And now The Newsroom....

[Guy Gardener]

Oh my god.

What if close to the last episode Jim gets his half hour with the candidate... And what if Romney plays Romney?

No script.

Just "Jim" with Aaron in his earwig hammering it out against the devil.

If anyone would want to rewrite history a little, buy a smidgen of redemption, it'd be Mit Romney, Lando Calrisian or Godzilla.

 

[Data Holmes]

Oh my god.

What if close to the last episode Jim gets his half hour with the candidate... And what if Romney plays Romney?

No script.

Just "Jim" with Aaron in his earwig hammering it out against the devil.

If anyone would want to rewrite history a little, buy a smidgen of redemption, it'd be Mit Romney, Lando Calrisian or Godzilla.

That would be pretty cool.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I googled, but all I found was outraged former Aides saying "We would NEVER throw a reporter off a bus, NEVER."

 

[Trekker4747]

I googled, but all I found was outraged former Aides saying "We would NEVER throw a reporter off a bus, NEVER."

Uh-huh. Right.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Imagine Aaron Sorkin shat on your summer 2 years ago where you believed you'd did a cromulent thing for the enbiggening of the entire country, fricking heroic... Working, probably volunteering, towards the perfection of the political machine ensuring that the next leader of the country is righteous and magnificent, and that if your guy isn't put in office, then you put up such a good fight that no jerkoffs got ahead of your position easily.

This is real.

"Boo, hoo, Aaroon Sorkin is making fun of us."

It happened.

Google it.

"We just want the world to know that we would NEVER eject anyone off the Romney Bus because we are small and sad and do not appreciate some Mr Hollywood millionaire asshole shitting on our summer 2 years ago and need another 15 minutes of fame by any means necessary."

 

[danellis]

I think it's less "pissing on Romney's grave" and more attacking how the media acted during the election, like them not pressing harder questions on Romney's inconsistencies during the election.

Romney won the nomination, so the story with most legs is with him.

dJE

 

[Guy Gardener]

Why am I thinking of the proverbial one legged man at an asskicking competition?

 

[TemporalFlux]

What I miss so far this season is the heart stopping moment of the episode. Season one stories would have the usual back and forth drama, and then some breaking news would happen that would cause somewhat of a gasp in the narrative. Then the date would slowly type on screen and we would see what moment of history the characters just ran into to.

That's what made the show unique to me; and it made you feel like you really were part of the Newsroom seeing what those people go through in their job. I'm just not feeling that this year; it's turned into generic drama.

 

[bigdaddy]

What I miss so far this season is the heart stopping moment of the episode. Season one stories would have the usual back and forth drama, and then some breaking news would happen that would cause somewhat of a gasp in the narrative. Then the date would slowly type on screen and we would see what moment of history the characters just ran into to.

That's what made the show unique to me; and it made you feel like you really were part of the Newsroom seeing what those people go through in their job. I'm just not feeling that this year; it's turned into generic drama.

That's a very good point. They were idiots and screwing around in season 1 and then something would happen and kick them into high gear. If you are going to have a show take so far behind in the past that technique should be used.

 

[Australis]

Hmm. So far, so so. It's still great overall, but there are moments that make me go meh. Most of Jim's stuff, some of the OWS woman's stuff (could she be any more self-righteous?). Maggie's stuff was a little tough to watch, very tense, very sad.

I suppose the meh moments are the little stupid moments we all have at some point (sometimes, yes, we'll have one a day for weeks), so I can live with it.

Hope it pays off as big as it's painting.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Still very enjoyable but I find it rather distracting how both the OWS protester and the shitty Romney PAO are written as very arrogant and self-righteous as means to make our characters look better. And as someone who works in public affairs, I wanted to scream at the Romney PAO for how she treated Jim and company.

 

[IndyJones]

Still very enjoyable but I find it rather distracting how both the OWS protester and the shitty Romney PAO are written as very arrogant and self-righteous as means to make our characters look better. And as someone who works in public affairs, I wanted to scream at the Romney PAO for how she treated Jim and company.

My biggest eye roll moment was when the Neil's OWS friend gave them the info they needed on Genoa. It reminded me of in the pilot when everyone's sister or best friend or whatever had an in on the oil spill story.

 

[Data Holmes]

Still very enjoyable but I find it rather distracting how both the OWS protester and the shitty Romney PAO are written as very arrogant and self-righteous as means to make our characters look better. And as someone who works in public affairs, I wanted to scream at the Romney PAO for how she treated Jim and company.

My biggest eye roll moment was when the Neil's OWS friend gave them the info they needed on Genoa. It reminded me of in the pilot when everyone's sister or best friend or whatever had an in on the oil spill story.

They took two moments like that in the episode but self acknowledged them so well I enjoyed the joke.

First was how they are in the hall and one says " we're going to have to have the info just fall in our laps" a second before the OWS girl turns and blurts. The second was when the hotel clerk says "I only have one room open" and the vasser reporter girl says "Who didn't see that plot twist coming".

 

[Count Zero]

I was slightly upset by the way the OWS woman was being portrayed but in the end, she did get a moment to shine in her conversation with Will.

Sloan was on fire in this episode. It's great that she's getting more scenes this season (at least it feels that way). I also laughed about Charlie's antics with the glass wall.

Maggie's experience in Africa was heart-wrenching. I didn't expect to see that so soon, to be honest. The story was told really well, I felt, kind of subtle even though you could guess what would be happening early on.

 

[Guy Gardener]

What happened to Maggie was not enough. Maybe I'm dark, but I imagined that cocaine fuelled child soldiers passed her around for a month before the army rescued her.

That kid was a dipshit who deserved to die. Hiding when he should have been running. Evolution wanted him dead and Maggie was not strong enough to stop evolution.

Deal with it.

Although in the future if Maggie has to go into another warzone, it's not like she's going to request flak jacket made out of still living seven year old little brown boys stitched together?

Grow a pair.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, what happened to Maggie didn't seem to "live up" to what I think we were being "sold." I would've expected to her to witness some true horrors. I mean, sure, the little kid she read the book to a few dozen times got killed but really from the way she was acting and what was being implied on what happened to her over there I half-expected her to have had a horrendous time with her own life in danger.

Will's treatment of the OWS girl was harsh but I think it was more a commentary on how "lost" the OWS movement was in NOT having a unified message or plan. It was just a microcosm of the entire OWS movement which, at its core, had good intentions it just wasn't unified or nearly organized enough to get that message across.

I'm already beyond bored with the Genoa thing, and it's going to last the whole season, isn't it?

And, really, Jim's lucky to still have a job after passing on an interview with Romney. How utterly stupid of him to pass it over for a chance at some mediocre tail.

The show still really is, I feel, lacking in the broadcast segments with Will, really, smacking down someone he's interviewing to make a broad commentary on some event of the time or as said up thread the moments where the show came together during a sudden crisis event in the news. I keep expecting that to happen when we get the exact date card on-screen but nothing ever happens.

I know last season got a lot of flack for ACN/Newsnight's power of hindsight to "report things right" but I sort of liked because it, to me, felt like it was done in a way to show that the media COULD do these things right if they weren't so quick to want to break news. (Like on reporting/not-reporting Gabby Gifford's "death.")

Sloane has been great but I think her co-workers are going quickly learn to not use her as a wingman when they need to make a confrontation with someone and need her for the "bad cop."

The OWS chick, yeah, was way full of her self and pretty much represented man of the problems with the OWS movement but, sheesh, this chick is just up her own ass.

And, again, I'm beyond tired of the Genoa thing. This season really should be focusing on the farce of the 2012 election which they can still get to, I know, and it's "early" yet but this Genoa thing is dominating too much. Which would be fine if we didn't already know how it's going to go thanks to the flashback style of story-telling they're doing.

 

[Australis]

Charlie's moment on the glass wall did make me laugh.

 

[TheGodBen]

I also found the Maggie story underwhelming. I was expecting something really disturbing, something like a variation on the Lara Logan sexual assault incident. In contrast, the death of the kid just felt artificial and consequence-free. They introduced a character only to kill him off in the same episode, and they made him a child so it would be extra emotional. Sure, intellectually I can understand why Maggie reacts the way she does, but as a viewer I just feel like the show was trying to manipulate me.

Also, if Maggie really wants to be Mac's go-to person on Africa, she should probably know that Djibouti is a country and where it is. Sadly, I know very little about Africa, yet I still know where Djibouti is. (Though, admittedly, I couldn't locate Uganda on a map.)

Still very enjoyable but I find it rather distracting how both the OWS protester and the shitty Romney PAO are written as very arrogant and self-righteous as means to make our characters look better.

Yeah, that's sadly a problem that Sorkin has, even back on The West Wing, but it's more noticeable on The Newsroom I find. I wish there were more characters like the gay Santorum spokesperson.

Also, I didn't like how the OWS woman commented upon Will's romantic situation as though she were some sort of psychic that knew all about Will's personality because of a brief slip in a conversation. That's not cute, it just dragged the Will/Mac mess into an episode that had been refreshingly free of it.


All that being said, I thought it was an improvement on the previous episode, though still not as good as the first two.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I get the impression that someone watched the final episode of M*A*S*H before writing this one.

Maggie's dip into the waters of mental breakdown, using dark humor to deflect interrogation questions, plus her short manufactured "fantasy" of the kid being alive while she's reading him a story - on a BUS - shortly before admitting that he died because of her actions, all smacks of Hawkeye's tormented final days in Korea. In fact, this was damn near a carbon copy of that subplot.

M*A*S*H did it better.

Sloan and Charlie are, by far, my favorite characters in this show. I wouldn't say this season is in any way better than last, but at least those two are keeping it interesting.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Also, if Maggie really wants to be Mac's go-to person on Africa, she should probably know that Djibouti is a country and where it is. Sadly, I know very little about Africa, yet I still know where Djibouti is. (Though, admittedly, I couldn't locate Uganda on a map.)

I thought it was a particularly glaring contradiction since just a couple of episodes back Maggie gave one of those typical Sorkin infodumps about Africa to convince Mac that she was serious about going and had become an expert on the subject, and yet now she doesn't even know the basic regional geography.