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Sorkin cable news pilot picked up at HBO

Temis the Vorta

Temis the Vorta

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No name yet, how about "The Increasingly Irrelevant Network"?

It’s official: HBO has picked up Aaron Sorkin’s hourlong cable news network pilot to series. The now untitled drama (formerly More As This Story Develops), which has been a virtual lock for a series order, centers on a cable news anchor (Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), his newsroom staff (Alison Pill, John Gallagher Jr, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel, Thomas Sadoski), and their boss (Sam Waterston). Together they set out on a patriotic and quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal entanglements. The size of the order for the series is yet to be determined, but it should be around 10 episodes.
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Great cast. But I'm not a Sorkin fan, not sure if I could watch this show without getting a headache. Too much yapping.

This premise sounds a bit passe and quaint. Cable news is increasingly dominated by outlets that don't "do the news well" if by well you mean with any whiff of objectivity - FOX and MSNBC. CNN is surviving by jumping on any humanitarian disaster and then milking it for all its worth. I can't think about Haiti or Somalia without envisioning Anderson Cooper's mournful basset hound face.

And then there's the bigger trend of news consumption having less to do with TV all the time. Cable news would be a great topic for a cynical satire of doomed ideals, but that's not at all Sorkin's style.
 
Temis the Vorta said:
No name yet, how about "The Increasingly Irrelevant Network"?

It’s official: HBO has picked up Aaron Sorkin’s hourlong cable news network pilot to series. The now untitled drama (formerly More As This Story Develops), which has been a virtual lock for a series order, centers on a cable news anchor (Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), his newsroom staff (Alison Pill, John Gallagher Jr, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel, Thomas Sadoski), and their boss (Sam Waterston). Together they set out on a patriotic and quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal entanglements. The size of the order for the series is yet to be determined, but it should be around 10 episodes.
Click to expand...
Great cast. But I'm not a Sorkin fan, not sure if I could watch this show without getting a headache. Too much yapping.
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I thought I wouldn't be able to stand West Wing for various reasons, but I started watching it in reruns and got kinda hooked. If this series has a character like Toby Zeigler, I may end up watching it.
 
I'll definitely give this a shot. Studio 60 was pretty weak, but I think that this type of show will better suit Sorkin's sensibilities. Plus, it'll be on HBO so there'll probably be lots of gratuitous female nudity.
 
The problem with Studio 60 was that a sketch comedy show isn't important the same way that running the country is but the tone was as grim and grave as if the world would literally end if they didn't put out a great show that week.
 
Venardhi said:
The problem with Studio 60 was that a sketch comedy show isn't important the same way that running the country is but the tone was as grim and grave as if the world would literally end if they didn't put out a great show that week.
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That and the fact that the show was fan-wank about his own life. Matt was a highly sought after genius writer with an equally genius best friend/director, he's in love with a woman he shouldn't be, he has a drug problem, he writes everything himself and he has to fight the suits at "NBS" constantly. The only thing missing was having Joshua Malina as one of the actor's on the fictional show.

Actually, I wonder if Thomas Schlamme is involved at all? He didn't direct the pilot, which is a first for Sorkin.
 
Venardhi said:
The problem with Studio 60 was that a sketch comedy show isn't important the same way that running the country is but the tone was as grim and grave as if the world would literally end if they didn't put out a great show that week.
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And that's also going to be the problem if the topic is cable TV news instead of a sketch comedy show.

Especially if the importance and idealism of what is going on is at great variance with what we can envision cable news to be in the real world. Important? Eh, it's McNews and getting less relevant all the time. Idealistic? Give me a break.
 
Temis the Vorta said:
This premise sounds a bit passe and quaint. Cable news is increasingly dominated by outlets that don't "do the news well" if by well you mean with any whiff of objectivity - FOX and MSNBC. CNN is surviving by jumping on any humanitarian disaster and then milking it for all its worth.
Click to expand...

But that's exactly the point. Just as The West Wing offered a vision of the way the government wasn't run, but should be, so this will do the same for cable news. And that's valuable. Things can't get better if everyone just points out how bad they are. Somebody has to stand up and offer a better alternative for people to believe in and work toward. That's the value of optimistic fiction. Well-done news is only a relic of the past because we've given up the will to fight for it. If we're reminded of what good journalism looks like, maybe we'll start demanding it again.
 
I have absolutely no faith that cable TV is ever going to get anything but worse. :rommie: And then it will go bye-bye like newspapers have. Who gets their news from TV anymore? I tune in just to see Anderson Cooper's hypnotically blue eyes. News is turning into Twitter blurbs and YouTube videos. How the heck do you do a show about that?

If Sorkin wants to do a show about something high stakes and legitimately important, he should do a series about modern warfare.
 
I'm a HUGE Sorkin fan and could listen to his well crafted dialogue all day. And have during Sports Night and West Wing marathons.

Oh, and I get my news from a range of sources. Internet...TV...radio...newpspapers and magazines...

Stuff like modern warfare makes journalism all the more essential. Good journalism is as essential to the life of a free society as is it's military.
 
Christopher said:
Temis the Vorta said:
This premise sounds a bit passe and quaint. Cable news is increasingly dominated by outlets that don't "do the news well" if by well you mean with any whiff of objectivity - FOX and MSNBC. CNN is surviving by jumping on any humanitarian disaster and then milking it for all its worth.
Click to expand...

But that's exactly the point. Just as The West Wing offered a vision of the way the government wasn't run, but should be, so this will do the same for cable news...
Click to expand...

Now that you mention it, that may be exactly why I like his movies and never care much for his TV shows. The movies tell interesting, nuanced, stories that make you think and draw you own conclusions. The TV shows tend to become lectures on "the way things ought to be."
 
Temis the Vorta said:
I have absolutely no faith that cable TV is ever going to get anything but worse. :rommie: And then it will go bye-bye like newspapers have. Who gets their news from TV anymore? I tune in just to see Anderson Cooper's hypnotically blue eyes. News is turning into Twitter blurbs and YouTube videos. How the heck do you do a show about that?
Click to expand...
The West Wing didn't contain a realistic portrayal of American politics, nor will this show have a realistic portrayal of the American news media (more than likely). He'll probably get the technicalities of how a newsroom works right, but he'll throw in some idealism and remove most of the corruption. It might not be realistic, but if the writing is as sublime as most of his stuff on The West Wing then that wont matter a damn.
 
I don't think it's unrealistic to postulate that people can be better than they currently are. I think it's unrealistic to assume they can't. There have been times in the past when television journalists like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite (and here in Cincinnati, Nick Clooney, who's better known nationally as a movie-channel host and George Clooney's father) have surrounded themselves with other good people and spearheaded capable, honest, dependable news operations. It has happened before, and it could theoretically happen again if the right people managed to end up in the right places to make it work. But only if those people, and the viewers they depend on for support, don't settle for the lazy assumption that it's impossible.
 
I loved the West Wing. I liked Sports Night.

However, it's Sam Waterston, so I'll be there.
 
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