And now The Newsroom....

[Warped9]

Sometime ago someone shared a link with me called "the most honest three minutes on television." I eventually found it was an excerpt from the first episode of the HBO series The Newsroom.

This weekend I finally got around to a marathon viewing of the entire first season. Suffice to say I now have a new series to add to my small list of shows that have managed to hold my interest: Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Game Of Thrones and now The Newsroom.

I'm looking forward to Season 2.

Not surprising it has a West Wing flavour to it given the involvement of Aaron Sorkin. It has that same style of rapid fire banter that candidly I find bears little resemblance to how I've seen real people talk. It doesn't do the following of a character from room-to-room nearly as much as was seen on The West Wing which frankly I found annoying. Even so I've always thought The West Wing was a classy and well done show that still didn't manage to hold my interest for long.

The Newsroom feels different, though. It has a measure of humour that I quite like and I enjoy a lot of the subject matter. It has that appeal of following a group of flawed underdogs still trying to be better and to do the right thing even while they continue to screw up in varying degrees.

The show deals with adult ideas while eschewing being dark and gritty. And it has a strain of idealism to it that I find appealing.

So far it works for me.

 

[Guy Gardener]

63 days and 48 minutes till the next episode.

You might want scrounge up the episode of the Daily Show where one of their reporters wandered onto the set of the News Room thinking it was real and has a very confusing conversation with Bull Pullman and Emily Mortimer.

 

[bigdaddy]

The West Wing didn't have humor?

 

[Warped9]

The West Wing didn't have humor?

Sure it did although I didn't see much of it because the show overall didn't hold me. It was well written and well acted, but something was missing for me.

 

[HaventGotALife]

Here is a couple of my favorite clips in "Newsroom." I personally don't think it's anywhere near as good as "The West Wing," but it warms my heart to see Aaron Sorkin back on television. With the cancellation of "Smash" this is the only current show that I set appointments to watch.

Idealist versus Realist
Jesus versus Moses
The Payoff
Don Tells the Pilot
Homosexuality
Creeping Chrisitanity

 

[TheGodBen]

The West Wing didn't have humor?

No, Warped9 did not, let me be absolutely clear, HE DID NOT SAY THAT. Except, yes, he did say that.

I have the opposite reaction, I think The West Wing could be very funny when it wanted to be, but that The Newsroom tries too hard to be funny and misses more often than it hits. Charlie and Will have some good lines every once and a while, but MacKenzie and the love pentagon (?) characters are as funny as a migraine.

 

[Marten]

I like if for the most part. It get's a little preachy at times, but overall it's quite good. Of course, the preaching isn't that unexpected in a Sorkin show.

 

[Warped9]

Some of the humour in The Newsroom is a little forced feeling like they're trying to milk a joke a bit too much. And, yeah, the love triangle stuff is a bit much at times. But so far it's not enough to turn me off.

 

[MacLeod]

The West Wing didn't have humor?

No, Warped9 did not, let me be absolutely clear, HE DID NOT SAY THAT. Except, yes, he did say that.

I have the opposite reaction, I think The West Wing could be very funny when it wanted to be, but that The Newsroom tries too hard to be funny and misses more often than it hits. Charlie and Will have some good lines every once and a while, but MacKenzie and the love pentagon (?) characters are as funny as a migraine.

So tell me more about your secret plan to fight inflation.

 

[HaventGotALife]

"So how long do you usually make people your bitch?"

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DswqwGi2r-M[/yt]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=TKlq9Z5XNi4&feature=endscreen[/yt]

"Somebody bringing me drinks with little umbrellas in them."

 

[TheGodBen]

So tell me more about your secret plan to fight inflation.

I would never support a secret plan to fight inflation.


I didn't hate The Newsroom, I just wasn't enamoured by it. I like a lot of the individual components that make up the show, they were just put together in such a way didn't appeal to me. The first season was definitely more Studio 60 than The West Wing. But I'm going to give the second season another shot because of how much I want to love the show, and I'm hoping that the new writing staff helps things to click together better.

 

[Venardhi]

63 days and 48 minutes till the next episode.

You might want scrounge up the episode of the Daily Show where one of their reporters wandered onto the set of the News Room thinking it was real and has a very confusing conversation with Bull Pullman and Emily Mortimer.

You know The Daily Show is a comedy program right?
It's called acting. He even had a monologue prepared.

 

[MacLeod]

So tell me more about your secret plan to fight inflation.

I would never support a secret plan to fight inflation.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21UELSDw3_Y[/yt]

The West Wing, was a qulaity show, sure it had it's ups and downs but what show doesn't.

QUOTEI didn't hate The Newsroom, I just wasn't enamoured by it. I like a lot of the individual components that make up the show, they were just put together in such a way didn't appeal to me. The first season was definitely more Studio 60 than The West Wing. But I'm going to give the second season another shot because of how much I want to love the show, and I'm hoping that the new writing staff helps things to click together better.[/QUOTE]


I could never really get in Studio 60, but I did find The Newsroom easier to get into than Studio 60 is it as good as TWW maybe not but it's still good TV.

 

[Data Holmes]

One of the smaller part actresses actually was working at MSNBC when Sorkin was doing his reaserch. He talked her into leaving her job there and taking the job on Newsroom as an actress and writing consultant.

Rumor is that Sorkin brought in several republican speech writers/bloggers/political consultants into the writing room to better balance out the republican/conservative characters which many in the audiance after season one felt weren't portrayed correctly and were coming off as "too democrat/liberal".

 

[bigdaddy]

West Wing was probably the best, Sports Night a close second. Newsroom a distant 3rd, should be more fun like Sports Night, and let's never talk about Studio 60.

 

[Guy Gardener]

63 days and 48 minutes till the next episode.

You might want scrounge up the episode of the Daily Show where one of their reporters wandered onto the set of the News Room thinking it was real and has a very confusing conversation with Bull Pullman and Emily Mortimer.

You know The Daily Show is a comedy program right?
It's called acting. He even had a monologue prepared.

The US Navy would receive thousands of letters every week from devoted fans, highlighting clues from the program Gilligan's Island about where Gilligan's Island was, so that the Navy could go rescue them.

I was actually wondering that about Colbert. Are there people out there, the hillbillies who believe in Wrestling maybe, who think that Stephen is sincere... Julie Andrews unprepared the alien environment didn't actually figure out that the show was a farce till half way through her interview last month. It was hilarious when she asked if Stephen was a real person.

 

[bigdaddy]

The Republican leadership years ago had to point out to their Congress-people that he is a fake republican and not to go on Steven Cobert's show.

People are stupid.

I don't believe anything I see on TV, including the "news", makes life much easier.

 

[Venardhi]

One of the smaller part actresses actually was working at MSNBC when Sorkin was doing his reaserch. He talked her into leaving her job there and taking the job on Newsroom as an actress and writing consultant.

Rumor is that Sorkin brought in several republican speech writers/bloggers/political consultants into the writing room to better balance out the republican/conservative characters which many in the audiance after season one felt weren't portrayed correctly and were coming off as "too democrat/liberal".

Will isn't really a big-R Republican though, he is a conservative. He is what, 50-55ish? So he came to his political identity in the 70s and 80s. The party has changed a lot in that time and he didn't follow their lead.

Will is a man of science(facts), logic, and compassion. His political beliefs and actions have to be consistent with that or he will lose the sympathy of the audience. The fact that he calls himself a conservative and yet feels left behind by 'his' party that has run off the rails pandering to a few key demographics is part of the drama.

 

[TheGodBen]

The fact that he calls himself a conservative and yet feels left behind by 'his' party that has run off the rails pandering to a few key demographics is part of the drama.

The problem is that it's really poorly presented on the show because, based off of what we've seen, Will is not really a conservative. On almost every issue that the show has addressed, from gay marriage to gun control, from social security to free-market economics, Will has not expressed traditional conservative points of view. The sole conservative value he was shown to hold is that he's pro-life, and that was a single line thrown out there in an episode about an entirely different subject. In the same episode he revealed that the reason he is a Republican is that he grew up in a rural area where everyone is a Republican and that's all he knew. I hate the overuse of the RINO label as much as anyone, but Will really does come across as a Republican in name only.

Let's be honest here, the reason why Will is a Republican is that Aaron Sorkin wanted to go after the Tea Party and he felt that having the main character be a Republican would act as a shield from the potential criticism of the show's liberal leanings. But he did a really poor job of portraying Will as a conservative, it's one of the leading criticisms of the show, and it's a good sign that Sorkin is trying to address that in season 2.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's impossible to to create a sane character with accurately Republican virtues

I say this as a dirty foreigner looking in from the outside.