The Newsroom: Sorkin's HBO Joint

"everybody at my work does"

some very nice rat-a-tat dialogue in this ep.

are sorkin, mamet, and rhimes the only distinct television writerly voices?

maybe in comedy Caspe of happy endings/marry me, and even i guess Chuck Lorre?

milch, whedon, i dunno i would not be surprised if david e kelley shows had a 'voice'. i haven't watched enough of them but i kind of recall one. bochco?

i don't know how localized the responsibility for it is but whenever abrams-related shows from alias onward put interpersonal-relationship-dialogue in their characters' mouths, i feel like there's a characteristic blankness to it.

dunno if i can recognize milch, whedon, kelley voice scene to scene in the writing itself. in the storyline, sure.

sorkin, mamet and rhimes all have a moment-to-moment rhythm, a distinct feel for beats, crescendos, pauses.

I've caught a few eps of this without knowing what it was- every one of them seems to end with Jeff Daniels blowing up at somebody/everybody and quitting, while Sam Waterston gently smiling and looking like he's about to pass out. The dialogue is so full of shit I keep thinking it's supposed to be a comedy but apparently not.

i love the sync in the opening credits between this big ostentatious orchestral drum roll & a sharp cut into explosion footage

hahahaha now that was the revolting Newsroom I remember

i think a cool newsroom finale would be jeff daniels blowing himself up to prove a point of some kind

the resultant viscera spells out "ethics" across the side of the ACN building, magisterial but restrained horn fanfare, fade to black

ahhahaha sorkin hates the internet so much

also omg the dialogue is so bad this episode

there was a pretty reasonable new york magazine piece recently about how the newsroom was an unpromising concept because it tried to attach a sort of noble credibility to contemporary news television, it comes through when you hear jim talking really confusingly idealistically about the honour of cable tv

Ave Maria over the wedding/arrest. I bet when they were filming those scenes they thought it was going to be really cool, and then they saw the episode and were like WTF Aaron, come on. This is not a lord of the rings battle.

lol gawker stalker

Ave Maria bit was clearly trying to recreate Hallelujah over Bartlet giving the order to shoot down that Qumari dude + Simon Donovan getting toasted in the 7/11 in the West Wing. It didn't work at all.

then they did it again this ep!

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/08/tweeting-towards-bethlehem-newsroom-week-5/

Natasha Vargas-Cooper: There’s a term in poker for when you bet too much and you don’t make great decisions: you are ON TILT. Aaron Sorkin was ON TILT last night.

Also: potential drinking game each time someone says "your generation."

Already missing this show, there's nothing else in the same vein on tv.

man this was such total garbage

lol @ a 90min finale of a show about news having abt three lines of dialogue about Mandela on his death bed and 89min of soap opera tropes

I've been told there was a musical number

at a wake

at least neal came out looking ok

*takes down website for entire week*

omg the musical number.

sorkin shows are the sound of boomers slowly disintegrating and their bonedust fluttering into the breeze

*takes down website for entire week*

― gr8080, Monday, December 15, 2014 10:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha ha

Haha y'all didn't feel anything for any of these characters? neal and maggie were a little annoying, but the rest? Their corny earnestness just made them more endearing! The whole show was ridiculous but that's what made it great, enjoyment of it demanded the viewer take it less seriously than it wanted to be taken, if that makes sense.
Like how was will maccavoy walking into the garage of his newly dead best friend and having an impromptu jam session on accoustic guitar with his best friends newly depressed cello playing grandson not the most entertaining thing you saw all year.
Have never seen the west wing/studio 60 but the writing here seemed as sharp as his movies. charlie and sloan were some of sorkins best characters.

the show spent so much time presuming i would FEEL FEELING about Will and Mac or goddamn Jim and Maggie that i was pleasantly surprised when Don and Sloan ended up being the most compelling relationship in the show. Lisa is still the show's MVP for her speech when she got fed up with Jim and Maggie's passive aggressive love triangle bullshit.

I love that this didn't even wind up producing as many episodes as Ken Finkleman's The Newsroom.

some dude otm. olivia munn really came out of this show surprisingly well.

i'm still kinda confused what people were ever so mad at her about.

it's about ethics in fictional journalism

Haven't read thread but this is good at an ally mcbeal level and i am in love with mac

how far in are you

mostly I just need to know if you've gotten to the bin laden scene

Ive been busy so just catching decent comedy snippets and showy dialogue and devastating silhouettes of macs blouse/skirt game but "we" have in fact blitzed through to the season 2 finale since last friday

I recall a stretch in the second season that sort of threatened to be OK, and then they got to the college rape storyline and it was all downhill sharply from there

the 'buckle up sweetie, here's why America used to be good and now sucks' monologue should have gotten this shit cancelled after the first episode

Absolutely the worst thing to ever air on HBO, including Arli$$.

As they say, "One man's Mede is another man's Persian."

oh man, this was actually p bad huh. the whole season is just gonna be emily mortimer's beseeching face & endless cycles of affirmation & reaffirmation & pledging & repledging of commitment to a non-specific noble idea.

schlump

Well make up yr mind which is it

Finished this, hobbes otm with summary rly

If you tried to take it as seriously as it wanted, more fool you id say.

The hamfisted smug arguments on all sides, well again if you choose to see these as things worth railing against sure youd get vexed but this was a zingy sexy sitcom about how much jeff daniels could try to get sorkin away with and i repeat macs blouse/skirt/winsome trinity is unbeaten

sorkin is lame is how i break it down to an extent