87 replies to this topic

[mgoshawk]

Just to play Devil's or Sorkin Advocate, and to show that are more than one positive or balanced/mixed reviews out there, here's a collection of them. In some cases it's not clear that they watched all the four episodes released, and in some cases it is clear and their opinions of the later episodes are more positive than some of the other reviews, and even in some of the more critical ones, it can vastly differ what people see as the bright spots:
In no particular order:
Televixen
Kate O'Hare/Zap2it
Star-Telegram
Vancouver Free Press
NY Daily News
Winnipeg Free Press
Star Tribune
Jacqueline Cutler/Zap2it
Geekosystem
Mediaite
Columbus Dispatch
Post Bulletin
Times Picayune
Creative Loafing
Matt Roush/TV Guide
Dallas Morning News
Orlando Sentinel
Detroit News
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
USA Today
Boston Globe
Las Vegas Review Journal
Salt Lake Tribune
Esquire
Bloomberg
Vulture
New York Times
Broadcasting & Cable
Time
Variety
Denver Post
Baltimore Sun
Hollywood Reporter
Contra Costa Times
Chris Krewson (Variety) on Twitter
Stuart Levine (Variety) on Twitter
And others have also been posting, this was the not-so-great NYT review of the West Wing pilot.

[catrina]

Okay so I've been watching the reviews and reading all of Sorkin's interviews but I don't think I've EVER read anything that has confirmed for me what a sexist jerk Sorkin really is (I mean, I've read it in his tone talking about the internet before but this one has quotes).

In an interview for Canada's Globe and Mail Sorkin says the following things to a female reporter:

“Listen here, Internet girl,” he says, getting up. “It wouldn’t kill you to watch a film or pick up a newspaper once in a while.”

“I’m sick of girls who don’t know how to high-five,”

Also when the reporter starts off by saying "So I've watched the pilot twice..." he jumps in.

“Because you liked it so much the first time, or because you didn't understand it the first time?”

So huge is the hubris in thinking anyone smart enough to write about this show for a national newspaper might not be yet smart enough to understand it (should you fret about your own Sorkin-fathoming abilities, let me say that if you read Don Quixote in the ninth grade or studied American History in the 11th, you will be fine) that I just swallow and tell my own truth.

REPORTER: No, I think that there might be a third way, which is that if you’re going to write about something, you have to look at it more than once.

SORKIN: So, it wasn’t that you liked it so much the first time? You could have lied.

COULDN'T UNDERSTAND IT?? Those of us who have seen the pilot know what a piece of uncomplicated pallablum it is. The Wire (or Generation Kill) it is not.

Edited by catrina, Jun 24, 2012 @ 10:00 AM.

[Breaker]

Well, I was hugely skeptical for two reasons: the promos and the reviews.

The promos failed me because nothing was in rhythm or in context.

I'm going to have to wait and see whether the reviews hold true, because most reviewers saw four episodes, but the pilot was much better than what I expected from reading the reviews.

It was great fun. Aside from the news part being somewhat ridiculous imo, there were plenty of great moments. I can't believe none of the reviews I read mentioned how amazing Thomas Newman's theme/score is. It's perfect.

Unless this really falls apart I would say this is heads and shoulders above what I remember of Studio 60.

[AimingforYoko]

C+ from AV Club.

[mgoshawk]

A few more of the mixed to positive variety:
Mediaite
TV Overmind
Starpulse
Cincinnati.com
Toronto Star
Cleveland.com
Newsday
Buffalo News
And a little bit about future appearances by David Krumholtz and Terry Crews (contains future plot details) and which cast members might be doing some singing.

[hoosier]

The main theme of most interviews and reviews? Aaron Sorkin is a great big entitled mogul. He loves himself so much. This bodes well for an HBO series, methinks. It will fly.

[thuganomics85]

IGN actually liked: 9 out of 10. But I find their reviews hit or miss, so I'm not sure I'll put too much stock on it yet (although their review for Work It was beyond awesome. 0 out of 10!)

[PRgal]

Do you think a lot of critics hate this show because they are in the business and don't like watching themselves?

[catrina]

Yes! Someone finally created a 7 minute clip of all the word-for-word line repetitions Sorkin has used across all his movies and TV shows. I have been literally waiting for YEARS for someone to put this together. You know in journalism cutting-and-pasting yourself is frowned upon (See Jonah Lehrer). What about in TV?

[FirstMateCooper]

HBO has posted the entire 72 minute pilot episode, directed by Greg Mottola, online.

[hoosier]

Do you think a lot of critics hate this show because they are in the business and don't like watching themselves?

I honestly believe that Sorkin's smug attitude turns off many folks, including critics. Their disdain comes from his constant criticism and major snarkiness. He draws others into his fan camp with the same scripts. So he's a bi-polar equal-opportunity player in television. No one is in the middle regarding Sorkin; we all seem to take one side or the other. He absolutely can't be ignored.

Dan Rather reviews for Gawker. Yes, Dan Rather.

[WearyTraveler]

Thanks for that review by Dan Rather, hoosier! Very interesting read.

I particularly like this part:

One thing missing, for me anyway, in this first installment is a deep enough sense that most newsrooms—television and otherwise—have a kind of "valley of broken dreams" feel to them... an echo in the interior of people who got into news because of their idealism, now struggling with the reality of compromises they're forced to make daily if not hourly. In the real world, the undertow of this is palpable but often goes unspoken. In Newsroom, it's spoken often.

I though Charlie was the one character that showed us, rather than told us, about this jaded feeling. I agre that we need a bit more of that.

[MyAlias]

The Newsroom: Finally, a Show About Elitist American Nostalgia!

It hits a lot of the same points Sara M made in her recaplet. In answer to her question, "I don't know why they couldn't just make up news stories for this fictional program, but whatever," the reviewer opines, "this show is based far enough in the past so Sorkin can use the show as a pulpit for how he thinks real news should have been covered without having to face the risk of possibly being wrong," which seems about right to me.

Do you think a lot of critics hate this show because they are in the business and don't like watching themselves?

I agree with the reviewer that it's more like Sorkin has no idea how journalism works and doesn't care that he doesn't know:

In the pilot, McAvoy’s staff gets its scoops about the leaking oil platform not through work, but by a pure coincidence of connections by one of the staffers. Sure it happens sometimes, but throwing it out in the very first episode invalidates the entire concept behind the show and turns it into a celebration of newsroom connections by D.C. media elites. At one point, a staffer spits out scientific information about why underwater oil drilling presents such a geological hazard. When asked how he knew this information, the answer is not, "I've been studying this for the past two hours while you dipshits have been arguing about 'speaking truth to stupid' and referencing Don Quixote." Instead he says he built a volcano once for a school science fair, which is insulting to everybody involved.

Edited by MyAlias, Jun 26, 2012 @ 10:45 AM.

[WearyTraveler]

Sorkin has no idea how journalism works and doesn't care that he doesn't know

I know nothing about the backstage in a news channel, had I just read the earlier reviews, I'd have also thought this way, but Dan Rather seems to think it's realistic enough, so, I'm gonna have to go with the guy that has been behind the scenes for many years.

[catrina]

I loved the Reason article and it was written by former Twop Recapper Shack! I also think this is what bothered me about Aaron Sorkin throughout his entire career.

The Newsroom ends up illustrating one of Sorkin’s bigger flaws (besides his creepy sexist paternalism): his tendency to want to write about important issues and say important things without having to take any sort of responsibility for getting anything right, an odd attitude for somebody who wants to write about news, not to mention somebody who worships at the altar of elite intellect.

He does that all the time, get the details wrong (in a way that matters both great and small) have characters say IMPORTANT THINGS about the misstated facts and then goes and argues that he doesn't care about the subject matter at all, he's doesn't care if you pay attention to the meaning of the words coming out of his characters mouths, only that they have a nice tonal pattern. By the way, did you know there's a whole website devoted to the single largest flaw in his play The Farnsworth Invention?

[Breaker]

I wholeheartedly agree with that line: "an odd attitude... not to mention somebody who worships at the altar of elite intellect."

That worship goes hand in hand with the sanctimony. How many times has he had someone correct another person on their usage of "whom"? His characters point out others' stupidity all the time.

I can't wait till someone points out to him that Don Quixote did have a horse named Rocinante. It seems he's already heard about the barometric pressure thing, because he tried to preempt the question in one of the interviews. He can say that the 178th in infant mortality is intentional, but I don't think the meaning fits with the rest of the stats in that list.

But what bothers me is the hypocrisy. All this beaking about the truth and elite intelligence, and Mark Zuckerberg ends up marrying a girl he was seeing throughout the events of the Social Network. And suddenly the misogynistic backbone of that entire movie falls apart.

On one hand Sorkin says, "[a]ttention to truth and attention to detail were incredibly important" and on the other "I don't want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling."

Here is an interesting article:
http://www.slate.com..._newsroom_.html

One of these articles mentions an abdication of responsibility that Sorkin takes when bending truth to fiction. It's a cheap way out for Sorkin to say his Newsroom is making a "layman's argument" (in the Vulture interview) while shouting down the stupidity of our culture.

He insults reality tv, gossip, and bitchiness, but if our culture has become a strange crude facsimile of reality, then perhaps The Social Network and the Newsroom, depending on how it shakes out, are simply different manifestations of the same base impulses. I personally found Studio 60 bitchy as hell.

For the Newsroom, I would buy his layman's argument if he was trying to tell the story first, but from all indications so far, he's providing media criticism first, and telling a story second.

[WearyTraveler]

I wholeheartedly agree with that line: "an odd attitude... not to mention somebody who worships at the altar of elite intellect."

That worship goes hand in hand with the sanctimony. How many times has he had someone correct another person on their usage of "whom"? His characters point out others' stupidity all the time.

What is so wrong about worshiping intellect? Our intellect is what makes us the ruling species in our planet. Our intellect is the thing that has allowed us to move from the caves to safer, more comfortable abodes. To create language, to communicate, to discover... to evolve. Are we perfect? Hell, no! But we're pretty good, comparatively speaking.

It seems to me that all these reviewers taking offense at the admiration of intellect is a defensive mechanism for feeling "less smart".

As for the grammatical corrections, I actually enjoy it when characters do that, and Sorkin is not the only one to use it. Hell, even Friends had Ross correct Rachel's use of "you're" and "your".

Frankly, I wish at least one TV show a week had a character writing on a board the proper use of, at the very least:

-who, whom, whose, who's
-you're, your
-it's, its

Perhaps that is what we need to make proper writing mainstream (he, he!).

Maybe I'm an intellectual snob, but when I read an argument that makes such glaring grammatical mistakes (and I've seen them in plenty of the thousands of reviewers out there), I can't help but lose respect for the argument itself. If the writer/character aspires to demonstrate intelligence, and his/her arguments are so smart, how can they not be smart enough to remember something so trivial and simple as grammar?

I'm frequently called upon to review resumes for potential hires in my company, the first thing I do is disregard all the resumes with spelling and grammatical errors. If someone can't put enough dedication and attention to his/her own resume, how much dedication or attention can they put into their jobs?

So, I generally enjoy shows that try to be smart, that aspire to higher intellect, even if they fail to do so, at least they are trying, which is more than can be said about some of the crap currently on TV today, such as, The Housewives of Wherever, any of the many Kardashian reality shows, or Jersey Shore, to name a few.

[jr352]

What is so wrong about worshiping intellect? Our intellect is what makes us the ruling species in our planet. Our intellect is the thing that has allowed us to move from the caves to safer, more comfortable abodes. To create language, to communicate, to discover... to evolve. Are we perfect? Hell, no! But we're pretty good, comparatively speaking.

You're skipping over an important part of that review which was:

his tendency to want to write about important issues and say important things without having to take any sort of responsibility for getting anything right an odd attitude for somebody who wants to write about news, not to mention somebody who worships at the altar of elite intellect.

So basically if Sorkin is going to critique real people and real subject matters, he has a certain responsibility to get the facts right. He can't hide behind excuses of "romanticism" or just, "a layman’s amateur argument."

[WearyTraveler]

I wasn't trying to skip it. I just don't think worshiping intellect necessarily requires that he take responsibility for getting things wrong. Taking responsibility is a moral issue, while appreciating intelligence is an intellectual issue. One can be completely amoral, and still appreciate intelligence.

So, I don't find the attitude odd in that regard. I loved TWW because it was about smart people trying to do the right thing, it had smart dialogs and smart debates. Was it at times slanted toward the author's views? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean I have to agree to enjoy it. I understood that he took dramatic licenses in order to make his plots work, but that's true of any show that's not sci-fi or fantasy (where the authors create their own universes with their own internal logic and rules).

Read any classic literature and you'll find sexism, bigotry, racism, and a whole bunch of other "isms". That doesn't make the work any less enjoyable.

I think it's possible to appreciate the positive aspects of the work, even if there are dramatic licenses or reflections of he author's perceived negative traits. I think it's about time we start to take a hard look at the media and, in that regard, I like Sorkin's undertaking. When Jon Stewart does a better job at presenting an objective view of the news on Comedy Central than the major news network with their slanted "reporting", the news establishment is in trouble. Political and economic interests should have no influence on the news, in my modest view, off course, but I don't think that's true today.

I believe the point is not how fast Will's team gets its information, or whether it's believable that a young Assistant EP have two key contacts in the middle of a crisis, or that the event the fictional team is reporting at 8:00 PM took place past 9:00 PM in real life. The point was that news teams today, more often than not, rush to cover sensationalist tragedies to milk human suffering for ratings, that they shy away from taking risks for fear of ruffling any feathers, upsetting the interests of their parent company, or of the politicians supported by their parent company, and so on. Maybe some of the facts are wrong, but that criticism is dead-on, IMO.

ETA: Off course, this is based on the pilot episode alone, as we haven't seen anything else.

Edited by WearyTraveler, Jun 27, 2012 @ 12:30 AM.

[catrina]

I can't wait till someone points out to him that Don Quixote did have a horse named Rocinante.

Thank you! During the pilot I kept thinking "But wasn't it Sancho that rode the donkey???"

[Breaker]

Thanks jr352. I doubt anyone here would have a problem with worshiping intellect. The rise of anti-intellectualism was one of my favorite themes on The West Wing. (Though I do think that what once felt earnest now feels alternately smothered in condescension (sorority girl!) or evangelism (speak truth to stupid!).)

Anyways... I shouldn't have included the nitpicks, because they just muddy up the argument. I don't really care about Rocinante or those other little things.

I do think if you are going to make big serious claims about journalism, the culture, and the country, it's pretty disingenuous to hide behind storyteller's immunity. And that's where the self-importance underscoring the intellectualism starts to ring false. Because it's not even just about getting the right answers, it's about asking honest, rigorous, complex questions--and that was where it all seemed to fall flat.

I don't know. I really enjoyed the pilot but at the same time I felt there wasn't much substance underneath all that witty repartee.

Here's what the Guardian's Michael Wolff had to say.

Sorkin is out of date by 25 years, when real estate developer Larry Tisch took over CBS and began the gutting that has continued at all network news divisions ever since.

Let's be clear: 25 years on, there is no network news-gathering operation. There are no foreign bureaus. There are no (or paltry few) correspondents. There is no newsroom. There's a much-reduced band of very young "producers" rewriting AP copy and whatever they can find on the internet.

[MyAlias]

Dan Rather seems to think it's realistic enough, so, I'm gonna have to go with the guy that has been behind the scenes for many years.

Here's the first line from Dan Rather's review:

Any television program that has its main characters quoting Cervantes can't be all bad.

Ok, Dan. In your entire career, has anyone in any newsroom, ever, quoted Cervantes?

[catrina]

Just a quick thought, I think the "storytelling vs journalism" defense was tried once before and it failed big time. That was when This American Life used a Mike Daisey play to talk about the issues with the factories in China that made Apple products. Daisey weaved fact and fiction (a lot of fiction) together to make his point, but in the process actually muddied the water tremendously about his actual point. It left everyone feeling enormously confused and frankly less trusting of "fiction" when making specific points about an industry.

I think there's a lot of parallels between Sorkin and Mike Daisey on this actually.

[MyAlias]

Jake Tapper's review is titled The Snoozeroom, and he gave some free consulting advice to Sorkin.

[WearyTraveler]

Jake Tapper's review is titled The Snoozeroom, and he gave some free consulting advice to Sorkin.

The article contains spoilers about future episodes, just FYI, for anybody that doesn't want to know before hand.

[charmante456]

I think there are two big problems with people reviewing The Newsroom, but it has very little to do with the actual show.

The first is the tendency of anyone in a field to dislike anything about that field, because the writer is getting it all wrong. My uncle won't read books about lawyer, because he is one. My mother is the same way with teachers. I used to be there same way about journalism, and that's part of the problem with people reviewing this show, even TwoP's own intrepid recapper. They know the actual workings, so when it's shown differently than what they're used to, prickles appear on skin. I'm sure politicos felt the same about TWW. I know I used to get mad at SportsNight, because I was a sportswriter and none of what they showed happening actually would ever happen (they even got the days of the week the Sweet Sixteen takes place on wrong!!). The other part of it is that Newsroom is a blanket indictment of the current (or 2010, anyway) status of journalism. There were probably three big speeches about how much better things could be than they are. But the people who work in journalism think they are doing a good job. Reviewers working for media outlasts are commenting on someone saying those same media outlets suck. They get defensive of their roles and their friends and their bosses -- we all would.

The second is that Sorkin, being Sorkin, carries with him a collection of expectations as well as an audience. People think he's an ass -- and he's earned that, especially here at TWoP -- and that carries into their vision of what he does. He doesn't write women very well, but ASP doesn't write men well. Ryan Murphy doesn't write straight relationships well. All famous show runners have their quirks, and Sorkin is no different. He's always written women like a proud father would, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

I didn't find anything egregious in the pilot, certainly not enough to merit the level of criticism he's gotten. It's a good enough show -- better than any other summer fare I've run into. But at least he's trying something -- he's asking decent-sized questions, even if he's getting the answers wrong.

[catrina]

To be fair to most reviewers, I think they are reviewing the show based on the first 4 episodes, not just the pilot. I know Alan Sepinwall said something like "the later 3 episodes showed me that the things I saw as problems in the pilot, got worse."

Here's another defense of critics. They're critics not repoters (at least most of them that have been posted in this thread). Is a television critic ALSO a reporter? I guess, but they are sort of a different breed. They also review shows and talk about how realistic something seems even if its not their field. And I've definately seen reviewers scoff at legal and medical shows for their "realism."

But to say that Ryan Murphy doesn't write straight relationships very well doesn't to my mind equal Aaron Sorkin writing sexist plotlines, characters or lines. I when I watch an Aaron Sorkin product I very often feel like he doesn't respect my gender, flat out doesn't respect women's accomplishments. I feel personally insulted when I hear a character say "Men did this" when I know damned well women did to or women were a part of it. Especially when, in Sorkin's case, he's often using the langauge to make really sweeping grand generalisations about an industry (journalism) or America, or humankind! So yes, the critics notice this, maybe even especially the female critics. And good on them for doing so!

[WearyTraveler]

I'm a woman, and I think the whole sexism argument is sometimes taken up too fast, or over matters that are way too trivial to even care. I also think the language doesn't help either. We have the words human and mankind to depict our race and it's not uncommon to use Man to refer to all of us, as in "since the dawn of Man". Granted, one could say "since the dawn of people", to avoid using an inherently male word, but, somehow that doesn't carry the same gravitas.

I'd take CJ Craig from TWW any day over Kate Austen from Lost. I don't see the blatant sexism that apparently Sorkin is "known for", and I didn't feel it at all watching the pilot. I've met stupid men and stupid women, as well as, smart men who do stupid things, and smart women who do stupid things. I've met well-intentioned men that can behave like jerks, as well as, well-intentioned women that can behave as bitches.

Honestly, all I saw were variations of those things on the show, then again, I don't have a beef with Sorkin, and wasn't watching with the pen ready to pick apart any little thing that could be construed as sexism. It seems to me a lot of the vitriol for this show on the reviewers' part has more to do with disliking Sorkin for his past behavior on interviews than for the show itself.

[charmante456]

Is a television critic ALSO a reporter? I guess, but they are sort of a different breed. They also review shows and talk about how realistic something seems even if its not their field. And I've definately seen reviewers scoff at legal and medical shows for their "realism."

I think any critic at a mainstream publication has a reporting background. Critics very rarely get hired without having a journalism background of some sort. It doesn't mean they are objective like you'd expect from a reporter, but it should mean they have a journalism background and probably spent some times in newsrooms of one kind or the other.

As for the second point, I don't think it's a matter of realism as much as it is a matter of tone. You'd have to agree that Newsroom got more stuff right about TV journalism than "The Good Wife" gets about legal proceedings, or Grey's gets about running a hospital. I think the fact that it tries to get close and misses is part of the criticism. But the other part is that it's damning the profession, and that's where the hostility comes from. He's picking on them - not in an over-the-top hyperbolic way, but in nuance that hits close to home -- and they don't like it.

I when I watch an Aaron Sorkin product I very often feel like he doesn't respect my gender, flat out doesn't respect women's accomplishments. I feel personally insulted when I hear a character say "Men did this" when I know damned well women did to or women were a part of it.

Do you have an example of this? I've watched a lot of Sorkin, and I find that he often could be patronizing towards women, but I can't recall a situation where he's dismissive of their accomplishments. Like I said, I find his sexism to come in patronizing forms, but the blatant stuff you're referencing I don't remember. That's n0to to say some characters haven't been sexist, but lots haven't. He's put female characters in leadership positions at least twice, and I can't recall a blatantly negative female role model he's ever had as a regular character. Even his porn stars and hookers are grad students, so I don't see where the stuff you're talking about happens. So I'd be interested to see where you see it, because I might not be as perceptive of it as I should be.

[Blue32]

Read any classic literature and you'll find sexism, bigotry, racism, and a whole bunch of other "isms". That doesn't make the work any less enjoyable.

I can only speak for myself, but sexism/classism/bigotry/racism make "classic" works of literature far less enjoyable for me. I try to use the mantra "it's a product of its time, it's a product of its time," but it doesn't always work. Just to use one example, I can't enjoy The Merchant of Venice, and I can't get into The Taming of the Shrew, and those plays are written by Shakespeare for crying out loud! Nor do I suspect I'm the only one who's bothered by such things, considering how often revisionist versions of those plays are staged; clearly the anti-Semitism and the misogyny of those plays stick in the craw of other theatre and Shakespeare lovers as well. To use another example, the various "isms" in classic works of literature have spurred certain authors to approach those works from a different perspective: Jean Rhys' The Wide Sargasso Sea is a postcolonial prequel to Jane Eyre. It might not reduce everyone's enjoyment, but it seems that there are certain individuals whose enjoyment of those works is severely affected by those issues.

Of course, Sorkin doesn't have the benefit of a "His work is a product of his time" excuse. His time is 2012, for all his moaning and groaning as in the Globe and Mail interview about the last great days for the States being the 1940s (which really says to me all I need to know about Sorkin's blinkered perspective). So why does he get a free pass?

Edited by Blue32, Jul 1, 2012 @ 8:42 PM.