The Newsroom - new HBO series from Aaron Sorkin (1 Viewer)

[Sinn Fein]

I have not seen episode 2 yet, but I love drunk Sam Waterston. Hope that continues.

 

[Major]

Sounds like mixed reviews in here. I've been holding off so far...looks meh.

Yeah, it's basically a poor man's Boss.

 

[Nipsey]

Sounds like mixed reviews in here. I've been holding off so far...looks meh.

First episode was decent to good. Second was brutal IMO. The first three scenes were laughable. Ridiculous dialogue, over-the top performances and an editor who seemingly did about a mixing bowl full of coke before he started working. It was like a poorly written west wing episode on extra-strength red-bull. At one point I thought the actress who plays the intern turned associate producer was literally going to start chewing on the desk.

 

[The Ref]

Sounds like mixed reviews in here. I've been holding off so far...looks meh.

First episode was decent to good. Second was brutal IMO. The first three scenes were laughable. Ridiculous dialogue, over-the top performances and an editor who seemingly did about a mixing bowl full of coke before he started working. It was like a poorly written west wing episode on extra-strength red-bull. At one point I thought the actress who plays the intern turned associate producer was literally going to start chewing on the desk.

If I didnt get the memo the the second episode wasn't nearly as good as the first i probably wouldnt have liked it. But with lowered expectations i thought it was OK. I actualy liked the overly aggresive dialouge. For a show about a newsroom at least you can say it's not boring.

 

[Maelstrom]

I'm a bit biased to enjoy this showing, having worked in the newspaper industry. Even though it is different than the broadcast news, and I wasn't generally anywhere near the newsroom, there are enough familiar references that I find it interesting.

 

[Kool-Aid Larry]

http://www.holymoly.com/tv/video/video-aaron-sorkin-reuses-lot-phrases-his-tv-and-films-heres-compilation63520

 

[Raider Nation]

HBO just gave this show the green light for another season, BTW.

(As they also did for Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep.)

 

[Chadstroma]

HBO just gave this show the green light for another season, BTW.

(As they also did for Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep.)

The second episode was a drop off.... I am not getting the abysmal sense that others are, perhaps because my expectations were lowered? I wish HBO would end Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep and get more Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Kill the crap and invest it in good stuff.

 

[whoknew]

HBO just gave this show the green light for another season, BTW.

(As they also did for Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep.)

The second episode was a drop off.... I am not getting the abysmal sense that others are, perhaps because my expectations were lowered? I wish HBO would end Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep and get more Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Kill the crap and invest it in good stuff.

Veep is fantastic. You mustn't have watched it.

 

[biggamer3]

Just watched both episodes, First i actually liked, the second was terrible in every way. The comedy wasn't funny, the plot was predictable and lame, the writing wasn't even sharp as Sorkin stuff usually is. The mass email gaffe was terribly unrealistic, even after being away for 3 years no one would put an asterisk in an email by accident!

 

[Chadstroma]

HBO just gave this show the green light for another season, BTW.

(As they also did for Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep.)

The second episode was a drop off.... I am not getting the abysmal sense that others are, perhaps because my expectations were lowered? I wish HBO would end Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep and get more Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Kill the crap and invest it in good stuff.

Veep is fantastic. You mustn't have watched it.

Sure did. Even originally put it on DVR. It was horrible. Not as bad as Girls but right there on the dumb level of Eastbound and Down.

 

[The Hardline]

The show has potential but the it reminds me a lot of when the ex-wife used to watch Gilmore Girls...everyone talks fast and is always trying say something witty and it just comes off as fake and unrealistic to me even if the writing is decent. Quit trying to jam 2 episodes worth of dialog into a single episode or scene. Ok I get that it is a newsroom and things are supposed to be moving at a rapid pace but no one talks that way in groups.

 

[Who Dat Ninja]

The show has potential but the it reminds me a lot of when the ex-wife used to watch Gilmore Girls...everyone talks fast and is always trying say something witty and it just comes off as fake and unrealistic to me even if the writing is decent. Quit trying to jam 2 episodes worth of dialog into a single episode or scene. Ok I get that it is a newsroom and things are supposed to be moving at a rapid pace but no one talks that way in groups.

The scene between the new producer and the young girl was torture. It came off extremely bad and I cant not believe anyone directing this could not come to the same conclusion.

 

[Apple Jack]

HBO just gave this show the green light for another season, BTW.

(As they also did for Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep.)

The second episode was a drop off.... I am not getting the abysmal sense that others are, perhaps because my expectations were lowered? I wish HBO would end Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep and get more Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Kill the crap and invest it in good stuff.

Veep is fantastic. You mustn't have watched it.

Sure did. Even originally put it on DVR. It was horrible. Not as bad as Girls but right there on the dumb level of Eastbound and Down.

All three of those shows are outstanding.

 

[biggamer3]

http://www.holymoly.com/tv/video/video-aaron-sorkin-reuses-lot-phrases-his-tv-and-films-heres-compilation63520

Wow, this must have taken a decade to put together

 

[Yankee23Fan]

http://www.holymoly.com/tv/video/video-aaron-sorkin-reuses-lot-phrases-his-tv-and-films-heres-compilation63520

Wow, this must have taken a decade to put together

All that did was make me miss Studio 60 and West Wing. They were entertaining for the most part.

 

[Christo]

HBO just gave this show the green light for another season, BTW.

(As they also did for Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep.)

The second episode was a drop off.... I am not getting the abysmal sense that others are, perhaps because my expectations were lowered? I wish HBO would end Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep and get more Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Kill the crap and invest it in good stuff.

Veep is fantastic. You mustn't have watched it.

 

[freakinback]

HBO just gave this show the green light for another season, BTW.

(As they also did for Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep.)

The second episode was a drop off.... I am not getting the abysmal sense that others are, perhaps because my expectations were lowered? I wish HBO would end Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep and get more Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Kill the crap and invest it in good stuff.

Veep is fantastic. You mustn't have watched it.

Sure did. Even originally put it on DVR. It was horrible. Not as bad as Girls but right there on the dumb level of Eastbound and Down.

All three of those shows are outstanding.

Eastbound has sucked for the last two seasons. Girls and Veep were fantastic.

 

[hammerva]

Not sure who particularly wrote the Jeff Daniels part explaining the Tea Party but damn it that was 100% accurate.

And yes drunk Sam Waterston is awesome

 

[Raider Nation]

BOOKMAN!

 

[TLEF316]

good episode last night. Was definitely waiting for Bookman to drop a "Well let me tell you something funny man!!"

 

[Apple Jack]

I'm an episode behind and while there were absolutely some cringe-worthy moments from the 2.0 episode, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. That said, it's already painfully obvious that Sorkin is not the man for the job of tackling the disastrous trainwreck that is the current media/electorate situation.

 

[Clifford]

This was basically awful. Disguising the ultra-liberal propaganda behind a supposedly Republican lead character is not working.

Too much monologue. Show started out with about 10 min of Bridges talking to the screen. Next highlight was Bridges talking to his boss (screen again for most of it) for 10 minutes. So 20 minutes of this episode is basically a blog for Aaron Sorkin.

Meh

 

[toadstool]

This was basically awful. Disguising the ultra-liberal propaganda behind a supposedly Republican lead character is not working.Too much monologue. Show started out with about 10 min of Bridges talking to the screen. Next highlight was Bridges talking to his boss (screen again for most of it) for 10 minutes. So 20 minutes of this episode is basically a blog for Aaron Sorkin.Meh

Are you new to his work? I get the lack of attention span to not want 10 minutes of a person talking, but if you are familiar with Sorkin, you know what you are in for in terms of politics.

 

[Major]

What the hell was that last episode? talk about spoon feeding an audience and acting like we're all school children who don't know the devilish ways of the tea party or the GOP. Ease up and pump your breaks Sorkin. He's taking everything Chris Matthews wanted to say but couldn't properly spit out for years into one show. Lame

Note: not a Republican

 

[Maelstrom]

Not sure who particularly wrote the Jeff Daniels part explaining the Tea Party but damn it that was 100% accurate. And yes drunk Sam Waterston is awesome

I'm with this.

 

[Raider Nation]

Sepinwall, for Tanner.

Though "The 112th Congress" has a central idea at its spine — Will takes on the Tea Party, and Charlie catches flack for it from ACN owner Leona Lansing — and a variety of subplots we follow throughout, it's so episodic in nature, and features so many ideas and problems at once, that I think the best way to address this one is to go bullet point by bullet point:* First, it's fascinating how much Good Sorkin and Bad Sorkin are simultaneously on display in Will's speech announcing the new mission for "News Night." The message about how TV news lost its moral compass because Congress let Paley, Sarnoff, et al sell advertising way back when was an interesting one, but also one that wouldn't apply to a non-broadcast outfit like ACN. (Unless Will/Sorkin is suggesting that the FCC would have managed to get sway over cable and... what? Told cable news channel owners that they couldn't sell ads around the clock? In that case, no one would bother starting such an operation. And if it would have just meant one hour per day without ads, well, the other 23 could still be spent on Bubble Boy, Natalee Holloway, etc.) The speech is simultaneously self-effacing (Will admits he screwed up along with everyone else) and self-important (by placing it on a level with the 9/11 Commission), positioning this new direction as both an underdog approach ("I'm going with the guys who are getting creamed") and as the only reasonable position of people who are awesome ("Who are we to make these decisions? We're the media elite."). It's a lot of strong rhetoric (one of Sorkin's specialties) in service of an idea I largely agree with; I'm just not sure it hangs together at all as presented here.* By doing an early episode that spans six months of time, right after the first two episodes were set within days of each other, Sorkin gets to deal with the whole election cycle in one go, rather than having an anti-Tea Party subplot in every episode for the bulk of the season. But doing so also throws out much of the tension the first two episodes established in terms of this group of relative strangers, bitter ex-lovers, etc., coming together to make this show — and also about the growing pains of the show itself. By racing all the way from May through November, we miss seeing Will and Mackenzie get used to working with each other in any real depth, miss seeing any significant bumps in the road like their Arizona immigration segment last week, miss seeing Maggie get better at her job, miss seeing Sloan adjust to the bigger stage (do we even see her appear on "News Night" before the election coverage?), miss seeing Will genuinely get to know these people (there's an implied bond between Will and the group at the karaoke bar in the final scene that wasn't there last week), etc. Sorkin has said (in response to a question about why the show-within-the-show on "Studio 60" wasn't as hyper-competitive and full of jealousy and neuroses as what we know about how "SNL" works) that he prefers writing about harmonious workplaces to ones where everyone's constantly in conflict. And if that's his comfort zone, fine. But then why bother setting up all that potential for conflict, discomfort, etc. in the first couple of episodes if most of it was going to be skipped past in short order by the third episode?* This one wasn't quite as overflowing with instances of the female characters acting incompetent, stupid, and/or insane — although Jim does have to stop Maggie's panic attack on a balcony, which is second cousin to talking someone off a ledge — as last week's outing, mercifully. That said, it feels like the time spent worrying about the dangers of the Tea Party is matched by how much we're supposed to spend being concerned about how Mac is responding to Will's string of attractive female companions, and then to his reaction to her being in a serious relationship with Gordon 2.0(*), and to whether or not Maggie and Don would ever break up long enough for Jim to make his move. And while Sorkin can be a good romantic comedy writer at times (case in point: "The American President"), too often it feels like the romantic arcs on his shows involve characters (male and female) acting like the dumbest, most immature versions of themselves, and that was unfortunately the case here. I don't care about any of these relationships at this stage, and certainly not in the way they're being depicted.(*) I recognize that many of you didn't watch "Sports Night," which is fine. But it's hilarious how close in mannerisms Jon Tenney is on this show to the Ted McGinley character in that one. When that Sorkin supercut went around after the premiere, I was amused but untroubled by it, as I suspect you could do something similar for David Milch, Shonda Rhimes, David E. Kelley or pretty much any other prolific TV creator with a distinctive voice. That said, there's a difference between liking a certain turn of phrase, or even a certain character archetype (Isaac --> Leo --> Charlie), and straight-up recycling an entire dynamic involving the exact same character archetypes (with Will as Casey and Mac as Dana). I'm not saying this is going to end up with Tenney wearing Will's shirt or something, but right now it's the same darned guy. * I admire the restraint it took to have Jane Fonda — who was once married to a cable news mogul in real life — on camera for much of an episode and not letting her speak until the 48 minute mark. I imagine when you've got an old-school movie star with two Oscars on her mantel, she's going to make an impression no matter when she talks, but by having Leona sit silently in the meeting for so long while her obnoxious son Reese grilled Charlie, the impact was even greater.

 

[PIK95]

The wife and I are really enjoying this show. I wish they didn't fast forward already though.

 

[Apple Jack]

My initial skepticism and borderline annoyance is mellowing as it becomes more and more clear that there is nothing new to see here. It's another in the ongoing series of Aaron Sorkin's imaginary romantic worlds. I misunderstood the mandate. In fact, I don't think there really is a mandate other than to make a feel good show that takes a few whacks at the people and things he views as corrosive. I thought he had more weighty goals for it.

I reserve the right to reverse course and hate it if I change my mind and decide that attempting to put forward a solution to the problem is his goal. And Olivia Munn is hot.

 

[Chadstroma]

My initial skepticism and borderline annoyance is mellowing as it becomes more and more clear that there is nothing new to see here. It's another in the ongoing series of Aaron Sorkin's imaginary romantic worlds. I misunderstood the mandate. In fact, I don't think there really is a mandate other than to make a feel good show that takes a few whacks at the people and things he views as corrosive. I thought he had more weighty goals for it.

I reserve the right to reverse course and hate it if I change my mind and decide that attempting to put forward a solution to the problem is his goal. And Olivia Munn is hot.

Yea, my enthusiasm for the show is waning. You make all good points (especially about Olivia). It does not seem like he is bringing anything new to the table but just doing his same TV series in a new setting with new actors that have characters with different names. Something that is bugging me is that his politics have never bothered me before even as I tend not to agree with him. West Wing is in my top 3 of all time favorite shows and I never once had the same irritation as I am getting with this. Maybe is that I accepted the political stances within the show from the characters because they were suppose to hold those views and the difference in this is that he is pitching us a Republican who three shows in has done nothing that comes close to presenting a conservative/Republican viewpoint. I do brush aside the half hearted 'he took someones job' offering since it pales in comparison to the impassioned and reasoned presentation of other narratives and seemed to me more about setting up grumpy to have a heart of gold later in the episode. If you are going to have a character that is obviously intelligent, informed and passionate person- then don't just use him as a battering ram on things you don't like and a soap box of the 'other side'.

 

[Tiger Fan]

i think it's been much better than the reviews give it credit for

 

[Apple Jack]

i think it's been much better than the reviews give it credit for

I think it is a colossal failure at doing what we were made to believe it was going to do and I think that's the angle the reviews have been coming from. As a free-standing, Aaron Sorkin romance with himself, it's decent. As a commentary on the real world, it's embarrassingly bad. All depends on where your expectations are.

 

[Sinn Fein]

i think it's been much better than the reviews give it credit for

I think it is a colossal failure at doing what we were made to believe it was going to do and I think that's the angle the reviews have been coming from. As a free-standing, Aaron Sorkin romance with himself, it's decent. As a commentary on the real world, it's embarrassingly bad. All depends on where your expectations are.

Hard to say - I think they have set themselves up for a decent clash between doing sensational news and doing "important" news. Of course, everything we read/see come with a bias - so Sorkin's views on what constitutes "important" news will come across here. But I do think there is a message here about how news has changed over the years, and I do think it has been dumbed down, chasing ratings over substance.But, this is a TV show. It entertainment, I don't think it will be changing how anyone produces the news anytime soon.

 

[Major]

i think it's been much better than the reviews give it credit for

I think it is a colossal failure at doing what we were made to believe it was going to do and I think that's the angle the reviews have been coming from. As a free-standing, Aaron Sorkin romance with himself, it's decent. As a commentary on the real world, it's embarrassingly bad. All depends on where your expectations are.

 

[Nipsey]

The show is poorly cast. The reason West Wing was so great was because Whitford and Lowe could pull off charming and the rat-a-tat-tat Sorkin dialogue with ease. The young guys in this show cannot. The weakest part of the cast by a country mile is the blonde intern turned associate producer. She's not a real person. She's not even close to a real person. She reminds me of the Chris Kattan SNL character Mr. Peepers. Oy, someone tell this chick to dial it down by about 98%. I guess i never fully appreciated the talent of Janel Maloney. Take a page from Donna Moss, honey. Not every moment needs to be played as if you just downed 8 Red Bulls.

 

[Apple Jack]

The show is poorly cast. The reason West Wing was so great was because Whitford and Lowe could pull off charming and the rat-a-tat-tat Sorkin dialogue with ease. The young guys in this show cannot. The weakest part of the cast by a country mile is the blonde intern turned associate producer. She's not a real person. She's not even close to a real person. She reminds me of the Chris Kattan SNL character Mr. Peepers. Oy, someone tell this chick to dial it down by about 98%. I guess i never fully appreciated the talent of Janel Maloney. Take a page from Donna Moss, honey. Not every moment needs to be played as if you just downed 8 Red Bulls.

Janel Malony was fantastic. Look back at those first few episodes of the West Wing...there is some awkward acting in there. Schiff and Janney were my favorites and even they were still getting their footing in those first few episodes. It's a bit early to make a call on the actors. Need to see how they settle into the characters. And in defense of that chick, she's supposed to have more than your garden variety anxiety issues.

 

[Nipsey]

The show is poorly cast. The reason West Wing was so great was because Whitford and Lowe could pull off charming and the rat-a-tat-tat Sorkin dialogue with ease. The young guys in this show cannot. The weakest part of the cast by a country mile is the blonde intern turned associate producer. She's not a real person. She's not even close to a real person. She reminds me of the Chris Kattan SNL character Mr. Peepers. Oy, someone tell this chick to dial it down by about 98%. I guess i never fully appreciated the talent of Janel Maloney. Take a page from Donna Moss, honey. Not every moment needs to be played as if you just downed 8 Red Bulls.

Janel Malony was fantastic. Look back at those first few episodes of the West Wing...there is some awkward acting in there. Schiff and Janney were my favorites and even they were still getting their footing in those first few episodes. It's a bit early to make a call on the actors. Need to see how they settle into the characters. And in defense of that chick, she's supposed to have more than your garden variety anxiety issues.

I get that the character is written to be high strung but she's terrible. Sorry. Her moment to moment isn't close to real, anxiety issues or not. She's an indicator. She's not present. Impossible to watch her and think she isn't performing. "Look at me being quirky!" Less is more. Last episode there was a 3 second shot of her showing up late to a meeting and sitting at the conference table. She was doing so much in that 3 seconds that it was laughable. Her moon-sized eyes darted around the table like a pinball. A person on METH doesn't act like that. We all know people with anxiety issues. Do they act like that in public? No. It's the other way actually. It's the old playing drunk adage. Much more interesting and real to play trying to conceal drunk than acting full blown drunk.

 

[Tiger Fan]

i think it's been much better than the reviews give it credit for

I think it is a colossal failure at doing what we were made to believe it was going to do and I think that's the angle the reviews have been coming from. As a free-standing, Aaron Sorkin romance with himself, it's decent. As a commentary on the real world, it's embarrassingly bad. All depends on where your expectations are.

My expectations were to be entertained...and they've been met I could do without Sorkin's agendas, but oh well

 

[General Malaise]

I liked the first episode. According to the reviewers who saw the first four episodes, the first was by far the best and then it went progressively downhill from there. So we'll see. But so far I like it.

Just watched the first episode last night and liked it quite a bit. Disheartened to read all of this today. I was pretty excited prior to opening this thread. :(

 

[General Malaise]

HBO just gave this show the green light for another season, BTW.

(As they also did for Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep.)

The second episode was a drop off.... I am not getting the abysmal sense that others are, perhaps because my expectations were lowered? I wish HBO would end Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep and get more Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Kill the crap and invest it in good stuff.

Veep is fantastic. You mustn't have watched it.

Sure did. Even originally put it on DVR. It was horrible. Not as bad as Girls but right there on the dumb level of Eastbound and Down.

I have only seen a few episodes of Eastbound and Down, but it's made laugh pretty hard in spurts. I realize it's silly and dumb humor, but I've been entertained when I've seen it. Haven't had HBO for a while, so behind on most everything. Watched the first episode of Veep and it was okay for me. Not great, but not bad. Will watch again, maybe.

 

[bagger]

i think it's been much better than the reviews give it credit for

^

 

[Apple Jack]

HBO just gave this show the green light for another season, BTW.

(As they also did for Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep.)

The second episode was a drop off.... I am not getting the abysmal sense that others are, perhaps because my expectations were lowered? I wish HBO would end Eastbound & Down, Girls and Veep and get more Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Kill the crap and invest it in good stuff.

Veep is fantastic. You mustn't have watched it.

Sure did. Even originally put it on DVR. It was horrible. Not as bad as Girls but right there on the dumb level of Eastbound and Down.

I have only seen a few episodes of Eastbound and Down, but it's made laugh pretty hard in spurts. I realize it's silly and dumb humor, but I've been entertained when I've seen it. Haven't had HBO for a while, so behind on most everything. Watched the first episode of Veep and it was okay for me. Not great, but not bad. Will watch again, maybe.

Both Veep and Girls got progressively better as the seasons went on.

 

[Marvin]

Sepinwall, for Tanner.

Though "The 112th Congress" has a central idea at its spine — Will takes on the Tea Party, and Charlie catches flack for it from ACN owner Leona Lansing — and a variety of subplots we follow throughout, it's so episodic in nature, and features so many ideas and problems at once, that I think the best way to address this one is to go bullet point by bullet point:* First, it's fascinating how much Good Sorkin and Bad Sorkin are simultaneously on display in Will's speech announcing the new mission for "News Night." The message about how TV news lost its moral compass because Congress let Paley, Sarnoff, et al sell advertising way back when was an interesting one, but also one that wouldn't apply to a non-broadcast outfit like ACN. (Unless Will/Sorkin is suggesting that the FCC would have managed to get sway over cable and... what? Told cable news channel owners that they couldn't sell ads around the clock? In that case, no one would bother starting such an operation. And if it would have just meant one hour per day without ads, well, the other 23 could still be spent on Bubble Boy, Natalee Holloway, etc.) The speech is simultaneously self-effacing (Will admits he screwed up along with everyone else) and self-important (by placing it on a level with the 9/11 Commission), positioning this new direction as both an underdog approach ("I'm going with the guys who are getting creamed") and as the only reasonable position of people who are awesome ("Who are we to make these decisions? We're the media elite."). It's a lot of strong rhetoric (one of Sorkin's specialties) in service of an idea I largely agree with; I'm just not sure it hangs together at all as presented here.* By doing an early episode that spans six months of time, right after the first two episodes were set within days of each other, Sorkin gets to deal with the whole election cycle in one go, rather than having an anti-Tea Party subplot in every episode for the bulk of the season. But doing so also throws out much of the tension the first two episodes established in terms of this group of relative strangers, bitter ex-lovers, etc., coming together to make this show — and also about the growing pains of the show itself. By racing all the way from May through November, we miss seeing Will and Mackenzie get used to working with each other in any real depth, miss seeing any significant bumps in the road like their Arizona immigration segment last week, miss seeing Maggie get better at her job, miss seeing Sloan adjust to the bigger stage (do we even see her appear on "News Night" before the election coverage?), miss seeing Will genuinely get to know these people (there's an implied bond between Will and the group at the karaoke bar in the final scene that wasn't there last week), etc. Sorkin has said (in response to a question about why the show-within-the-show on "Studio 60" wasn't as hyper-competitive and full of jealousy and neuroses as what we know about how "SNL" works) that he prefers writing about harmonious workplaces to ones where everyone's constantly in conflict. And if that's his comfort zone, fine. But then why bother setting up all that potential for conflict, discomfort, etc. in the first couple of episodes if most of it was going to be skipped past in short order by the third episode?* This one wasn't quite as overflowing with instances of the female characters acting incompetent, stupid, and/or insane — although Jim does have to stop Maggie's panic attack on a balcony, which is second cousin to talking someone off a ledge — as last week's outing, mercifully. That said, it feels like the time spent worrying about the dangers of the Tea Party is matched by how much we're supposed to spend being concerned about how Mac is responding to Will's string of attractive female companions, and then to his reaction to her being in a serious relationship with Gordon 2.0(*), and to whether or not Maggie and Don would ever break up long enough for Jim to make his move. And while Sorkin can be a good romantic comedy writer at times (case in point: "The American President"), too often it feels like the romantic arcs on his shows involve characters (male and female) acting like the dumbest, most immature versions of themselves, and that was unfortunately the case here. I don't care about any of these relationships at this stage, and certainly not in the way they're being depicted.(*) I recognize that many of you didn't watch "Sports Night," which is fine. But it's hilarious how close in mannerisms Jon Tenney is on this show to the Ted McGinley character in that one. When that Sorkin supercut went around after the premiere, I was amused but untroubled by it, as I suspect you could do something similar for David Milch, Shonda Rhimes, David E. Kelley or pretty much any other prolific TV creator with a distinctive voice. That said, there's a difference between liking a certain turn of phrase, or even a certain character archetype (Isaac --> Leo --> Charlie), and straight-up recycling an entire dynamic involving the exact same character archetypes (with Will as Casey and Mac as Dana). I'm not saying this is going to end up with Tenney wearing Will's shirt or something, but right now it's the same darned guy. * I admire the restraint it took to have Jane Fonda — who was once married to a cable news mogul in real life — on camera for much of an episode and not letting her speak until the 48 minute mark. I imagine when you've got an old-school movie star with two Oscars on her mantel, she's going to make an impression no matter when she talks, but by having Leona sit silently in the meeting for so long while her obnoxious son Reese grilled Charlie, the impact was even greater.

You're wasting your ink here, friendo. I watched most of the first episode and then gave it up.

 

[massraider]

2nd episode sucked, liked the 3rd a lot. The cadence of the dialogue is a bit distracting, but I like and care about the characters. Gonna keep watching.

 

[The Ref]

I wouldn't be suprised if the next episode co-stared Bill Maher.

 

[Raider Nation]

I spent the first 50-odd minutes of "I'll Try to Fix You" gawking at my TV set, both impressed and dismayed by the way that Aaron Sorkin had managed to incorporate so many of his worst tics into a single episode of television.

Then I spent the last 7 minutes getting wrapped up in the "News Night" coverage of the Gaby Giffords shooting.

Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in!

Let's take the bad first, because it so dominated the episode — and, because it was the last episode critics got to see in advance, so influenced many of the reviews. Just a mess.

We got scene after scene of Will lecturing superficial women about how superficial they are, and even though they all rightly think he's an ### — and throw drinks in his face like they're the biggest "Smash" fans in New York — and even though other characters give him a hard time about his behavior, there's still a sense throughout the episode that Will's message is the right one, even if his delivery of it is too abrasive by half. And given that the previous episodes already turned two of the show's three female characters(*) into ninnies who need to be told by the men what to do (and who gaze adoringly at said men in the men's moments of triumph), building the bulk of an episode around the lead character lecturing women only plays into the show's worst impulses.

(*) Sloan doesn't get enough to do to be turned into a ninny. On the one hand, I wish Sorkin was writing more for Olivia Munn, because I think her delivery works well with his material. On the other hand, given what kind of horrible material Emily Mortimer and Alison Pill have to carry, maybe Munn's better off just being off in the corner and tossing out a sarcastic one-liner now and again.

And those impulses continue to be on display with the various romantic shenanigans involving Will, Mackenzie and Gordon 2.0(**), or Jim, Maggie, Don and Maggie's insecure roommate, who needs constant reassurance that she's smart enough to date a guy as awesome and wonderful and perfect as Jim Harper. (And I say that as someone who likes Jim Harper, though he winds up telling Maggie what to do nearly as often as Will does the same to various women.) Just lots and lots and lots of screentime spent on the characters being immature, irrational, obnoxious or all three, and as much as I like several of these performers, I am rooting for exactly zero of these couples to make it work, darnit.

(**) He even has Gordon's old job as a federal prosecutor, and gets mocked for blowing easy convictions the same way Casey used to mock Gordon. Like I said last week, reusing certain turns of phrase is one thing; recycling whole scenes is much more problematic and weird.

Couple that with Neal's Bigfoot obsession that just would not go away — and was improbably used as a device to get the full staff in the newsroom at the time of the Giffords shooting — and with "News Night" devoting a lot of air time to debunking stories that were debunked pretty quickly in the real world at the time they were happening, and you've got a long stretch of TV time that was tough to get through.

But then Maggie got the news alert about Tucscon, and the staff began to mobilize the way they did after the oil spill in the premiere, and the instrumental bridge to "Fix You" (a song I love despite being generally agonstic about Coldplay) began playing, and I found myself swept back up in it all. Aaron Sorkin did not magically forget how to write good dramatic television. He's always had weaknesses, and both this show and "Studio 60" unfortunately have put those weaknesses on display more frequently than his first two shows or many of his movie scripts did, but the guy didn't lose his fastball. He's just chosen to throw a lot of less effective pitches because he thinks they're as good. But when a crisis is breaking, and his characters are coming together like this, and he's working with a good director like Alan Poul, it's hard not to feel everything Sorkin wants you to feel in this moment.

That said, I still took issue with some elements of the Giffords sequence.

I think Sorkin absolutely has a point about how cable news rushes to report breaking news developments before anyone has complete command of the facts. That was evident in real life with this story, where the cable channels really did follow NPR's erroneous story, and it was evident a couple of weeks ago when CNN and Fox News got the Supreme Court's healthcare verdict backwards. But, to borrow one of Mackenzie MacHale's pet phrases, "The Newsroom" didn't present the best form of the argument for why Jim, Mac and even Don didn't want to placate Reese and go along with the NPR report. As the NPR ombudsman explained in the aftermath of the mistake, NPR reporters got word of Gifford's "death" from two shaky sources who were not identified in their story, and after that it became a game of Telephone. But Jim doesn't ask Maggie anything about the nature of the report, just whether NPR is the only one who is reporting it. And when Mac explains to Reese that everyone's going off the NPR report, at no point does she, Don, Charlie, etc. take issue with the nature of the report. They come across as working on gut instinct, and/or a reluctance to, as Don puts it (in the first moment of the series where we're not supposed to hate him), let the news declare a woman dead before the doctors can. And that's no more legitimate a journalistic approach than what Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc. did on that day. The decision was right; the motives as presented less so.

The other thing that bothered me was the way the sequence eventually turned into an excuse for the characters to feel good about themselves, to turn this shooting — in which six people died (including a nine-year-old girl), Giffords suffered brain damage that has (for now) ended her political career, etc. — into something that's all about them and their problems. One of the pitfalls of using real-life stories, particularly a tragedy like this one, is that the problems of a few fictional characters don't amount to a hill of beans next to them. I was glued to the TV the day Giffords was shot. I still remember how I felt watching the coverage. When I see those images again in this context, I don't care that Jim's instincts were proven right, that Will is going to fight back against Leona, that Mac is just so, so sorry about the many ways she injured Will. That becomes irrelevant in this moment, and the show and its characters seem self-indulgent, even though I imagine they would be feeling genuine professional satisfaction at covering a story, even one this gruesome, as well as they did.

On balance, though, I thought the emotions of the sequence worked, and if they didn't erase my queasy feelings about the majority of "I'll Try to Fix You," they at least reminded me why I'm probably going to keep watching this frustrating show for as long as it's on the air. Because Sorkin is like the girl with the curl, and when he's good, he is very, very good. And when he's bad... well, you have to hope the good is coming soon.

 

[Apple Jack]

It's a mess, but it's still enjoyable. Fix You is the only Coldplay song that I can stomach, but that was way overcooked and the most important line in the song for the context of the show, "I'll learn from my mistakes" was stepped on with dialog.

Every week it becomes more The American President than Charlie Wilson's War or Social Network and I think I'm finally over that. It's a network television show running on HBO and if this season ends without me seeing Olivia Munn naked, I think I'm going to have to consider it a disappointment.

 

[Raider Nation]

That really was a great last few minutes. If only an entire episode can match that intensity.

 

[Apple Jack]

I still see Reese as Ted from SFU. Not sure I'll get past that.

 

[hammerva]

I could be wrong but did CNN and Fox News really announce that Giffords was killed in the Arizona shooting?