Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The Newsroom Season 1: Some Thoughts

About a year ago, I reviewed the pilot episode of The Newsroom which, much to my delight had appeared on YouTube for free.  It was the return of Aaron Sorkin to television, though this time he went with HBO instead of a network and I wasn't all that impressed by it.

A year later, I snagged the rest of the first season from iTunes and gave them a watch to see if my somewhat dubious reaction to the pilot episode would be justified by the rest of the First Season  I was left, like so many viewers of this show, with mixed feelings.  I think you either really love it, really hate it or get fascinated by the potential trainwreck unfolding in front of you.   So, in no particular order- some thoughts:

1.  This could still wind up being a trainwreck but there's also flashes of real potential here- this show could grow and become a classic or at the very least Sorkin's biggest televisual success since The West Wing

2.  I forgot how much I like Jeff Daniels.  This show is a pleasant reminder of how good of an actor he is.

3.  I'm not a huge fan of the way the female characters in this show are written.   Mac (Emily Mortimer) spends way too much time hung up on her leftover baggage from her relationship with Will (Jeff Daniels) and I'm supposed to believe that supposedly one of the best producers in broadcast journalism can't figure out how to send a damn email- not once, but twice?  Her character deserves more depth and in general, deserves better.  Ditto Maggie.  (Allison Pill)  She's portrayed as vapid and way too hung up on relationships.  (I could care less about the pseudo love triangle between Maggie, Jim and Don.)  The one exception to this is Sloan (Olivia Munn.)  She's intelligent, competent, beautiful and needs to be given far more to do on this show that she has been.  Either she needs more screen time or Maggie and Mac need better writing.

4.  I wasn't a fan of the show's gimmick of being set two years ago-  I saw all that news and I really don't need to see it again as Mr. Sorkin thinks it should have been reported but there's interesting times ahead.   If the premise of the show is 'reclaiming the 4th Estate' and 'informing the electorate' it's going to be interesting to see if Sorkin and Company take whacks at the failures and foolishness of things like Occupy with the same vigor they went after the Tea Party*.   I think that more than anything will determine the success or failure of this show-  if they're not willing to whack the Left for their failings then this will turn into little more than pornography for Progressives.   But if they are serious about the shows premise it could get interesting.

5. How this show handles Aurora and Newtown will be interesting  (see point #4 for more.)  If Will (Jeff Daniels) is really a Republican from Nebraska, he should be pro-gun.

6. It's not all porn for Progressives though.  There's an interesting episode where a gay, African-American Santorum aide (just go with it) takes will to task for reducing his identity as a human being to just one thing, namely his sexuality.  It's a rare counterargument to the very lefty notion of identity politics and a powerful one at that.  Same goes for the episode where the gang tries to land a debate for the Republican candidates and want to make it a real debate.  (They don't get the debate, naturally.)  The scene at the end where the two GOPer henchmen watch how ridiculous the debate on CNN actually is (a Johnny Cash or Elvis question is asked) is telling.**

7.  The coincidences need to stop.   Jim can't just happen to have a big sister who works for BP and Maggie's roommate can't just happen to have gone to high school with Casey Anthony.  The odds are insanely long for one of those things actually happening-  two, it's just unrealistic.

8. Neal (Dev Patel) needs more to do.  And he needs to stop talking about Bigfoot.  It's dumb-  the fact that he's an internet whiz needs more play because that's where news is going.  (The Arab Spring episode was nibbling around the edges of this, despite giving the topic and the importance of the story little more than a surface scratch and sniff.)

9.  Things get considerably less tiresome in the back half of the season with the NSA/phone hacking storyline.

10.  Sam Waterston is amazing.  He's especially good when his character is more boozy than normal.

*I think there's a certain commonality between the Tea Party and Occupy.  In the wake of the economic collapse, people were pissed and they reacted in very different ways on a grassroots level.  Both movements have their good points and their bad points and if this show can stick to their premise of 'changing the news business' and take whacks with vigor at both sides where needed, I'll be impressed. Consistency goes a long way with me- even when it comes to a fictional television show.  I don't normally agree with Glen Greenwald but I respect the guy because he slapped Bush The Younger for his expansion of the surveillance state/drone policies and he's doing the same to Obama with equal glee.  Consistency matters.

**More useful debates could have helped the Republican Party immensely in 2012 to thin out the clown car a little bit. Mittens had the money to ride it out and did so but it was too late and an (at least to me) eerie parallel to 2004 resulted.

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