The Newsroom: Sorkin's HBO Joint

wow, j. thanks for those posts!

i can't help feeling like the newsroom hasn't earned that level of attention yet, and i think the nussbaum review is good! but you've given me a lot to think about.

but they kind of had to puff themselves up, or slip off-topic, a bit to get plots that hit a sorkinesque level of idealism since they were basically just doing sports news.

i'm beginning to wonder if this isn't why sports night turns out to be the most palatable sorkin project to me at the end of the day. because if you're going to do an hour-long show about immigration or deal with the trauma of September 11th or whatever lofty thing an individual episode of the west wing tried to do (alongside sorkin's dramatic structural concerns, which, you are right, are always present and are probably the thing he is best at), you have to not cop out on the level of thought. does sorkin have any ideas?

on sports night i feel like the really amazingly structured episodes, like the one where gordon wears casey's shirt with the implications thereof, bear witness to a social world, a network of relationships that is complex and compelling and gets at that thing in your first post--people needing to be believed in/shying away from people who believe in them, etc. etc.

also i loved how the characters on sports night were really intense about their job and bristled at others' observations that "they were basically just doing sports news."

yeah, i think that's good for audience identification. it's nice to be able to feel that you can see your own passion or intensity for work in that of the characters. but if you see it in west wing staffers then there's something that could be chastening about thinking of yourself on their model, you're not serving the president or your country or whatever, you're not the best of the best.

about attention—to ol forksclovetofu too—i don't think it's a matter of earning a level of attention, so much. it took me a while to type out my posts and i'd certainly like to be able to really sort out what i think in the context of nice readings of the episodes, so there's more attention to give, but i don't really think i paid an excessive amount of attention. this was just stuff i saw, and that i expect a lot of people could see. what i found frustrating about a lot of reviews was that they acted like there was nothing good being done with the writing/show overall, without talking about any of this sort of stuff, which seemed to me exactly what was happening, what WAS being done.

since it's pretty accomplished, at least for me, that sustains quite a bit of interest. i don't know about the other kind. like, i found the first couple episodes emotionally affecting, but don't know what to expect about where it might go. i'm remembering the first season of 'angel', where they go along kind of doing stuff, but it's not until the episode where doyle dies that you're like, ok, i'm all in now. i can't remember what the comparable episode on 'west wing' was. but i find it rewarding to try to think ahead of these things and see if i can follow what the writers are setting themselves up for. whereas watching like, 'castle' or something, or even usa shows that i think are pretty smartly written like 'suits' or 'white collar', i don't so much expect as much of a payoff from close attention to the basic structural setup.

i'm honestly not sure what people are asking for when they want ideas from a show.

maybe "ideas" wasn't the right word. also maybe i'm not reading the show properly. i don't know, i had a whole bunch of stuff i was going to say here about immigration and anti-immigrant sentiment, but i think it probably amounts to my not reading the show properly and the show not really being for me. i will still read your posts about it.

yeah, i think that's good for audience identification. it's nice to be able to feel that you can see your own passion or intensity for work in that of the characters.

zing!

i have no passion or intensity for work tbh; i think it's aspirational in my case

i'm honestly not sure what people are asking for when they want ideas from a show.

― j., Wednesday, July 4, 2012 3:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i think for THIS show the complaint is that Sorkin engages in a lot of serious real world questions about politics and media in a way that is surface-level 'smart' but actually just verbose and not actually informed or insightful.

yesterday i talked to my dad, who is possibly a bigger Sports Night fan than me, and he's enjoying Newsroom so far, particularly the big speech in the pilot. which is basically the kind of speech he gives in his living room to family members on a weekly basis.

OMG the po faced solemnity of this fucking show it is SO SILLY

lol i just realized today that alison pill is in this show, not alison lohman (and that nobody caught me referring to lohman upthread)

add "how much do you love me?" to the sorkinisms reel

allison pill kind of looks like mary louise parker around the mouth a bit

another sorkinism

but she's playing donna moss

Perrin:

The Newsroom opens with a homage to the ghosts of broadcast journalism's past: Murrow, Cronkite, Chet Huntley. Back when the news meant something! When it served a positive social role!

This is a popular fantasy, especially in an era of Fox News. And while those ghosts were better informed and more articulate than our present-day zombies, they served the same powerful interests. Bowed before similar gods....

If Sorkin's characters had the integrity he suggests they have, they'd quit in disgust. Find other ways to inform the public (assuming the public wants to be informed). There's no serious way to do that through a corporate news lens. There it's about ad rates, celebrity, privilege, and manufacturing consent.

The only difference between Fox and MSNBC is the demographic being yanked. Who offers the better tote bag is more open to question.

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2012/07/sorkinlandia.html

lol good to be reminded there's a more pompous windbag than sorkin out there

but she's playing donna moss

― horseshoe, Sunday, July 8, 2012 11:13 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

that prob makes more sense but i have trouble not thinking of natalie hurley more often when she's onscreen

I'd love it if Sorkin wrote a big, impassioned, righteous TV show about some dude recording a webcast in his basement.

lol can't believe dude is criticising the show that features a storyline about how the corporate interests of a parent company threaten the content of a news show because it's characters work for a news show that is threatened by its parent company over its content.

oh and destroy everything in tonight's episode except Daniel's "Oh fuck..." and the Waterstone/Fonda showdown at the end.

that prob makes more sense but i have trouble not thinking of natalie hurley more often when she's onscreen

― some dude, Sunday, July 8, 2012 11:28 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she and jim (is that his name?) are definitely natalie and jeremy part 2, yeah

waterston was on some real sub-guillame shit tonight

ha i left the rerun on for a few minutes before going to bed and caught that this show's superman protagonist "graduated college at 19" what

oh god that bit fucking hell with his 95% conviction rate or whatever

and he's never ever sick at sea?

i finally watched the first one on sidereel. i didn't totally hate it. i mean it moved. i like moving things. it's just kinda demented. kinda do want to see how bad it gets. that flustered/surprised/knocking shit over thing is just so weird. i guess its supposed to be screwball or something? the deer in headlights surprised look on everyone's face is priceless. you wonder how these people even found their way to work. i don't know how much nu-jim & pam i can take either. do you think sorkin gives his staff those meaningful looks and says stuff like: hey, you did good today, slugger. keep it up. the big daddy approval thing on his shows is just...blehhhhh.

I'd love it if Sorkin wrote a big, impassioned, righteous TV show about some dude recording a webcast in his basement.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 9 July 2012 04:34 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

man this is so otm! would watch, it could be so scrappy & awesome instead of bloated & blustering.

i actually thought this ep was okay, but i still think we're just being fucked with re: the relationship stuff. like i was on board through the guy's DON'T WORRY I'M IN THE ARMY LET ME SOOTHE YOU dress-down, & alison pill being all yeah that's him (that was nice, i thought), but the reunion-on-the-stairwell thing, w/jeff daniels' & emily mortimer - the emily mortimer of oh man emily mortimer in a baseball cap really now - emily mortimer's sparring partners thing just felt so weak & written.

do you think sorkin gives his staff those meaningful looks and says stuff like: hey, you did good today, slugger. keep it up. the big daddy approval thing on his shows is just...blehhhhh.

ps lol

wld dig sorkin doing wikileaks.

dying at "the emily mortimer of oh man emily mortimer in a baseball cap really now"

stairwell was hilarious; we leave them just nuzzling on the stairs
the technophobia on this show is atrocious

they weren't in the stairwell because they're afraid of elevators, man

pretty sure dan rather's things on this for gawker are even better trolls than their girls recaps.

they should switch up

maybe HE'S the unseen "Danny" in this show

http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=745&fulltext=1&media=

His influence is palpable in the work of David Kelley, in the patter of pop series like Bones and The Mentalist, and in the sheer whip-smart capability and moral neuroses of the characters on the The Good Wife.

rilly?

also, i don't care if sorkin is writerly or whatever, the site is called a review of *books*.

TV is books in LA

it's a koan

they're reviewing the novelization

that article was at least good, unlike the NY Review of Books thing about GIrls

the commenter on that article "barry lyons" mounts an incredibly hilarious defense of Studio 60

one, the show was too literate

two, nothing wrong with me

looooool

this is the worst show on television in the most interesting way.

thank god i have breaking bad as a palate cleanser.

after that oft-quoted early review shouted out episode 4 as the worst of the first few, i was prepared for some total garbage and tonight was actually the closest this show has given me to the feeling of the better older Sorkin shows.