Rumor has it that The Newsroom's writing staff has been decimated. Link: The site looks pretty gossipy, so I'll be interested to see if this is true.
Have those writers even received credit this season? I've only seen the first three episodes, but as I recall Sorkin had sole credit on all of them. EDIT: looks like he had co-written credit on episode three, but is back to sole credit for episode four (and five and six, according to wikipedia).
He's been writing this series for years. the scripts were finished probably long before he got the actors in line to start filming. Constant polishing and second guessing and revision however.
It's interesting how differently the show is seen. I wouldn't have associated Will McAvoy with Keith Olbermann at all.
When the series was first announced it was widely said to be about an Olbermann-style show, and Will basically acts like Olbermann (left-wing ranter who's incredibly difficult to work with).
More like, possibly, he outlines the stories, has his staff write the scenes, then he rewrites all the dialog.
Wikipedia says that he spent two years entrenched in actual news rooms researching the method. If that's even a fraction true, then as the time line plays out these stories which his characters are playing out he saw happening in RL with professionals being professional. So yeah, he had the "news stuff" sorted out, but if Aaron fired a bunch of writers, then there was a bunch of writers there to be fired, maybe they were on top of the relationships and love stories that balanced off against the news?
See, I don't think he acts like Olbermann at all. He's a news anchor while Olbermann's show consisted of opinion pieces. While McAvoy's opinions shine through from time to time what we've seen him do most of the time was to present the news in a largely impartial way. It's even in the mission statement of Newsnight 2.0. I do like Olbermann but Countdown and the fictional Newsnight are two very different shows.
It is commentary on how extreme Republicans have become that someone like him who was their bread and butter a couple decades ago is now considered far too liberal to belong in the party.
Precisely. Today, if Ronald Reagan were to run for office, he'd be torn apart by the Republican Party.
Some one sent me a link to this clip [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw[/yt] makes me want to watch, but I don't have HBO.
OH! Now I get it. Sorkin can only write like this for HBO, but his massive audience that can get off on his junk while being "educated" and "civilized" is everyone that can't afford or be bothered with HBO. "Sigh" In the final season of the Mary Tyler Moore show, Mary started dating Lou Grant.
A wonderfully "honest" clip? Except for all those times we fought for the wrong ones... "I have never heard of Teddy Roosevelt." And kept segregation alive into the 1960s! Except for that one time we had, you know, a civil war over just that... Except for when we delayed getting majorly involved in WW2 as long as we could, because a Nazi-ruled Britain, France and the rest of Europe wouldn't have been that bad... Well, not so much the Mexicans or Hawaiians, who we stole entire future states from. Or when we often harassed immigrants, or turned away thousands of those fleeing the Holocaust... Though we certainly weren't hampered by the huge quantities of virtually untapped natural resources we had access to once all the native populations were decimated, locked up, or hounded into wastelands. Outside of that edited video, the same scene, IIRC, has McAvoy (or maybe it was the lady staffer) saying that despite it all, by golly, we still can be the world's greatest country, which is also a ridiculous statement, given how dysfunctional a government our Constitution ensures.
I'm with you except for this. Ultimately, it's not the checks and balances of the Constitution that make our government dysfunctional -- it's our overall political culture. It's the environment we create when we operate, not the structures through which we operate.
And what do ya think creates that political culture? Remember the old joke about why academic politics are so vicious - because there is so little at stake. Less than five percent of the population can veto any kind of Constitutional amendment. That's not "checks and balances"; that's an untouchable tyranny of a miniscule minority. Thanks to the iniquities of the Senate, Democrats don't have the power to create a single-payer health care system like truly civilized countries have, and Republicans can't wipe Social Security (yet). And our Constitution is in serious need of reform, as the national deficiencies in McAvoy's rant demonstrate.
Severe economic inequality, mostly. I don't disagree that the Constitution needs some fairly major amendments, but the Constitution's structures exacerbate the problems; they don't create them.
Loved tonights episode. The show is really starting to fire on all cylinders for me. I absolutely loved the Rudy subplot, the whole inner battle between the owner and the news team through the tabloids is getting fun, and the romantic subplot didn't drag the episode down this time. I'd say a strong three out of five. I really can't wait to see what happens in the season final, Sorkin showed in WW that he can make one hell of a cliffhanger, and the constant implication someone is going to get shot in the teasers makes me think it will be something good not having to do with anyone getting shot.