The Newsroom S3 - Final Season Review & Discussion Thread

[Locutus of Bored]

Bring out your dead! It's probably not a good sign that there was no thread for the final, abbreviated season of the show that begin airing Sunday night yet (usually someone's started discussion threads way before I would think of doing one), but I figured might as well give it a shot.

Here's a recap of episode 3x01 "Boston," the first of the final six episodes of the series:

http://tvrecaps.ew.com/recap/the-newsroom-season-3-premiere/3/

And here's a lukewarm review from the AV Club:

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/newsroom-boston-211620

The timeline has jumped ahead five months from the finale of S2, "Election Night." It's now April 15th, 2013 and the Boston Marathon bombing just happened as Will and Mac are planning their over-the-top wedding. Will is still gunshy from the Genoa situation and the continually declining ratings and is unable to rally the troops with an impromptu speech the way he once was, and everyone is extremely mindful of not jumping the gun on a story (which makes them last to get the story on-air). This is paralleled with the John King misreporting of an arrest in the bombing on CNN, which the staff cheers before being yelled at by Charlie and reminded that that was them not too long ago.

Maggie has stopped beating up her hair and instead beats up her body with extreme exercise in penance for her time in Africa. Everyone has doubts about her ability to handle to stress of being a producer in the field, but when push comes to shove and she's forced to do on on-air report, she performs admirably.

There's a tug of war between the traditional reporting techniques of the old guard and the tech savvy social media reporting of the younger staff members like Neal and Hallie, who has joined the ACN staff full-time as a blogger and contributor. Reddit's false accusations and online kangaroo court blaming the wrong people for the bombing are front and center in the story. Meanwhile, we get the beginning of a Edward Snowden NSA surveillance based storyline with Neal as a fictionalized substitute for Glenn Greenwald and others, and possibly facing prison time for requesting classified documents from his source.

Jim had a surprisingly minor role in the episode compared to his usual share, but I'm sure that will change. A lot of that might come down to the lack of a romance subplot in the episode.

Sloan is doing some economic analysis with her nifty new computer and along with a tip from an admiring former student of hers uncovers an attempt at a corporate takeover of ACN's parent company, which she tells a shocked (and seemingly more humble and cooperative after last season's events) Reese.

It was a decent episode but nothing particularly spectacular. It makes a lot of good points about reliable sources, multiple confirmations, over-reliance on social media for providing "news" and so forth, shaming the media and internet coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, albeit with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight that the show always has. There were some mildly amusing moments, some touching moments (Will trying to keep his composure when they learn that one of the victims is an eight-year old), but it felt like it didn't really have the spark of some of the older episodes, and there was no speech or monologue that really caught my attention. Hopefully that will improve and the show will end on a solid note.

 

[John Clark]

I'm looking forward to it (Starts on Sky Atlantic on Wednesday) but I'm disappointed that it's the final season.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Watched the first five minutes before deciding it's better to rewatch at least the last few episodes to remember what everyone's talking about while walking down the studio corridors. I'd totally forgotten that Mac and Will were getting married!

Offhand though, my only comment thus far is that I wish they changed the opening theme back to the original. The current one (also from last season) sounds like the pianist drank a gallon of espresso before the recording session. :P

Mark

 

[Count Zero]

The Newsroom is one of my favourite shows and I'm sad that there will only be these 6 episodes and then no more.

I felt the first episode was a bit over the place. I had some trouble getting into it and especially catching all the details because I didn't follow the Boston marathon story very closely at the time and thus didn't know what people were talking about a portion of the time. I usually have to watch the episodes twice to catch everything, anyway.

I liked that Reese turned out to be not such a bad guy, after all, though the change to people being comfortable with him being in the room seemed a bit sudden to me. I also liked that Maggie came into her own as a producer and reporter in this episode - even though only Jim believed in her (and only because he has a guilty conscience).

The storyline with the secret documents looks very promising and exciting. Poor Neal, though. The hostile takeover storyline could be great as well but I didn't really understand all the details. I hope we'll get to see Leona Lansing in action again.

Maybe it's just me (because I'm a little downtrodden at the moment) but the tone of the episode was somewhat subdued and melancholy. The people we're supposed to admire are unsure of themselves and somewhat defeated. Their eventual failure is already foreshadowed here. Well, that's the problem with being an idealistic Don Quijote - you always end up losing and at one point you'll stop trying again. I'm just going through this on a political level so that resonated with me. But, of course, this could also be just overinterpretation on my part.

In any case, I'd like to see more humour in the dialogue of the next episodes. That was always one of the trademarks of the show and I feel this episode was a bit short on that.

 

[Australis]

I'm terribly disappointed this show is ending. I shall catch up shortly.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The cast is unwieldy.

Now that this experiment is over, Sorkin can find himself some TV actors that want to make TV, instead of movie actors who only want to slum it but just for "just this long".

That doesn't mean that he won't pick from the carcase of the News Room for his next project of course, and he would be a fool not to.

Unless Sorkin is the problem?

He's making a biography on Steve Jobs next.

That thing form Studio 60, where one of the Characters has to make TV because he failed a drugtest/insurance medical examine, and is therefore not allowed make movies is "rumoured" to be a true account from Sorkin's life.

Thank you Drugs. Thank you for the West Wing.

 

[Count Zero]

While I completely disagree with the AV Club review's take on Will McAvoy in the first two seasons* this characterisation of the ACN crew struck a nerve:

These people are trapped in amber working in a place that they believe in but that has no forward trajectory or vision for the future.

That's much better expressed than I tried to in my previous post.


*Will has always been broken. But he owned being broken like when he put up that torn paper heart on his door on Valentine's Day. I always liked that about him. Apparently, finally making up with Mac hasn't changed this about him. On that note, I have my doubts whether their relationship would really be any less toxic just because they're now getting married.


ETA: The Intercept, the news site led by Glenn Greenwald, also has a sort of review which I found quite entertaining. Like me during the episode they wonder about the encryption Neal used and why he didn't use PGP.

 

[doubleohfive]

I will miss the show when it's done and gone. Sunday's premiere was quite good, I thought. Looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.



EDITED TO ADD:

Sigh. In another universe, this could be Rory, Amy and the Doctor.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I really enjoyed the premiere and thought it was much stronger than most of season 2. Like Boardwalk Empire, I'm sadden by both the show's ending and its abbreviated final season.

I died laughing when Charlie belted out "If I learn what happened by watching the news, I'm going to lose my fucking mind!"

Sigh. In another universe, this could be Rory, Amy and the Doctor.

Brilliant!

 

[TheGodBen]

When Neal inserted that flash drive and all those windows popped up, not a single one of them was displayed on the taskbar. I hope somebody was fired for that lack of attention to detail.

Also, Equatorial Kundu? Maybe we'll finally find out what happened in that country after Bartlet sent US troops in.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Also, Equatorial Kundu? Maybe we'll finally find out what happened in that country after Bartlet sent US troops in.

I had to do a Google search before I could remember where I recognized the name.

 

[Starbreaker]

I liked the episode. I'm really disappointed that the ratings were never big enough to justify a full season.

 

[3chordboy]

Also, Equatorial Kundu? Maybe we'll finally find out what happened in that country after Bartlet sent US troops in.

ha, yeah Sorkin loves to re-hash old ideas.

he's used the episode title "What kind of day has it been" in all his shows..... any guesses what The Newsroom series finale is called?

 

[doubleohfive]

Well keep in mind too if the name of some fictional country cleared legal, there's really no reason they can't use it again.

 

[FPAlpha]

Just got around to watching the season premiere and i thought it was excellent.

3 major storylines intersecting and at times it was complicated to follow (especially the hostile takeover of the parent company) but it was well done and at a brisk pace.

Newsroom is certainly a show where you have to pay attention and keep up or you will lose focus fast but i like that about the show.

I also like the hindsight and the social commentary of the show.. i was wondering what the central plot would be for this episode and as soon as they mentioned Boston i near instantly flashed back to the news of the bombings last year and i was instantly hooked.

I am really sad that this will be the last season because i really liked the show and it should have been more successful however it's not an easy or approachable show for the masses because it covers a topic that not many are interested in.

I'm curious to see where the show goes and what will happen.. we will have Prism/Snowden as the big storyline (the same as with Genoa last season) but i look forward what else they have in store.

Still my favorite episode is from back in season about the Bin Laden death.. that was just all on one of their best episodes in my opinion.

See you next episode.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Well keep in mind too if the name of some fictional country cleared legal, there's really no reason they can't use it again.

Equatorial Kundu is lucky the show is ending or else they'd be facing a nasty Ebola outbreak next year.

 

[doubleohfive]

That, or Qumar would probably end up having to deal with ISIS insurgents as well.

 

[Count Zero]

Everyone stopped watching, or what?

This was a great episode, and more accessible from the start than the first one, I felt. Leona's entering the stage didn't disappoint. I loved how she used the ambiguity of the word literally here.
The whole meeting in the boardroom was great. We got to hear how Leona came to own Atlantis Media and how it got its name. Also, Reese's view of himself seems to have changed from season 1 and 2 - "douche on the side of the angels" - I like that.
I see two possible solutions to the "twin dilemma" at the moment. Either the twins have an epiphany and come to respect the work of the news division. Perhaps the whistleblower storyline will lead to that. It would be very Sorkin if that happened. Or the folks at ACN come up with a plan to lower the value of the corporation so much that Savannah Capital loses interest in the deal. I thought that Hollie's tweet might be used in that way but it doesn't look like it.

Maggie got yet another chance to shine. While I grumbled at her that it's a journalist's job to be an asshole when EPA guy said she had acted dishonestly her behaviour actually earned her a good story. I hope this story will happen now that the studio is being occupied by the FBI.

The whistleblower storyline is the most exciting one to me. The discussion and lead-up to the climax was very tense.The talk between Will and Neal in the studio was great. I know a lot of people have problems with Will but I love that he's such a decent and courageous guy when it matters. Neal also really came into his own.
The scene when the FBI enters the studio in full force was very powerful. It reminded me of the Spiegel affair in 1962 when the police raided the offices of the Spiegel magazine because they had published an article based on secret documents leaked from the Ministry of Defense. The journalists could only finish work on the current issue with the help of other papers and magazines. The chief editor went to prison for months. However this backfired badly for the authorities and the outrage that this caused is the reason why journalists are pretty safe in this country. I wonder whether it might have served as an inspiration for this storyline, especially now that Will also knows the name of the source and will likely go to jail instead of Neal.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

A.V. Club's review pretty much sums how I felt about this episode: A fantastic use of all of its female characters. I hope we see Kat Dennings for the rest of the season because that is inspired casting right there.

 

[TheGodBen]

I know typecasting is bad and I'm kinda guilty of it by saying this, but I can't not see that guy on the train as Liam McPoyle, and the thought that he and Maggie might get it on disturbs me. I know Maggie's standards are low and all, but ugh.

It was probably the show's best episode, but I'd still only rank it as a mid-tier West Wing episode at best. But I love The West Wing, so that's a compliment, kinda.