The Newsroom: Sorkin's HBO Joint

really?

yeah! weirdly snide power trip thing to do.

http://www.xojane.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_full_width/field_image_attachments/article/flowers_0.jpg

Mandy,
From your rotting body, flowers shall grow and you are in them and that is eternity -- Aaron

wow that was the most repulsive hour of tv i've ever seen

aaron sorkin why you not make it easier to mount defense of your show

(i thought this ep was okay)

i haven't seen it yet, i just assume that every week people that coming closer to the claim 'watching this was literally like descending into hell' is a bad sign

i liked the 'fix you' episode and i would agree that this one was kind of hateful

i like this terrible show generally but i felt like i needed a shower after that one

is he just straight-up calling everyone under 30 a Nazi at this point

From everything i've read and heard in the past couple of months and then that article by the former post journo, this sounds like the worst show!

Are all current tv shows about people being mean to each other

Maybe the newsroom should take a hint from golden girls

wasn't blanche mean to rose all the time?

Yes but it was part of her shtick, and under it she had a heart of gold

vs semi-precious titanium alloy hearts of most tv characters these days

the golden girls were retired, they didn't need alloy hearts to survive in the cutthroat world of tv journalism

every episode in newsroom season 2 ends with group hugs and apologies over cheesecake

The intro to this show (particularly the bit before the actual cast credits) always comes across as low-budget, charmless, and generic. Like someone started working on it before any scripts had been written or casting or anything and was told "I don't know, it's about a news room, you know, have some cameramen, maybe somebody typing 'News' into a computer, etc."

"I don't know, it's about a news room, you know, have some cameramen, maybe somebody typing 'News' into a computer, etc."

hahaha
otm. they just need to cut the first thirty seconds of it, which is weirdly nervous pre-orchestral fussing. the part when the shots of the cast come in is fine, & comes w/its own alterna-west-wing bluster.

the music is so terrible. in the entire show too. there were moments (dickhead boyfriend talking to the pilots, say) that were made significantly worse by the music. not that this episode was up to much anyway. (when the main source of conflict is that a flight attendant is trying to enforce the rules of being on an airplane it's never really going to pop, as far as drama goes.)

every episode in newsroom season 2 ends with group hugs and apologies over cheesecake

Would watch.

I really really hate the 'love triangle' between Jim, the girl he works with, and the girl she set him up with. The girl he works with just seems more stalker/obsessed with every episode, she's turned from having a slightly overbearing crush to being a completely controlling bitch. If he doesn't tell her to leave him alone or admit she's in love with him in the next few episodes, errrg.

Lisa >>>>>>>>>>>>> Maggie. What Jim sees in her I do not know. Are we (the audience) meant to be rooting for Maggie/Jim?

otm. Yeah if she's that controlling when they are not dating....

dying at MacKenzie crying out DO IT FOR ME WILL as he gives her breaking news hard and fast

maybe the least annoying of the lot?

i guess if you're stuck recapping this show this is the sanest way to do it:

http://www.vulture.com/2012/08/newsroom-recap-backsliding-blackout-tragedy-porn-casey-anthony.html

i thought this was like, still okay. attaching the news of the world story to the news company seems like the most interesting demonstration of their reuse-the-news strategy; like it could unravel unpredictably, both in tandem and apart from history. when something like the tax ceiling is mentioned offhand at the start, it's too simple, to have that The Ship Too Great To Sink!/pregnant women smoking in mad men knowing wink of historical irony slathered upon the audience. but playing more freely w/the historical universe would be kinda compelling. it's still flawed but is mainly back to being flawed in ways i don't really care about, now? like Charlie probably wouldn't have gone to just talk at Leona, a blackout probably wouldn't have been so neatly punctuated by a one-liner redolent of spider-man cartoons, but it's fine. my magnetic & critical appreciation of this show isn't dimmed, anyhow.

the journalist guy was costumed to look very like A Print Journalist.

MARTINICOW
This show is frustrating because it doesn't hold up against the same level of scrutiny that Mad Men / The Wire / Breaking Bad virtually expect from their audience. And I suppose that would be okay if the show didn't take itself so seriously. I'll still watch because I wish everyone in real life were so tirelessly quippy.

Uuuuuh the people on this show are annoying.

Aaaah all these shots of earnest liberal newspeople cringing at the horrible coverage they are doing. Oh no we are selling out our integrity and even the janitor is so very sad!

thought last night's ep was okayish despite it basically featuring all the elements i don't like. I don't know why I didn't hate it so much, save for Mac's SCREAMING which was one of the low points of the series/Sorkin's career.

yeah "mac" is becoming the most insufferable part of the show imo. was especially pissed at the cannibalization of one of my favorite sorkinisms from sports night ("doing a big thing badly").

Ok, the mock coverage, why on earth did they do that again? The logic in this show is non-existent.

Mac is not believable as a professional, nor really as a stable human being. She should be crying on the floor of a mental asylum or something.

well whattaya expect she's a WOMEN mirit guyz

i've thought about it and while i'm not crazy about the "real news stories from a year ago" thing i can't actually think of a better alternative -- certainly not imaginary news stories that vaguely resemble the ones they want to talk about -- other than the show in general just leaning on them for plots and "how they could or SHOULD have been covered" revisionism way less.

i thought emily mortimer's 'SON OF A BITCH' was a pretty good take. pretty sure three of the male characters have done fairly near-meltdown bits already

Maybe the next episode will have Olivia Munn appearing in a scene where no-one mentions her ass or tits.

sigh

there actually have already been a few of those

Maybe the next episode will have Olivia Munn appearing in a scene where no-one mentions her ass or tits.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 20 August 2012 20:24 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that was really not complimentary
but to recap
-olivia munn's top, the navy one w/lighter sleeves
-terrible piano motif
-renewed ninetiesism
-love triangle has become compelling to me
-mac i think is just the worst? like i can't believe she must emote, so, each episode, so frantically or so enthusiastic about everything. i like emily mortimer. but this is so bad.
-man i love alison pill
-man
-weird takes on GOP caricatures; either wow will is PRO-LIFE or else the dastardly coward in a suit who vetoed the debate

anyway as usual i watched this mainly thinking 'this is just not so great' - like all of the 'funny jim' stuff & mac & people quoting poetry & the whole office of a newsroom daily frequently stopping in an awed childlike silence to get invested in some moment engineered by their work parents, like a trip to the grand canyon they are forced to enjoy - & then realised afterward that i mainly enjoyed it, like maybe not 'mainly' but certainly for its peaks.

For the first time I felt that when the episode was over I wanted to watch the next one.

the whole office of a newsroom daily frequently stopping in an awed childlike silence to get invested in some moment engineered by their work parents, like a trip to the grand canyon they are forced to enjoy

lol

yeah i mean the jim-at-the-door thing & was a neat conflict, & unspooled nicely. poor maggie.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m92lsf4nQD1qi98gto1_500.gif

the direction of this was p bad, i thought. i can't remember specifically how. but the whole thing could be so much livelier, more interestingly made. say with fewer piano motifs. i like will smoking, though. that always seems pretty meaningful.

alison pill killed it i thought

about 50% of the LARB bit on the show i thought was good:
http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=745&fulltext=1&media=

feel no sympathy at all for maggie, gotta say

Yeah, i feel zilch. She's into Jim but she won't do anything about it, and she's constantly meddling in his love life. She'll set him up on a date w her decent-seeming roommate and then act like he's doing the worst thing ever. I could take it more when she was being a super-producer and helping out with stories and connections and all that, but it seems like it's fallen by the wayside. And it's kind of a big stretch to not see that Don has figured things out.

As for Olivia, it's cool and all and yes beautiful people can be smart and intelligent but it feels more and more like her expertise is just a qualifier for whatever sexist comments her co-workers want to make that week. I don't understand the internet troll thing. Is he doing a story on something specific? Is it just about internet trolls in general? Dude has a pretty easy job, from what it sounds like.

Mac, ugh, it's kind of the same as Maggie. She clearly is in love with Will but doesn't want to show it or make any effort towards reconciling their relationship. All we are left with are crazy eyes whenever he has flowers in his office. I'd say the two of them have no chemistry but she clearly is psycho about him so it sort of makes sense.

Not sure why i keep watching this. It's super dumbed-down stuff full of easy liberal thumbs-up moments maybe that's it. Even though the whole mock debate thing was completely dumb and made no sense at all it was fun to see them make fun of how stupid the debates are. But really, if they were going through all the trouble of compromising their principles so that they could land the debate why on Earth would they set up something that was basically a Daily Show skit and then come out and yell "eff you" to the guys in charge. Like alot of things on this show it made no sense.

They did comment on how naive it was, at least.

And Don realises that he's losing Maggie. Don kind of the best character I think.