Sorkin's greatest flaw is his tendency toward arrogance and self-satisfaction, and the pilot had dangerously high levels of both. We'll see how it goes.
The characters of ken's news room have been floating through almost half a dozen of his shows over the last 15 years... Season One of Good God concluded 3 weeks ago where Ken is put in charge of a Canadian more conservative, more right wing, more fundamentalistically Christian version of FOX News.
Having spent many years in a newsroom setting, I was interested in tuning in for this and was more pleasently surprised than I thought I would be... There are some definete authentic moments throughout the show, especially with the guest grilling going on during the Breaking BP oil spill segment.. Sorkin has been hot and cold for me.. He's liberal, so I know I'm going to get a healthy dose of that.. I do think it's daring of him to make McAvoy a moderate conservative but I will be interested to see if he keeps a balance to the feel of the show. News, as an ideal concept, holds all partys' feet to the fire, barring no holds when it comes to the truth. In the real world, however, too often news has become beholden to sponsors (both big and small) and that tends to bleed into the coverage. - Sorry.. soapboxing there... I LOVED Sports Night but lost interest with West Wing after a while.. I'm interested to see how this plays out.
I really liked this, but that's no surprise. Aaron Sorkin has always been one of my favorite writers. Looking forward to the next episode!
It was fairly entertaining when focusing on the characters. I agree with the description of 'tedious and smug' but I'm colored a little bit by the knowledge of some of what happens in the next 3 episodes. Suffice to say, it very much reflects the liberal view on the 'tea party crowd'.
You just neatly summarized why I've never liked anything from Sorkin, not even the sainted West Wing. There are many faults I can overlook in a TV series, but arrogance is pretty much at the top of the list of deal-killers for me. Ugh. Obviousness is pretty high on my deal-killers list, too.
With a premiere that brought in 2.1 million viewers, the show might be here for a while. Of course, at ten episodes a season -- and Sorkin won't be writing all of those, most likely -- that gives him plenty of time to pursue feature filmmaking and stage projects. (And, let's be honest, he hasn't exactly been making those adaptations you like in any prolific manner; there's been just three in the past five years).
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Sorkin, like David E Kelley, tend to write most EPA of the shows he creates?
He was credited on nearly every episode of the four seasons of The West Wing he did, yes. But (a) this episode order is 10 compared to 22 and (b) who knows if that will be the case here.
I expect he'll be doing the writing. With a cable show where the entire season is completed before airing, and a smaller episode order, he's got every opportunity to.
Wikipedia says that he wrote the first 6, no one is listed for the final four, but that he has a shared credit with episode 3 with a Gideon Yago who is a former news anchor for CBS and MTV and a technical expert on the news who has a book on the subject.
Sorkin is so distinctive a writer that it will be VERY evident should he not write any episode. His script for THE SOCIAL NETWORK was a brilliant approach on a potentially infantile topic. Steve Jobs, according to the recent bio, actually objected to the style and/or color of a breathing ventilator when he was in urgent need of medical assistance. It almost sounds so ridiculous I wonder whether that could be true. And lots of what Jobs has given the world is still very irrelevant or overrated to me. But if Sorkin writes his life story, as is expected, I'll be first in line. Marillion: ''Sorkin has been hot and cold for me.. He's liberal, so I know I'm going to get a healthy dose of that.. I do think it's daring of him to make McAvoy a moderate conservative but I will be interested to see if he keeps a balance to the feel of the show.'' HBO hasn't much balance but they do go for incredible writing. We're probably lucky to have a conservative central character for this new show, but since moderate and conservative are usually seen as contradictions in terms for modern TV, I doubt he'll fall on his party's side too often. In comparison, the well-written but far from balanced WEST WING only seemed to endorse one Republican position regarding school vouchers (almost as an afterthought after a comment from Dule Hill's Charlie). Plus the show contained only two major non-liberals: Ainsley Hayes, who vanished after defecting to a CBS crime procedural, and Alan Alda's presidential candidate, who lost to Jimmy Smits. Sorkin claimed that the original plan was to have the election go to Alda, before John Spencer's untimely death altered the script scenario. I'm also skeptical Sorkin would have a positive Republican as the lead on a popular show endorsing Republican values. But, again, bottom line, he's one hell of a writer. As Spencer's Leo McGarry said to President Bartlet, never be ashamed of smartness.
^^ Sorkin left the show after season four; he didn't have anything to do with the season 6-7 election storyline with Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits. You're thinking of John Wells, the EP who became showrunner in season five after Sorkin's departure (but was with the show for the entire run).
That's a good point. We could say the network mentality goes beyond Sorkin. But as it was his original show, it's hard to see Alda getting the presidency and staying to his character's base.
Sorkin created the show, but he wasn't involved with seasons 5-7. NBC fired him after season four. I tend to believe that Alda was going to win until Spencer died. The show went to great lengths to make him sympathetic and moderate.
There was a bit of an issue with the writers on WW when Sorkin ran things about that. He would take the writers "finished" script and go through keeping all the story elements but rewriting the whole thing. It kept a constant feel/tone to the show, but screwed a lot of writers out of money.
It doesn't work like that. Producers buy scripts. they own these scripts and can do whatever they want with them. In return writers get residuals. Because he's the producer, Aaron gets a writing credit no matter how much or little he fiddles with the original product. I'm sure its more complicated, and there is probably a way that a producer can screw over the little guy, but what's Aaron supposed to do when he pays some grunt for a script and they deliver substandard material? To Aaron everyone must be substandard. To Aaron on coke, God is an inferior hack. "Giraffes". Fuck him.