I had exactly the same reaction. An apple-cheeked college student burbles, “Why do you think America is just the greatest country in the world?” to a news anchor during a public appearance on campus, just to give him the chance to grumpily point out why she’s wrong. The show stumbled right out of the gate.
In West Wing, the characters constantly talked about big issues, and cared immensely about them. It made sense because they were politicians in the highest level of government. In Studio 60, the characters constantly talked about big issues and cared immensely about them. It made no sense to me. Their job was to make a tv show that made people laugh. I loved West Wing, and tried to stick with Studio 60, but just couldn’t get past how every episode treated producing a comedy show as though it was as important as President Bartlett sending in the marines.
I forgot about the Newsroom. Just unwatchable, even as a liberal.
But the next thing he worked on was Steve Jobs. I thought the way he structured the movie into three acts that commented on one another was about the best treatment of a biography I’d ever seen. (Some of the actual dialog, though…)
I wanted to like Studio 60 but didn’t. Sorkin can compellingly write about politics in his sleep, but if you’re going to write about the making of a comedy show, there has to be some funny stuff in there. And there just wasn’t.
Yeah, I forgot to mention this rewatch I’m listening to the podcast too. Watch a tv episode, download a podcast episode. I like the behind the scenes info, the pranks, the process.
Interesting thread. Thanks!
I learned about Sorkin via Studio 60 and loved it. Sure, the back half of the season wasn’t as good but still good. I watched five episodes of 30 Rock before losing interest. I did find Studio 60 better and have rewatched it several times. The New Orleans christmas music is great.
Then I watched four seasons of West Wing and enjoyed that. Actually, I’m surprised I got that far only because I didn’t pay attention to politics that much then. I enjoyed it. It seems like it is from a different age compared to what I see of politics/politicians today.
The wife and I started Newsroom due to the opening scene, I think we saw it via YouTube as Studio 60 is the only series of his we saw live. After half the season, we trailed off, again pre politics. I recently watched through season two and enjoyed it.
As good as Sorkin is, when I watched those three shows, there were direct lines and plots from all of them reused or rehashed. Nothing wrong with that, not everyone watched all three, but it was strange to hear different characters in different shows say the same lines. I don’t know why he did it and a few times it was a stretch as if he really liked that line and wanted a different audience to hear it.
Thanks!
There’s a video on YouTube that mashes up exactly what you describe — line retreads from different Sorkin projects.
Yep, that phenomenon is well-known among Sorkin fans; it’s what I meant by “Sorkin’s favorite themes” in my earlier post. By the time I’d watched The American President, A Few Good Men, Sports Night, The West Wing, and Studio 60, too much of The Newsroom was too familiar.
It’s both amusing and sad. 
Funny, your saying “I thought the 6th Season was especially great because C.J. was promoted from Press Secretary to Chief of Staff,” because I just watched the whole series on DVD and thought that was the precise “jumping-the-shark” moment for the series. It seemed to me that it was done that way as some sort of feminist statement (women are capable of doing important work) rather than following the show’s logic, which would dictate that when the Chief of Staff has a heart attack, his replacement is the Deputy Chief of Staff, not the Press secretary. In other words, Josh Lyman should have stepped into Leo’s role immediately, no questions asked, but instead he’s passed over for C.J., which throws the press room into utter disarray, but is a problem mainly because it’s a slap in Josh’s face, which never gets mentioned, obvious as the problem is.
The new writers after Sorkin seem clueless where Leo is concerned. They further jump the shark in having Leo nominated as Santos’ running mate–he has zero elective experience, has a serious drug problem in his recent past, is a recent heart attack victim (which got exacerbated by the actor, John Spencer, dying of a heart attack a few months after Leo’s nomination) and is completely unqualified to serve as VP, but like C.J. as Chief of Staff, he is made out to be not only acceptable but an obvious no-brainer choice.
I don’t know if either of these choices is the writers’ arrogance or their stupidity, but they took me right out of the West Wing for the first time saying “Nah, that would never happen.” If C.J. had been made Chief of Staff or Leo a VP choice, it would have been, at the very least, extremely controversial, and some of the objections I raised to either choice would have been discussed at length IRL. Instead, crickets, and on with the show.
It was said at least once that Josh’s role was to go find the next guy and get him elected. But it probably should have been his to turn down, and CJ didn’t make a lot of sense as COS.
I think you’ve misconstrued the time line. Leo’s heart attack (obviously unexpected) precedes the presidential race. Even if he was intending to resign, he’s still Leo’s deputy and would have taken over Leo’s job at least temporarily.
I could believe CJ getting Leo’s job much more than Leo, with all his baggage, becoming the VP nominee (he’s too frail to be White House chief of staff, but not too frail to be Santos’s running mate? WTF?). Josh was already looking ahead to the next presidential campaign, as DoctorJ wrote, and also bungled a couple of short-term projects after Leo had his heart attack IIRC, so I wasn’t too surprised that Bartlet would look elsewhere for his next COS. CJ was both a strong contender - she had the President’s confidence, knew policy and understood how Capitol Hill works - and (not implausibly) did very well once she was in the job, after some early wobbling.
Some funny WW T-shirts here for hardcore fans: https://lemonlyman.shop/product-category/episodes/
I just started watching The Newsroom recently, never having seen it before. I like it, but I’ve kind of stopped part way through the first season, because it’s too painful. They’re pointing out all the problems with the Tea Party era Republican party, which of course just got worse and worse over time. We’re now living in the actual world the Newsroom characters were hoping to prevent, and it just hurts too much.
Bumped.
Sam Seaborn would never have done this! 