The Newsroom

Yeah, Sloan's snark (on one hand, she's pretty great, on the other, what the hell kind of name is "Sloan"?) was great, but it landed with a dull thud on Mackenzie. Come on, show.

edited 14th Aug '13 6:42:46 PM by Mars444

Look, will you guys who don't like the show just go someplace else? So tedious, listening to you whine.

I like the show.

I would just like it more if Maggie and Jim died in a sudden and unexpected fire.

Going from West Wing's more nuanced portrayal of differing viewpoints and opposition characters to the more black and white jerkasses that seemingly exist for the protagonists to knock down has been a bit frustrating, though the show is still enjoyable in parts. Its just that the series often feels the scene where Bartlet took down the evangelical Laura Schlessinger expy done every week.

edited 16th Aug '13 7:48:07 AM by BorneAgain

Hmm, so the viewpoints I posted were valid after all. I shall view this show someday...with caution.

Just...............watch the show..........and.............form your own conclusions.................ominous ellipsis...

I mean, this is one series where you can't find a non-partisan recap. TwoP loves everything, and yet they pointedly have a South Park conservative covering it.

I wonder...will the Evil Counterpart to CJ Cregg join News Night? Her being fired just feels like setup for it...

"can't find a non-partisan review." Wait, so you mean the side that's being pandered to and flattered loves it, the side being caricatured and slandered hates it, and the rest of us can't give a damn? I'm shocked.

It seems to be a bit more than that. Even some of those that agree/have no issue with the political view hate the way it portrayed different viewpoints compared to something like The West Wing.

See, here's the thing: The West Wing portrayed republicans as having some good ideas because, well, there are some (emphasis on SOME) republican ideas that are, at a minimum, worth discussion. The Newsroom, on the other hand, has declared their nemesis to be the Tea Party. How do you make a pack of racist old white people look reasonable?

You don't. I mean, why would you try? If the show did, people would be climbing up their asses about that.

edited 20th Aug '13 2:29:13 PM by FastEddie

By focusing on the Tea Partiers that aren't racist old white people? I mean come on, like in any major political movement, they can't all be like that, especially when some parts of their agenda (protesting for privacy rights and calling for reduced government spending) actually seem somewhat worthy of proper discussion.

Is there some part of the Tea Party that is rational? The platform seems to be "minimum government", which could be a reasonable position. Leaves a lot of people out in the cold, but you could at least make some sort of case for it. But the TP then buries that in a bunch of religion, creationism, climate change denial, homophobia, and on and on. All brought to us by candidates who have trouble remembering all the countries in North America.

My point is that there were no TP candidates who stood off from all that mad crap, whatever their private opinions might have been.

edited 20th Aug '13 2:45:32 PM by FastEddie

Tea Party 101

A well, well, well, well documented astroturf organization calling for open revolt on the government, backed by basically fascists who want a smooth road to corporate collectivization. They don't even hide it, it's in the manifesto.

edited 20th Aug '13 8:57:55 PM by johnnyfog

In fairness it started out as an honest grass roots group of people who hated their taxes. It just got taken over by those guys in about a week for a variety of reasons.

(Ok so it was more than a week but thats beside the point.)

To get back to the show, though, the reason they are the contrast focus is because that is the story. Two years ago wasn't about reasonable-right versus left. It was about nutcase-fringe-right versus center-left.

Which of course begs the question of why the Reagan republicans didn't pull, well, a Will Mc Avoy. The explanation's really simple: the Tea Party, for it's vocal-minority-ness, was a textbook case of what Lenin described as "useful idiots." Yes, there was a massive moron quotient, but they were getting attention and generating votes at a time when the GOP was basically frozen out of the federal government. The center right could jump into bed with the tea party, leverage their resources, and stand a good shot at gaining something, or they could oppose them, fragment the party, and guarantee that they'd gain nothing. Pragmatism trumped ideology. This happens a lot in politics.

Of course, this makes Aaron Sorkin uniquely unqualified for this sort of narrative. For the guy whose magnum opus was 'My Little President: Liberalism is Magic' compromising is something that other people do. If the show had a scene with Will sitting down and questioning whether he's doing the right thing (sticking to his ideals v letting perfect be the enemy of good) I think people would've been kinder to it. As it is, Will's crusade against the Tea Party looks completely foolish, and not just because we know how it ends. Ideals are all very well, but at some point they have to link up with the reality we inhabit, and that's often a rough meeting.

I think that's ultimately the problem with the Newsroom: squandered potential. Sorkin's basically bang-on with the idea behind it: in the United States, politics have gotten shriller, dumber, and more polarized to the detriment of all. But against this background he casts a hero who's a boorish, overbearing, opinionated news anchor- in other words, "the problem." If he was going for a Things Fall Apart- style classical tragedy (hero, driven by his obsession to be "better," winds up falling farther than the lowest point of the thing he opposed) I'd be totally on board, but that's not going to happen; it would require acknowledging that for all of his "right" opinions, Will can still be as bad as- or even worse than- the thing he began his crusade against. A black comedy angle would work too: for all the references to Don Quixote, they could give Will the sucker-punch that Americans DO know exactly what they're voting for and don't care what his opinions are, meaning the enemy he's been fighting only ever existed in his childish fantasies of people being better than this.

...but that's not the show we got. Instead, we got a rehash of the Sorkin supercut with all the usual speechifying and soapboxing, as if "just deciding to" has any applicability at all IRL. The Newsroom could've been a darker, more down-to-earth, better West Wing. Instead, it's just a pale imitation.

...wow this post ran long. Sorry about that.

I might argue that The West Wing was only possible to make in the nineties, at least thematically. You know, Moviebob made a video about the hazy nineties and how it lacked substance, artistically or politically, because we were in a relative state of calm and economic stability. Bartlett's hand-wringing over being remembered as a President Harrison - you know, functional if uninteresting — was poignant because we did not know if we'd ever have another superstar like Kennedy or (if you swing that way) Reagan. It seemed like the country was 'fixed' and there was no room for improvements. Bartlett had a few extra-legal military strikes to his name, but overall he didn't do much of distinction. Even his talks at Camp David fell through near the end of the series.

Forgot how awesome Jane Fonda could be.

I kinda snickered when Neal mentioned Avatar was a movie.

edited 26th Aug '13 6:45:37 PM by Stratofarius

I think he meant Avatar, not The Last Airbender.

Because there is no such movie. At all.

I know, it's just my mind made the immediate connection.

Well, the finale was really predictable. I still enjoyed it, but it was kind of disappointing compared to the sheer awesomeness of the two preceding episodes.

Hope we get a Season 3.

I know that sometimes this show can get preachy, but you know what? I love it. And it gives me hope. In this cynical world, it's good to have a show where I can watch people doing the right thing.

So hooray for News Night.

Well, and if not, we go out on a high note :)