I liked it enough to give it a few episodes, If it's just going to follow news stories from a year ago it's gonna get old quick.
Television Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom on HBO
- Thread starter Zen
- Start date
Oh I hope it doesn't decline into mediocrity.
Shit, will the first episode be on again?
Nope, never.
Even HBO would be very disappointed with the Daily Show's or Colbert's numbers with a series like this. They have about 1.5-1.2 million viewers per night.
And that is a predominantly liberal crowd.
What kind of ratings does Real Time get? Because I'd imagine they'd both attract the same crowd (even though I've only ever seen snippets of Bill Maher's show).
HBO announced its been renewed for a second season
I really don't think Emily Mortimer works in this. I can only hope she grows into it.
Having watched the rest of the episode it didn't get all that much better. Emily Mortimer is utterly awful - the amount of overacting was enough to make my toes curl, and we're supposed to believe these wild swings between kooky gobshite and hard nosed executive producer - and some of the supporting cast seem a bit weak. Sorkin is usually preachy but this is much less endearing. It can feel quite samey. Jeff Daniels is fantastic, though.
It isn't cast very well. Daniels (who I mistakenly called Bridges earlier) aside. I think everyone is a bit too young. It seems to have been cast by the kind of people that cast OC type nonsense, and all that other stuff that sprung up in the wake of Dawsons Creek. Grizzled veteran war corespondent you say? Well lets hire a petite, attractive girl in her late 30s. I mean, no one wants to see John Simpson in a wig, but there's some middle ground.
Daniels is owning it but I agree the support cast could have been much stronger. I don't really like Mortimer's acting in anything and this isn't doing anything to change my mind. We also appear to now have a token black guy who gets to make little quips, the usual love triangle story, the eccentric old mentor and the eye candy reporter, its all a bit paint by numbers.
That said I actually liked the first two episodes, thats not a huge revelation being a Sorkin fan but its got potential to grow into something great over a season or two.
That said I actually liked the first two episodes, thats not a huge revelation being a Sorkin fan but its got potential to grow into something great over a season or two.
Watched the second episode. Must say the first third of the episode was un-watchable for me, very cringeworthy. Casting has indeed been horrible. I groan everytime the Ellen Page look alike comes on the screen. The news segment part was good though. Daniels is carrying this so far IMO.
4.1 Million on average.
There's potential in this show, I didn't much care for the relationship drama at the start but it seems to get better round the actual new parts.
Allergically inflamed Ellen Page is a confusingly annoying character. She's supposed to be playing flustered naive newbie 101, but then she launches into high brow Sorkin monologues at the drop of a hat, which sort of undermines the point of her character. Everyone talks like Sorkin in Sorkin stuff, but if that isn't necessarily a good thing.
Also her face is stupid.
She also portrayed the worst parody of a drunk I have seen in some time.
I didn't get that decision at all. If you're going to go balls to the wall with a super-idealistic show about "doing the news the right way", then forge ahead and hire the "old cantankerous economist in the bow tie" (or whatever she said the alternative was) and use the writing to make him interesting. If anything, your viewers will recognize what you're doing and appreciate it even more. They'll root for you even more because of the "underdog" factor.
Heck, later in the season have him get into a showdown with another network's hottie-conomist and hold his own, maybe even winning her over to their side. Went off on a tangent there, but anyhow, it was a strange decision.
Then there's the 2 mid-twenties "producers" and the fact that everyone bar the network heads and Daniels seems to have been airlifted in from the Logan's Run universe.
I though Generation Y were apparently having trouble finding their baby boomer's equivalent jobs?....Not in Sorkinland.
I though Generation Y were apparently having trouble finding their baby boomer's equivalent jobs?....Not in Sorkinland.
Sorkin comes across as a bellend
He's always been a bit self-fascinated, like a lot of writers.
I'm not convinced this is going to be one of his better pieces of work, though.
I'm not convinced this is going to be one of his better pieces of work, though.
To be fair to him though its only been 2 episodes, his TV work has always been a grower or atleast has been for me. He could quite easily win us over this series or rectify its shortfalls next series, preferably by casting a grumpy old bastard or someone who hasn't just reached puberty.
It took me a few episodes to get into SportsNight. I don't know if it was the quality of the first few episodes or that it was mostly because of the laugh track, but I'll give it a few more episodes before I really make a decision.
Meh pilot, thought the dialogue was downright poor at times and I was shocked that there wasn't some sort of comedic punchline after Mortimer's preachy speech with the added sentimental music.
This episode was alright. Loved the boardroom scenes and especially Fonda in the end. Hated the office romance stories, seriously creditworthy stuff.
He is a bellend, a known technophobe as well.
Episode 3 was much better but Emily Mortimer is still doing my fecking head in. Does she always overact this much?
Yeah the 3rd one was much better than the 2nd. Though moon face is still annoying, and it's baffling why Squinty McSmug would be obsessed with her in an office improbably packed with young attractive intelligent women
Apparently she has a beautiful mind for current affairs, which his weird squinty little eyes and squashed up face can see.
Preachiness is only charming if you agree with the sermon. Otherwise it's irritating.
Personally I find all indoctrination in entertainment offensive. It's an insult to the intelligence of the viewer, and an violation of their right to make up their own minds about the world, without some self-important hooker-abusing cokehead trying to tell them what to think.
Not that I've seen as much as 5 minutes of Sorkin's work, of course.
I agree. can't stand the sermons and have never been a fan of Sorkin for that very reason.Preachiness is only charming if you agree with the sermon. Otherwise it's irritating.
Personally I find all indoctrination in entertainment offensive. It's an insult to the intelligence of the viewer, and an violation of their right to make up their own minds about the world, without some self-important hooker-abusing cokehead trying to tell them what to think.
Not that I've seen as much as 5 minutes of Sorkin's work, of course.
The whole office romantic comedy angle is pathetic and cringe-inducing.
This starts on Sky Atlantic tonight I think... worth giving it a go?
Yes.
To be fair to Sorkin, his sermons are well crafted and quite balanced.Preachiness is only charming if you agree with the sermon. Otherwise it's irritating.
Personally I find all indoctrination in entertainment offensive. It's an insult to the intelligence of the viewer, and an violation of their right to make up their own minds about the world, without some self-important hooker-abusing cokehead trying to tell them what to think.
Not that I've seen as much as 5 minutes of Sorkin's work, of course.
Non sense. In this very show, he is preaching that US was much better in previous decades. In a recent interview he said best period for US was 40s. Yeah, a period when blacks were treated like slaves and had no rights. Women were not given equal rights as well. Let alone any talk of homosexuals.
I'd like Sorkin's work a lot better if he was able to write different voices for characters and if every character didn't act like every word they uttered was the most important thing anyone has ever said.
Yeah, I'm a bit letdown from my initial excitement from the series...It's actually pretty condescending and the way the women are written is unbearably sexist
Great ideas don't always translate to success and Sorkin hasn't managed to do anything creative with it...Shame
Great ideas don't always translate to success and Sorkin hasn't managed to do anything creative with it...Shame
I'd actually prefer it to be more preachy. The best bits are when someone's in full on preach mode, like the boardroom scenes in this, or anything with Daniels. It's the other shit that lets it down, and the endless uninteresting office romances (and considering everyone talks like Aaron Sorkin, it just ends up looking like lots of Aaron Sorkins courting other Aaron Sorkins)
Initially I thought it was going to be a full on TV version of Network, but then after Daniels' initial rant (that was in the trailer anyway) nothing really happened. He's changed into a more competent newsman, yeah, sure, but not really in a very interesting way. The first episode pretty much dropped the whole "you had a rant at a college girl" thing pretty quickly, and it was almost instantly forgotten, and then went into a 40 minute show about an oil spill being well reported.
Initially I thought it was going to be a full on TV version of Network, but then after Daniels' initial rant (that was in the trailer anyway) nothing really happened. He's changed into a more competent newsman, yeah, sure, but not really in a very interesting way. The first episode pretty much dropped the whole "you had a rant at a college girl" thing pretty quickly, and it was almost instantly forgotten, and then went into a 40 minute show about an oil spill being well reported.
Also, was there really a five month gap between the first couple of episodes and the third? One of them said at one stage that they'd been there five months. For such super-duper tv types, they didn't change all that much in five months.
Yeah, the Northwestern speech got me hooked but it may have peaked there and gone downhill ever since
I've noticed that TV shows in America tend to be a bit wierd in the first season, they tend to throw alot of shit in to see what sticks, often sticking rigidly to a format that doesn't lend itself to good storytelling to get renewed/fanbase.
I'm hoping the relationship drama is one of those threads, the main one between older justin bieber and blondie is fecking daft, she's a total wreck and her boyfriend is an asshole, but he's only interested in her because his boss told him he would be, what the feck?
Some serious inception shit happened to him in that pilot, she planted the idea that he would love her and then 10minutes later kapow, he's hooked for life.
I'm hoping the relationship drama is one of those threads, the main one between older justin bieber and blondie is fecking daft, she's a total wreck and her boyfriend is an asshole, but he's only interested in her because his boss told him he would be, what the feck?
Some serious inception shit happened to him in that pilot, she planted the idea that he would love her and then 10minutes later kapow, he's hooked for life.