32 replies to this topic

[Breaker]

This is a thread about things that bother you or could use improvement.

After watching two episodes, these were the things that really irked me:

-Contrivances: everything from Jim's sources to Maggie's Brewer connection to the email gag... it's all so manufactured it doesn't feel real.

-Cliches: sorority girl, nerdy Indian, inept assistant, token black people and their Obama arguments, "take you shopping", Statue of Liberty shot, all the immigration bill guests (even if intentional, it still seemed stupid)

-Recycled Sorkinisms/Sorkinese: too many for me to list, but part of the reason the cliches feel like cliches is because of Sorkin stealing from himself




Edit: thanks to Twop Mars for renaming the thread.

Edited by Breaker, Jul 15, 2012 @ 8:16 PM.

[clack]

Sorkin has nothing distinctive to say either about journalism or politics. It's all just your generic Hollywood liberal boilerplate. The show dies on its feet while the characters lecture each other on some Important Issue.

1) Lectures in general are the death of drama, and 2) Sorkin's lectures in particular are banal in substance, if sometimes mildly amusing in style.

So, how to turn things around? Sorkin has a setting, and he has characters. Tell stories about these specific characters in this specific workplace setting -- plenty of room there for uncontrived drama. Political and cultural opinions can arise organically from the storytelling.

As it now stands, it seems as if Sorkin is starting from an urge to say his piece on some issue of the day (actually, some issue of the day as of two years ago), and constructing his drama around this editorial comment.

(And yeah, stop it with all the ditsy dames already. It's outdated, but much more importantly -- it's just not funny.)

[Breaker]

After three episodes and a six-month shift in the show, I wonder if the characters' relationships (or our perception of them) are screwed up by the acceleration of time.

I read somewhere that in the West Wing the characters were almost entirely static, since they were meant to be ideals. It worked in tandem with Sorkin's unwillingness to plan ahead or write backstory. I wonder if this first season on HBO, where having season-long arcs is something of a necessity, will basically be a way for Sorkin to learn how to write these longer narratives/relationships. If so, the second season could see big improvements.

[Breaker]

I just want to say, after four episodes, I've heard more passing references to Broadway musicals than I have in my entire life. I half expect Will to say he dreamed a dream about a castle in the clouds somewhere over the rainbow. The next episode appears to be about

Spoiler

the middle east

, and if there is a mention of a spring awakening I will throw something at my screen.

[clack]

So, is this going to be it?

Hideously written and acted relationship drama, interspersed with self-indulgent, ill-informed editorializing? Each week with Sorkin's naive take on a different political topic, with a Monday-morning emphasis on how TV news should have covered it, if only Sorkin were in charge and he had access to a time machine? This week the Tea Party, next week the Arab Spring?

Is that it? Is that the show? Good god.

[catrina]

Hideously written and acted relationship drama, interspersed with self-indulgent, ill-informed editorializing? Each week with Sorkin's naive take on a different political topic, with a Monday-morning emphasis on how TV news should have covered it, if only Sorkin were in charge and he had access to a time machine?

Except Sorkin keeps insisting to the media that is isn't his point. That he's not trying to say "this is how this story should have been done." He specifically said about the pilot where Jim had two sources deeply connected to a story tell him something within hours of it breaking something no other reporter at the time would have known that it WASN'T a message "this is how that story should have been reported."

I don't know if this is a case where he doth protest too much, I think he's never understood, (or wanted to understand) that these "little stories" of his convey meaning beyond the most literal reading of text. It's true that there's never ANYTHING symbolic or figurative in his scripts. Everything is right up there in the surface. No elevator opening onto an empty shaft for him!

[clack]

But the Giffords episode was explicitly about how the story should have been done. And I'm fine with that -- a lot of news outlets got it wrong because they wanted to get it first. It really was better to wait. So, that's all fair enough. (I think it might have made for a more dramatically powerful episode, however, if Will had made the same mistake as the other TV networks had made in pronouncing Giffords dead. That would have obviated some of the smugness of this show while still making the point).

Journalistic ethics and best practices are right in the wheelhouse of what NR should be about, imo. What I object to is the politics. That is, Sorkin has something to say about the Tea Party, for instance. What he has to say is pretty much the same thing that most liberal commentators would have to say. Nothing distinctive or interesting in and of itself. Then why does this become a NR episode? Where's the drama in showing snippets of Will slam dunking over hapless Tea Party strawmen? Were is the journalism? We just hear Will's putdowns, we never even get to hear his opponents make their case. It all seems so masturbatory.

I sometimes feel unclean watching NR. I sense the presence of Sorkin, on his couch at home saying to the TV "Well what about this, Palin? And take that, Santorum!", fantasizing about reducing his ideological opponents to silence with the brilliance of his insights, as the world looks on in moist-eyed awe.

Sorkin did say the 'Newsroom" is a fantasy, and that's indeed what it is. It is one man's wish-fulfillment daydream. Perhaps Sorkin will soon run out of major news events the meanings of which he wishes to enlighten us about, and he can concentrate on just telling us the professional and personal stories of people working in a cable newsroom -- and not, you know, "here's the correct opinion to have about illegal immigration."

Edited by clack, Jul 22, 2012 @ 2:10 PM.

[Breaker]

Sorkin bingo, episode 1.5

"I will rededicate my life to ruining yours." Sam Donovan, Sports Night

[Princess Aldrea]

Mac said that she wanted Sloan on the show because Sloan has great legs and that might trick people into listening to financial news. But doesn't Sloan sit behind a desk whenever she reports on that show? She always does when I see her. How are her legs going to have anything to do with people listening to her if they can't see them?

[yargrnhoj]

Sorkin bingo, episode 1.5

"I will rededicate my life to ruining yours." Sam Donovan, Sports Night

We need a separate topic just for reused Sorkin. "Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright"

[Last Time Lord]

While I kind of like the show is using actual news stories, I can't help but feel they're going through the two year difference between real time and show time way too fast

[Breaker]

We do need a recycled Sorkin thread, but the mod said he/she would close it down if it was a list-type thread. I'm not sure why.

In any case, I know this is a complaint thread, but one of my complaints is that the season is going to be over just as things seemed to be turning around. 10 episodes of television should be considered a mini-series. 12-13 episode seasons are short enough as it is, 10 just feels like nothing at all. Basically for 42 weeks of the year we have to sit and wait for the show to return. It's ridiculous! The intimacy and familiarity of tv is wasted on such long absences. Gah.

[andsods]

First, considering each episode thread has devolved into a lot of general criticism-comment it might be wiser if this more general category was at the top of the hierarchy. That's it for my op-ed and since I'm guilty of the above I hope I don't lose track of my comment below when the episode tonight is the new catnip.

10 episodes of television should be considered a mini-series. 12-13 episode seasons are short enough as it is, 10 just feels like nothing at all.

I'm probably not their target anyway as I watch little premium cable & even less in the Summer. But I do prefer this to the time-shrinking of the one hour network episode. Then they attempt to spread twenty-two (at not much more than 40 minutes?) recipes over thirty five weeks. I'll vote for quality of quantity & ten episodes isn't a curse or people wouldn't wait for over a decade for the parts of a film trilogy. Plenty of writers, directors and actors would beg for ten hours a year with a big budget, I doubt that not enough time is an excuse or an answer to most complaints and critics.
And yes, it may be a challenge to attract, hold and then regain the audience after a year but this isn't a not for profit and I'm no CFO. The good news is they got a lot of people in the door based on expectations and the bad new appears too many people expected something this is not. As I wrote early on, every genius does better with the sum of a lot of parts so my reflex isn't to fault Sorkin but then I'm mostly pleased.

[Breaker]

Don't get me wrong, I have long preferred the 12-13 episode shows like Breaking Bad, the Wire, Rome, etc. But I think that 12 or maybe 13 is the magic number. The last season of the Wire felt too short. Game of Thrones feels like it could use a couple more episodes to breathe. But mostly this all stems from my frustration with the Breaking Bad 8-episode fiasco, which is sort of another beast entirely.

I get that these are expensive productions, but the marginal cost of 2 or 3 episodes can't be so outrageous that it's worth compressing the story.

[Snooker83]

Apologies this is going to be a long one.
I saw the first episode of the newsroom travelling back from a holiday in San Francisco to London. I think that speech from the premiere might have resonated more with me for two reasons:
1) I had just witnessed first-hand the absolutely baffling and – for a Belgian at least – incomprehensibly biased nature of news reporting on Fox News et all.
2) I am unashamedly a news junky

That speech had me sitting up straight despite being on the sixth hour of a ten hour flight. I immediately wanted to see the other episodes. While, like most average viewers, I feel that there are plenty of problems to be ironed out for S2 (see below), I have to say that I’m glad it got renewed.

The vitriol in some reviews surprised me. This is no Mad Men, Game of thrones or even West Wing, but it’s hardly the usual dreck on our television screens.

Now you either like or dislike Sorkin’s particular brand of wish-fulfilling environments or you don’t. Personally I think it’s pretty clear from the premiere that the show’s creators are well aware that they are operating in a sort of utopic newsroom rather than a realistic one. I don’t think for one moment that it was intended to be. Just like Bartlet’s administration was not a realistic representation of a presidency, but rather an alternate, utopic escape from the real one at the time.

That isn’t to say that there isn’t anything to iron out. For one thing the show has misogynistic undertone that doesn’t sit well with me.

Mack, particularly is a victim of that trait. It’s not that she cheated, which was a nice reversal of tv tropes for once, but the fact that this experienced idealistic reporter and EP is so cut up about it that it seems to take a back seat to her striving for an informed newscast. That backstory between her and Will is an interesting backdrop, but it shouldn’t take centre stage as much as it does.

More serious is the representation of Mack as borderline incompetent at times. She’s a klutz? Fine, as one myself, I can only confirm that getting gum stuck somewhere doesn’t mean you’re bad at your job. However suggesting that a women of her obvious astuteness wouldn’t know Economics 101 is a step too far. It’s a valid point that often journalists, politicians or more worryingly banc CEO’s don’t understand the intricacies of haute finance, but the way it was introduced on the show just made the female lead look like debutante who is more obsessed with her ex-fiancè than with current events.

Maggie seems to spring from the same source as Donna on the West Wing, but she lacks the latter’s moments of insightfulness and again she seems more obsessed with the whole triangle she has going on with Jim and Don than with actually getting her job done.

I’m not advocating that the female characters should be professionally perfect robots who never make a mistake in any area of their lives. God knows that we all bumble about in affairs of the heart, but a little balance wouldn’t go amiss.

Considering Sorkin created CJ , Donna and numerous other powerful female characters on the West Wing I can only assume that this misogyny is unintentional.

Especially considering the male lead is basically presented as a saint. Yes he has his dark edges, but rather than explore those there’s seems to be real drive to immediately offer up an excuse (the abusive father cliché really?) or mediating circumstance.
Jeff Daniels is talented enough for the character to have a little more edge and still make us love him.
We know Sorkin can do this. Toby was basically far from a saint or even emotionally functioning man on the West Wing, but somehow I cared more about him than about any of the others. Richard Schiff is a wonderful actor, but Daniels is no slouch either so give Will a bit more edge.

Equally let the news crew fall flat on their faces a bit more. There’s a thin line between idealistic barn stormers and smug know it alls.

Still the premise is sound , the cast seems ok so I’m looking forward to S2.

It would be good if Dev Patel’s character was brought to the fore a bit more. Modern media is undeniably an influence in today’s news gathering, it would be good if the show reflected that and Patel is the easiest way to facilitate that.

Edited by Snooker83, Aug 7, 2012 @ 5:13 AM.

[clack]

Sorkin's wish-fulfillment fantasy of a newsroom resembles a conservative's paranoid suspicion of what goes on behind the scenes of a non-Fox newscast. That is, producers with a left-wing agenda to slant the news, and news anchors who will look into the camera and knowingly lie to the viewers, in order to coverup the newscast's mistakes.

Whose utopic or ideal newsroom would look like this?

[Snooker83]

Sorkin's wish-fulfillment fantasy of a newsroom resembles a conservative's paranoid suspicion of what goes on behind the scenes of a non-Fox newscast. That is, producers with a left-wing agenda to slant the news, and news anchors who will look into the camera and knowingly lie to the viewers, in order to coverup the newscast's mistakes.

Whose utopic or ideal newsroom would look like this?

Sorkin's obviously he's convinced that he is giving us the news as it should be in his view.

BTW Fox does non-stop slanting themselves so even if this show and its characters are flawed I'd take them over the fox hysteria and creative editing (I.E completely disregarding vital parts of statements).

And yes I realize this is ironic giving the snip happy promo ppp at HBO.

[Skinner]

Will eats two pot cookies, downs some Vicodin, stops for falafel during a 22-block run, misunderstands "look at your phone," yet is somehow able to flawlessly deliver the news? I'm the most boring person in the world and have never been high, so maybe I'm underestimating how someone can still bring his "A game" while under the influence. However, he was REALLY out of it in some scenes, and then with it in others, so it just came across as sloppy writing.

Especially considering the male lead is basically presented as a saint. Yes he has his dark edges, but rather than explore those there’s seems to be real drive to immediately offer up an excuse (the abusive father cliché really?) or mediating circumstance.
Jeff Daniels is talented enough for the character to have a little more edge and still make us love him.
We know Sorkin can do this. Toby was basically far from a saint or even emotionally functioning man on the West Wing, but somehow I cared more about him than about any of the others. Richard Schiff is a wonderful actor, but Daniels is no slouch either so give Will a bit more edge.

Absolutely. I can accept that he has a soft underbelly (I really liked his quiet, "I don't like that I scare people" confession during therapy), but it bugs me to see his flaws presented as others' misperceptions. I mean, he graduated college at 18, wrote speeches for a former president, plays guitar with a professional musician, played softball/is buddies with Joe Biden and is just really the "awesomest," nicest guy in the world? I really want to nitpick Mackenzie's wail, "I cheated on the perfect man!" but I don't think the show has given me evidence to the contrary. ;-)
OK, I'm nitpicking anyway. You can still have affection for your ex, and you can treasure the relationship and not regret it, but there's nothing like a long-term relationship to show you the lack of perfection within others and yourself.

[Shalamar]

I posted this in the 5/1 episode thread, but I kept forgetting that Will was supposed to be high. The only difference between his high self and his usual self seemed to be that he repeated himself more and didn't catch the TV remote when someone threw it at him. Even grabbing a falafel at an inappropriate time and leaving his bodyguard stranded seemed more like his usual self; i.e. a self-absorbed jackass.

Edited by Shalamar, Aug 9, 2012 @ 12:40 PM.

[dubiousegg]

Sorkin's wish-fulfillment fantasy of a newsroom resembles a conservative's paranoid suspicion of what goes on behind the scenes of a non-Fox newscast. That is, producers with a left-wing agenda to slant the news, and news anchors who will look into the camera and knowingly lie to the viewers, in order to coverup the newscast's mistakes.

Whose utopic or ideal newsroom would look like this?

And never does any actual reporting. Everything is from personal friends or other media sources, whether blogs or ripping off the NY Times.

What makes me sad is that there are people who ARE finding this ideal. If you look at the comments at HuffPo, for example (when they aren't personally insulting Mo Ryan) they are filled with people saying this IS what the news should be, and citing the Koch brothers/Citizen United thing as an example. Um, WTF? The New York Times was reporting that for weeks before it pops on the NewsNight timeline.

[charmante456]

I find it well written and entertaining, but I've realized what's keeping me from really loving it. It's been on the tip of my tongue, but i finally figured it out.

Sports Night was a tiny little show. It was flawed, but interesting, but very small, dealing with putting out a last-place, 11 pm sportscast. Nothing that happened in the world of SN was a Big Issue, so he could use the issues themselves as a catapult for the characters he was trying to create. He got so much of the issues wrong, but it didn't matter, because it was a show about the characters, with the occasional sermon tossed in, but only to sheo something about the person, not the issue itself.

When he started West Wing, it wasn't supposed to be about the President. It was supposed to be about staffers (part of the reason Rob Lowe left was he thought he'd be a bigger part of things, because of the way the series was pitched). That's why so many of the early episodes were about small subjects. Small subjects allow your characters to grow because there's no urgency to them. He could discuss Big Issues without his words having to be gospel, becasue the people we were watching weren't making the decisions -- the debates, to the point they existed -- were important, but not binding. And when he keeps it small, he does a great, great job. My favorite scene in television (except for Eric and Tami Taylor and the cows) was the President of the United States giving Charlie a carving knife. The big exception to that early was Propotional Response, but even it, while a big subject, was nuanced by Jed's personal grief, and the very human idea of the desire and realities of revenge.

It was all easier because WW existed in a fictional universe. We knew the President never survived an assasination attempt on his body man; we knew he had never been diagnosed with MS, and 9-11 never happened there. So we didn't bring any personal memories into the events of the show. We didn't carry anything tangible to West Wing, so we could just let the stories unfold, good and bad.

The Newsroom is anchored in our world, and it's only about Big Issues, Big Issues than happened a year ago and how we should have done them better. I don't say that as a criticism, because once he decided to do a show about a major cable news program, all of this was inevitable. But not only do we bring baggage as viewers, we know how it turns out. There's no drama in watching Will battle the Tea Party, because we know they won. We know that the news about bin Laden or Gabby Giffords or BP Horizon was slow, so there's no drama in seeing whether anyone made the right decision. And because they are juxtaposed against these real-world events, the interpersonal stuff feels stupid -- no one but the shallowest of us would be dealing with romance while bigger issues are immediately unfolding. On a very slow news day, that might be fun and compelling. We haven't had a slow news day yet. You know what would have been a good show -- watching Maggie work and earn a real scoop, and seeing her get real recognition for that. Seeing Mac struggle with firing someone, or see Jim struggle to find someone to come on the air after Will has been berating everyone. Will giving a profile interview or Neal fighting spam all day. Anything but doing one of those crucial news moments right, dammit!!

To me it all goes back to WW, when Sorkin decided it was more fun to write about the President than to develop the people around him, more fun to preach about issues than write about people.

I still like the show -- I'll still keep watching and feel that a lot of the criticism goes much too far -- but I would have liked it to better.

[Breaker]

I agree wholeheartedly charmante456. Too often can I see Sorkin behind his puppets on the Newsroom. I rarely, if ever, felt that way about Sports Night and The West Wing. I think it's also going to be an issue in the second season, because Sorkin sounds pretty unrepentant about how this first season turned out. I can only hope that he gets everything he has to Say off his chest this year, and that next year is more dramatic.

I keep thinking that the conception of the show is flawed, but if he could entertain me with a show about sports reporting, he can do it here. The only troubling factor is that he has 38 more minutes to write each episode here.

[Breaker]

Well, now that season one is over, I am going to rank my grievances:

1. Terrible romantic plotlines. Terribly plotted, written, acted, everything.
2. Incompetence, bumbling, and hysteria, mainly by Mackenzie and Maggie.
3. Strawman takedowns with no nuance whatsoever, and hardly any internal conflict (in the actual newsroom).
4. Cringeworthy/wtf moments and lines. "We are the media elite." "Be the integrity." "We killed Osama Bin Laden for you."
5. Journalism is essentially reduced to knowing somebody, or somebody who knows somebody.
6. Can only remember one attack on Democrats vs the balance against Republicans/Tea Party (and I lean way left)
7. Excessive references to musicals. It's cute once every few episodes, not a few times each episode.

[Inquisitionist]

1. Terrible romantic plotlines. Terribly plotted, written, acted, everything.

OTOH, the show is an excellent object lesson in why you should never get involved with someone from your workplace. Geez, people, get out and meet folks who do something completely different from you!

[fuzzybear]

Can someone please tell me why a story on Internet Trolls in 2011 is hard hitting news? I'm only 1/2 through the Blackout part 2 so maybe it goes someplace, but when the idea was pitched my response was " really? Why? What about them?" I mean seriously! It would hardly be a new idea in 2011(2011 people! As in 1 year ago! Not 1911!) and even if it was, so what? I mean really, so what? What are you going to report - People are jerks on the Internet? How is this more news worthy than Casey Anthony? At least you could have used Casey Anthoney to demonstrate some things about the judicial system. You could have done an entire report asking why charges were filed before the DAs office had a good case. Or something. Internt trolls? That's at best a morning news puff piece. Somebody please explain this.

[yargrnhoj]

Can someone please tell me why a story on Internet Trolls in 2011 is hard hitting news?

Other than Sorkin being so out of touch with the Internet that he thinks this is news? And of course, we once again have clueless MacKensie, world traveler and super executive producer who has never heard of trolling.

[fuzzybear]

Even if Sorkin is that out of touch with the internet it's like doing a story on hyperbole in letters to the editor. Yeah, people that write letters to the editor are often partisan jerks and the more inflammatory the letter the more likely people will talk about it. Next at 11, lots of people have uniformed opinions!

Edited by fuzzybear, Aug 30, 2012 @ 8:40 PM.

[KickinChicken]

I'd love to see Mackenzie and Maggie off the show, in fact even though there is a lot more that I think needs to change than simply removing two characters I think both of those have just gotten to the point where they are irredeemable. At first I thought it wouldn't be possible because they're both main characters (especially Mac) but I think it could actually be done in a tasteful way.

Maggie could easily be taken off the show - she gets a good job offer or something somewhere else and she uses it as an opportunity to leave because she's so heartbroken about Jim being with Lisa and about Don "cheating" on her. Boom. She's gone.

Getting rid of Mac is tougher since she's such a central character but it can be done in a way that makes sense. She gets a huge opportunity somewhere else but doesn't want to take it, at which point Will exercises the option he got in his new contract to fire her (for her own good) so she leaves the show and doesn't squander the huge opportunity. She can still be an occasional character.

The Newsroom needs a lot of help but they first need to eliminate some of the characters that people cringe when they watch. And I do think its a combination of them being awful characters as well as bad actresses who can't carry the roles either. Honestly, as bad as the characters are, I'm pretty confident with better actresses we wouldn't cringe watching them two as much. I read Mac's role was originally intended for Marissa Tomei, not Emily Mortimer. I think Tomei would have done a much much better job. I remember Alison Pill from In Treatment and thought she did a great job there. Granted that was a much better written show, but nonetheless Pill just can't carry this role of Maggie.

Edited by KickinChicken, Sep 2, 2012 @ 10:14 AM.

[yargrnhoj]

Maggie could easily be taken off the show - she gets a good job offer or something somewhere else and she uses it as an opportunity to leave because she's so heartbroken about Jim being with Lisa and about Don "cheating" on her. Boom. She's gone.

Does Sorkin even need to invent a reason? She can just head off to Mandyville and no one will ever remember she was even there.

[portfino]

One of the downsides of the Internet is that it creates an echo chamber effect where people can choose facts and be insulated from alternative opinions/facts that contradict what they want to believe. The show acknowledges this when Will talks about wanting "people to know what they're mad about."

The reason that Sorkin can't do what he did in The West Wing and Sports Night is that both of those shows depended on harmonious work environments. Here, the "let's work together, guys" ethos is working at cross purposes from Sorkin's larger argument. The fact that everyone's enthralled with their own opinions is part of the problem.

It's as if he's (correctly) diagnosed that the problem is ideological confirmation bias, and then (preposterously) decided that the solution was the one man echo chamber of his own views.