We need to talk about The Newsroom
And I’m going to try and do without one reference to a previous Aaron Sorkin project (and that will be difficult, I must say.)
I enjoyed the first episode. I haven’t enjoyed it much since. Sundays episode wasn’t the trainwreck we were promised, but it encapsulated all the problems:
*Setting – We know how it ends. Two-year-old news isn’t very interesting. (It’s also cheating because Sorkin gets to make the right call everytime…because he knows Gabby Giffords didn’t die.)
*Will McAvoy – The lecturing has got to stop. I can’t take it anymore, especially prefaced by his “mission to civilize.” If that means provoking every person who meets you to throw a drink at your face, you are the bad guy, you aren’t winning. You will die alone. From the gun scene in his living room (where he made his point about women and guns by pointing a gun at a woman) to his outrage over tabloid journalism to his disbelief that anyone would be interested in reality tv…all of it was a little lecture from Sorkin telling us how bad we are. That’s not how you civilize, that’s how you piss people off and lose the argument.
*The Women – I’m putting them all in one category, because they all annoy me. (Women are so wacky and silly, aren’t they?) There are three women who are interchangeable and their job seems to be reacting to the men or giving a dumb idea that the men can dismiss with casual disregard and sometimes cruelty. There’s an economist (Sloan) who has so far shown herself to be good at grammar (no word yet on her math skills.) The producer (Mackenzie) seems pretty smart but sometimes she’s ditzy and clumsy and overwhelmed. But I reserve most of my hate for the woman (Maggie) who started the show as a secretary. But then, that very night, she made a good decision and was promoted to associate producer and now six months later, she always has the right answer. Except that she’s a total wreck who can’t acknowledge the bad relationship she’s in or the crush she has on her co-worker. The spat in the producer’s room during the Bigfoot presentation was, for me, that character hitting bottom. I don’t think I can ever like her. No grown ass woman in a workplace would behave like a 6th grader, and it was especially awful because Jim had the maturity to chastise her privately even though she instigated it publicly.
*The Themes – Stop with the Don Quixote. That guy was a wackjob and there’s nothing glorious about trying to be like him. Plus it’s the height of hubris to think that only you have the smarts and wherewithal to create a different America one broadcast at a time. (And I have it on good authority that hubris never ends well for humankind.) Stop with the Coldplay swelling up over news footage. It didn’t mean anything, so it just felt like a transparent attempt to make a news team doing their job seem like firefighters marching into the 1st tower.
I don’t want to end this on a negative note, so I will mention that I thought Jane Fonda (in Episode 3) was awesome. And the 10pm producer, Don, is very realistic, like many producers I know…competitive, smart with a lot of smart-ass, sometimes a jerk, but mostly decent.
- Jen
July 17th, 2012 at 9:13 am
Yes. All of that is why I stopped watching. Way too preachy. Way too proud of itself. Way too much with the witty, quippy dialogue that’s SO unrealistic. Everyone is way too perfect (which isn’t hard to be when you’re Monday Morning quarterbacking.) And Maggie annoys me to no end. Mac is pretty annoying too. I’ll be spending my Sundays with Breaking Bad now so it’s all fine.
July 17th, 2012 at 9:49 am
Agreed on ALL counts.
Setting this show in the past allows Sorkin to make all the right calls, thereby sending the smug factor through the roof, and Smug Sorkin is Bad Sorkin. And even if they had reported Giffords was dead, what’s the big deal? It’s not like the Cuban Missile Crisis and they’re waiting for Castro to blink – it’s a fast-developing news story. Nobody is going to remember and ridicule that like we will remember and ridicule the recent CNN/Fox SCOTUS debacle.
I cannot understand how a network like HBO, after airing a daring and groundbreaking show like Girls, would condone and promote this show and its portrayal of women. So far we’ve seen the ball-busting corporate honcho Establishment type, the best-in-the-biz producer who managed to stay alive in Afghanistan but falls prey to an email gag that wouldn’t be out of place on Three’s Company, a wide-eyed, well-meaning-but-clumsy former secretary who fell into a position of responsibility and can’t hack it, except when she totally can, and a parade of straw women who represent The Problems. It’s baffling how this kind of crap gets green-lit. Also, Dev Patel’s character should’ve been fired for his idiotic and repetitive Bigfoot BS.
Finally, while I actually enjoy Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head in the right context, using “Fix You” in any context on this show is some bush league, Pander 101. As Scott Tobias said in his review on the AV Club, using this song was “the cherry on top of a shit sundae.”
July 17th, 2012 at 9:49 am
tl:dr Shut up, Smug Sorkin.
July 20th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
I agree with your assessment of the show wholeheartedly, especially with regards to Sorkin’s characterization of the women. I hate Will McAvoy’s self-righteous screeds and virtually all of the characters. However, for some reason I keep watching the show every Sunday! What’s wrong with me?
July 21st, 2012 at 12:55 am
You nailed it again Jen. I could hardly stomach last weeks episode. It’s just constant bickering, I’m so annoyed & Maggie is the worst, who acts like that? She’s ridiculous. Jane is great & looks fantastic.