The Newsroom.

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by Guy Gardener, Jun 25, 2012.

  1. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Currently America can't handle just Iraq, what makes you think that you could handle an actual world war without using nuclear weapons as a crutch?
     
  2. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    by your numbers, Lisa was 12 when it started.

    Kim Katralls boobs were all the hell over the first season. the first episode. They're talking about threesomes and homosexuality and all sorts. Season one was only 12 episodes, blink and you could miss it, and where I live they originally aired them as couplets, which broke it down to a 6 episode first season.

    but a 12 year old (should I add 'girl"?) staying up past her bedtime to listen to stories about alcohol and blowjobs?

    A deeply irresponsible parent.

    The 12 year olds I'm related to in the here and now, who are not allowed to watch family guy or southpark, are in bed by 7.30 and their parents are callow.

    However, when I was 12... but my parents were drunks and they couldn't make it to my bed time most nights, so i ruled the house like it were lord of the flies.

    It's most probably she liked one of the movies and worked back to the series from there, but if Sorkin's not out of touch basing this on an old girlfriend 10 years older than Lisa, then, he must have just found out about the tourbus (which I guess is real?) and couldn't stop laughing his ass off, and decided to share his delight with us?
     
  3. Count Zero

    Count Zero No nation but procrastination Moderator

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    I didn't know you lived in a world where any series is only shown once and then never again, so anyone who wasn't around for a show's original run has never heard about it. ;)

    It's a pretty popular show, and the people I know who are Lisa's/Maggie's age (to be fair, we only know Lisa's age but I assume Maggie is about the same) are well aware of the show. I don't think it's unrealistic for Lisa to be a fan of it at all.

    Whoever wrote that part about Sex and the City (let's not forget that there are writers on staff even if they never get credit) was quite knowledgeable about the show so I think it's a little more than hearing about the bus and working it into the episode. I'd like to think that it was Sorkin's guilty pleasure.


    ETA: The bus tour exists and apparently has been around for a while. I found an article about it in a weekly German newspaper from 2008. The busses look less obvious than on The Newsroom and have closed roofs, of course - I was wondering about that because it seems like a stupid idea in New York where it's often cold and/or rainy. But without the conceit, we wouldn't have gotten that great rant by Maggie.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2012
  4. Australis

    Australis Writer - Australis Admiral

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    ^CZ, it's a Guy Gardner post, don't expect rationality. I like to think of him as, at any given stage, rally drunk and off his meds.
     
  5. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It's called New Zealand and we got our third tv channel, as well as more than 12 hours of programming a day in 1990. Our fourth station in 1994, which then after some decline, and a year of playing music and informercials, it bankrupted in 1998 and we were back to 3.

    We have a lot (dozens not hundreds.) of cable stations these days, but there's still arguably less than 8 tv channels free to air if you count the music stations and non English stations.

    But yes.

    Even here they did rerun (rerun not syndicate) the shit out Sex and the City during the turn of the century, and I did buy a season 6 box set for a female friend for Christmas who was over the moon surprised that I hadn't just gotten her socks.

    But our reruns are special.

    (Simpsons doesn't count, like M*A*S*H* used to not count.)

    Which is beside the point.

    Lisa is an American living in America.

    By my standards, it's like she's from the future.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2012
  6. Count Zero

    Count Zero No nation but procrastination Moderator

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    Huh, I didn't know that about New Zealand. We only got privately owned TV channels in the 80s over here (before that, there were 3 channels, possibly more if you lived close to any of the borders) so it's amazing to me to hear that other Western nations were even later to the game. So, did you guys read a lot?


    Though eccentric, his posts usually do have a point. We just disagree on some minor point and I actually feel a little silly spending more than one post on it. But I like talking about the show.

    One thing that was a little unclear to me is how Charlie knew the other examples of phone hacking (besides MacKenzie's - if that was hacking at all - in my head canon, Will called Nina Howard by accident while he was high :p). It is my understanding that Hancock didn't send them anything relating to that in the envelope but just the beef stew recipe so they couldn't know these details. Was it just a good guess on Charlie's part or did I miss something in one of the previous episodes (quite possible, there's always so much going on in them) or did I misinterpret the scene?
     
  7. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Hancock said that Jane Fonda's son had been ordering hackings in an earlier episode. What Charlie was hanging out for was proof of the hacking and specific evidence to prove that the old guy wasn't sundowning. And even if he was sane, they still needed a second source to confirm the first.

    Will did call Mackenzie, not Nina.

    TMI hacked it.

    Then TMI deleted the message off McKenzies message system.

    Then passed the information on to Nina to report it.

    It was the fact that the message had been deleted from MacKenzie's answering service that twigged Will in on to what was really going on.

    See!

    I can be useful
     
  8. Australis

    Australis Writer - Australis Admiral

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    ^ Didn't say you weren't useful. :)

    That was my understanding too, that Will accidentally dialled Nina, and that was how she had the complete message. And it was interesting to watch her delete it too, nice character moment. All they knew about the hacking was what Hancock told them, he didn't actually give them anything, and Charlie pulled off a HUGE bluff, and got it on tape. The message wasn't in McKenzie's service because it never arrived there.
     
  9. Count Zero

    Count Zero No nation but procrastination Moderator

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    Yeah, but was he actually that specific and I missed it? I only remember him saying that there was phone-hacking going on, and that it went up all the way to Reese.


    Yes, that's certainly what the episode suggested and intended. I just have my own ideas about that. :p As I said, head canon. The part about them needing a second source only makes sense with the hacking plot, though, that's true.
     
  10. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Charlie said 'So does this hacking scandal go all the way to the top?"

    Hancock replied "Not the top, just below the top."

    Charlie counters "Her son?"

    (Something like that.)

    ...

    With mckenzie missdialing with her email back in the first or second episode, i thought that we draw back onto that.
     
  11. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    Hot damn.. awesome show. I just blew through all 10 episodes in about 2 days :lol:

    I do enjoy my Sci Fi shows, my sitcoms and everything else but with most shows you can tune out for a while and still get most of the episode.

    Not so with Newsroom.. you have to stay constantly on the ball because it is so dialogue heavy and people sometimes talk really fast but it's nice to be challenged once in a while and thanks to TrekBBS and TNZ i knew about all the issues and could follow their train of thought.

    It's not without flaw.. sometimes a bit too preachy or self important but the cast is fantastic (was always a fan of Jeff Daniels), the stories are intense and i like to be reminded about recent events that were put in story (my favorite episode was the Bin Laden one).


    Because the US is deeply divided about Iraq, give them a contemporary Pearl Harbor and watch the US unite. This is the power of the United States and it was very evident immediately post 9/11 when the entire nation stood together as one and set to the task of fighting back (the long term effects though are in another book).

    About the current Sex and the City discussion:

    It's still a very popular show which is for most parts quite timeless in its themes and styles so it's no surprise that mid 20s women still watch it and become fans even though they were too young to watch it in its original run.
    Absolutely fell over in the season finale when they lampooned it by setting up the intro scene and having Maggie go on a tear about the unrealistic approach to life in Sex and the City.. i like the show for its humor and frankness but it's also what i realistically think about the show and the women who overcompensate with it.
     
  12. IndyJones

    IndyJones Vice Admiral Admiral

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    America is no longer at war in Iraq.

    Officially. :shifty:
     
  13. Drago-Kazov

    Drago-Kazov Fleet Captain

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    Did the thing balance out. Are they equally critical of democrats by now?
     
  14. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    Judge for yourself :lol:

    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGAvwSp86hY[/yt]
     
  15. Methos

    Methos Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    that is quite possibly one of the best clips from this amazing show :D

    M
     
  16. Drago-Kazov

    Drago-Kazov Fleet Captain

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    We all do as americans.... There are tons of people that don't vote.
    By the way she has to have some ID, i personaly do not know how much voter id affects the outcome of elections.
    People sheepish enough to have bumper stickers enough are not the smartest voters but West's comment were stupid.

    The amount of partisan hackery is sickenning.

    Thank you for making it clear that the show did not change.
     
  17. Australis

    Australis Writer - Australis Admiral

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    I've been given to understand that photo id is required (saw it on the news).

    BTW, there's an election coming, please vote. Australia has mandatory voting, and most of us this it's a very good thing and take it serious.

    And think of McAvoy's show as the Fox News of the Left, though at least rooted in facts.
     
  18. Methos

    Methos Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    i'd be in the same boat if they brought that law in over here...

    I don't have a drivers license... never needed one... i live close to london and work in the city, and when i do travel, it's easier to do it by train than drive...

    I don't have a passport... never really needed one honestly... i work and live in England, and am quite happy to do so at the moment, no plans to leave the country in the next few years anyway.

    So, i don't have any government stamped photo ID... and if i wanted one, either a passport or drivers license would cost me upto £80... and why should I pay for something i'm not going to use except for to vote?

    M
     
  19. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The show was always balanced, it just so happens that the modern Democratic party is somewhere near the centre while the Tea party are off on the lunatic fringe. The show's problem is that it often comes across as pretentious in attempting to get this message across.

    America already has a station like that called MSNBC, but More people watch Fox. Go figure.

    Any US state that passes a voter ID law must also provide a free state-issued ID that can be used for voting, otherwise the law would be struck down as an unconstitutional poll tax. The problem is that lots of people don't want to go through the hassle of the process of applying for a free ID just to vote, so many people that don't already have a valid ID just wont bother to vote.
     
  20. FPAlpha

    FPAlpha Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    Everyone who knows Sorkin should also know that he won't praise the more radical elements of the US right wing so it should come to no surprise to anybody who wanted to see the right get cuddled.

    However, if you look objectively at the facts of the show ( i like the lines about the percentage of voter fraud in the last election and which states introduced voter laws to "prevent" voter fraud.. go form your own opinion) it might get you to think.

    Of course Newsroom being a Sorkin show he's preaching to the choir.. it's not like the far right wingers will cheer for the show.