotions was from Dev Patel's girlfriend and only because her father died in the WTC. But anyway... found it nearly unwatchable but I'm told it got better after that. And the Will McAvoy sees the therapist episode was just Mark Harmon protects CJ mashed up with Josh gets a visit from Dr. Arkin... right down to the parallel punch lines of the "cello was the trigger" with "the bacon and egg sandwich is keeping you awake."
ReplyDeleteSurely it's happened at least once.
ReplyDeleteBecause I'm a superficial person, this is the bone I'll choose to pick: Mr. Sorkin needs to stop pretending he has any knowledge of what little girls want to grow up to be. In an episode of West Wing, Mary Louise Parker's character tells Josh, "No little girl wants to grow up to be a prostitute" when I seem to remember my cheer team having a pretty serious obsession with Billie Piper in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" and in the Newsroom finale, Hope Davis said "no little girl wants to grow up to be a gossip columnist" when I'd say a fair amount of journalism students idolize Nikki Finke and Perez.
ReplyDeleteBecause I'm a superficial person, this is the bone I'll choose to pick: Mr. Sorkin needs to stop pretending he has any knowledge of what little girls want to grow up to be. In an episode of West Wing, Mary Louise Parker's character tells Josh, "No little girl wants to grow up to be a prostitute" when I seem to remember my cheer team having a pretty serious obsession with Billie Piper in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" and in the Newsroom finale, Hope Davis said "no little girl wants to grow up to be a gossip columnist" when I'd say a fair amount of journalism students idolize Nikki Finke and Perez.
ReplyDeleteBecause I'm a superficial person, this is the bone I'll choose to pick: Mr. Sorkin needs to stop pretending he has any knowledge of what little girls want to grow up to be. In an episode of West Wing, Mary Louise Parker's character tells Josh, "No little girl wants to grow up to be a prostitute" when I seem to remember my cheer team having a pretty serious obsession with Billie Piper in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" and in the Newsroom finale, Hope Davis said "no little girl wants to grow up to be a gossip columnist" when I'd say a fair amount of journalism students idolize Nikki Finke and Perez.
ReplyDeleteIsn't defusing public criticism part of the network's role?
ReplyDeleteSince the entire season was in the can before Ep 1 aired, the network could not have given a note that was responsive to criticism. My point is just that lack of racial diversity is just not anything that would occur to anybody on any broadcast network in the absence of a public criticism prompt. "Jokes need to be broader," "more physical comedy," "more attractive female background characters," "make sure the logo on the Coke can is facing the camera and make a big show of opening the MacBook Air," "find a role for a cute non-threatening early-teen boy," "stunt-cast the shit out of this," "all stories should be self-contained and not serialized or you will not pick up any viewers," "way too complicated, you're losing the audience," and "maybe do an episode where the character finds an abandoned baby" are the kinds of notes that development executives can select from their drop-down menus.
ReplyDeleteNo little girl wants to grow up to be a triple-poster.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if Aaron Sorkin's word is to be trusted in the context of this thread, but he claims the network had a problem with the lack of racial diversity during the casting of the West Wing.
ReplyDelete(Of course he manages to squeeze in a gross comment--this is in the booklet that comes in the full series box--about how all the men wanted to leave their wives of AJ).
And then the public criticism did start early enough to introduce Charlie by the third episode, which must have been quite a while before episode 1 aired.
Leave their wives FOR AJ, not of. And I probably don't need to tell this crowd but by AJ I mean Allison Janney.
ReplyDeleteI'll be Scalia. I love the Newsroom. It is the only new Sorkin TV I can watch, and so, I love it. That said, in answer to the question, I like this and Studio 60 Rock about the same.
ReplyDelete