The Newsroom is coming back (for more punishment?)

[ThelmaLou]

@Lamar_Mundane

Is this going to be the thread where everyone says it’s terrible and they hate it, but they watch every single episode in minute detail so they can tear it apart?

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
That’s my plan.

Watched the first episode DVR’d from last night. (It’s on at the same time as Masterpiece Mystery’s Endeavour.)

1. The trouble with these long breaks between seasons is that you forget who the people and their issues are. Whatever.

2. I still object to Mac and Maggie having names that are too much alike.

3. “Sloan Sabbath”-- WTF kind of name is that? I think I posted this last season. Does ANYONE have the surname “Sabbath” who isn’t a witch or something?

3a. Olivia Munn looks like a young Suzanne Pleshette.

4. I thought the dialogue was much more Sorkin-esque than last season, fast-paced, interruptus, and pretty funny. I laughed out loud a couple of times.

5. How about that guy Don walking out on Maggie in the middle of the night and when she wakes up, he says, “It’s okay, go back to sleep”?

6. It’s not too interesting delving into events that happened almost two years ago.

7. Sam Waterston looks really good, as does Jane Fonda.

8. I’ll keep watching and bitching.

[Lamar_Mundane]

@CarnalK

You know, I looked at the first season thread and in that one you were also the second poster and just as defensive over the show. That thread didn’t turn into a bash party so maybe relax?

↑↑↑

There you go.

[CarnalK]

But Thelma doesn’t actually hate the show. She likes it and merely likes to nitpick.

@ThelmaLou

The season finale was great EXCEPT for two things:

1. the relationship b.s.
2. Mac AND Maggie both yelling-- geez, those two are hysterical maniacs.

In other words, not saying it’s terrible and they hate it.

[ThelmaLou]

@CarnalK

But Thelma doesn’t actually hate the show. She likes it and **merely likes to nitpick.
**
In other words, not saying it’s terrible and they hate it.

You know me so well.

[CJJ]

A good premiere; it puts enough balls in the air to hold interest for the rest of the season.

“Preachy” is pretty much standard Aaron Sorkin; complaining about that is like complaining that Hitchcock made too many thrillers. Different strokes…

The “hindsight” phenomenon is more problematic, and most obvious in the OWS storyline. My guess here is that Dev Patel will get more involved in the story than he should, which would allow the protests to serve more like a backdrop. At least I hope so.

One problem I do have with the show is the trademark quirky, back-and-forth Sorkin dialogue. It makes every character sound similar, and IMO causes the characters’ other differentiating traits to be overly-exaggerated: Mac isn’t just frenetic, she’s absolutely manic. Sloan isn’t just awkward, she’s queen of the nerds. Maggie isn’t just indecisive about the two men in her life, she’s bipolar. Funny how the women on the show are the first examples that spring to mind.

[EllisDee]

@spifflog

Someone please explain the Alison Pill thing to me. In real life (and on the show) is not physcially attractive at all.

She triggered my protector instinct something fierce when she played the cancer patient on In Treatment. I’ve been a bit smitten with her ever since.

[Typo_Negative]

I love Will McAvoy and wish he were real. Mac should be fired, Maggie should put in a burlap sack and thrown in the river. We could use Jim to weight it down. Don is obvioulsy an idiot because he turned down the incredibly hot Sloane for the chick in burlap sack.

Yep, frustrating.

[astorian]

@MaxTheVool

So… what ARE the eight musicals that one pulitzers for best drama?

1. Of Thee I SIng
2. South Pacific
3. Fiorello!
4. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
5. A Chorus Line
6. Sunday in the Park With George
7. Rent
8. Next To Normal

[tim-n-va]

@spifflog

Someone please explain the Alison Pill thing to me. In real life (and on the show) is not physcially attractive at all.

And on the show she is a hot mess as they say, and yet she has two men fighting over her. In any office I worked in, men would be running in the other direction from her.

Different preferences. I find her pleasant to look at but not attractive in a I’d-walk-over-my-wife-and-mother-and-children-for-her way.

[WordMan]

Yeah - but in a competition with someone who has Olivia Munn’s hotness coupled with the Sloane character’s geeky stubborness? Please.

It was a better start - not nearly dripping with sancitomony. The Broadway research was a bit much. But the “You Better, You Bet” reference was interesting and worth thinking about - the point McAvoy is making, and the point Mac ends up risposting with. But was it just me, or was the repartee recorded in a not-all-that-great way? We had to rewind and find it again to pick it apart. I hate that.

[ThelmaLou]

@WordMan

Yeah - but in a competition with someone who has Olivia Munn’s hotness coupled with the Sloane character’s geeky stubborness? Please.

It was a better start - not nearly dripping with sancitomony. The Broadway research was a bit much. But the “You Better, You Bet” reference was interesting and worth thinking about - the point McAvoy is making, and the point Mac ends up risposting with. But was it just me, or was the repartee recorded in a not-all-that-great way? We had to rewind and find it again to pick it apart. I hate that.

I always have the captioning on.

[DMark]

I still like the show, but only wish they would do “fictional” news instead of sticking with real events - especially real events that are fairly recent and you know exactly what happens/happened.

Wouldn’t this show be far more interesting with fictional news events (like West Wing) so you could sort of be surprised at any turn of event. I mean, is anybody watching with baited breath to see if Romney beat Obama? And who gives a flyingfuck about the Tea Party now? So no matter how this story pans out, it is about as cutting edge as trying to find that group of Occupy Wall Street folks today.

Wake me up when they get to 2013.

[NAF1138]

@DMark

I still like the show, but only wish they would do “fictional” news instead of sticking with real events - especially real events that are fairly recent and you know exactly what happens/happened.

Wouldn’t this show be far more interesting with fictional news events (like West Wing) so you could sort of be surprised at any turn of event. I mean, is anybody watching with baited breath to see if Romney beat Obama? And who gives a flyingfuck about the Tea Party now? So no matter how this story pans out, it is about as cutting edge as trying to find that group of Occupy Wall Street folks today.

Wake me up when they get to 2013.

It’s not about the story, it’s about how Sorkin wishes the news had covered the story at the time as opposed to what they actually did. This is why the show sounds so smug, the whole thing is Sorkin yelling at the media that they are doing their jobs wrong which wouldn’t work if he didn’t have the perfect hindsight of how the real story played out. It’s sort of a cheap trick.

That said, I like it. It’s fun, and I wish someone like Will was on the air.

[Fair_Rarity]

I think I will watch it every week and complain about all the things that bug me.

This week? Not too much, other than I cared so little about everyone I forgot pretty much all the details since last season.

I keep watching because I think it has potential to be really good. I’m not hate-watching it or trying to troll. It never meets my expectations. I’ll give it a few more episodes to find its footing, but I don’t think I’ll make it to the end of the season.

I think last year I watched it because there’s not a lot on in the summer. If this were starting in September or October, I wouldn’t even bother.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@tim-n-va

Different preferences. I find her pleasant to look at but not attractive in a I’d-walk-over-my-wife-and-mother-and-children-for-her way.

I’m sure your wife would be quite pleased to hear that, to say nothing of your mother and children.

[shiftless]

@spifflog

Someone please explain the Alison Pill thing to me. In real life (and on the show) is not physcially attractive at all.

And on the show she is a hot mess as they say, and yet she has two men fighting over her. In any office I worked in, men would be running in the other direction from her.

Yes please. That story line is so unbelievable to me, and irrelevant too, that it takes me out of the moment. Does she do any work in the newsroom or does she just rush around from man to man pouring out her feelings?

The smuggness I can only take in small doses. My wife watched like 8 episodes back to back on Sunday. By that evening I wanted to punch out at least four of the characters and then confess to my wife about me and Olivia Munn (in my dreams.)

[Misnomer]

So, no one else is sad that they changed the theme music?

[ThelmaLou]

@Misnomer

So, no one else is sad that they changed the theme music?

Dang. I didn’t even notice.

[Tangent]

I liked the interplay between Charlie and Sloan at the beginning. Good stuff.

Like others, my biggest problem with this show is the 20/20 hindsight issue. Occupy Wall Street? Seriously!?

I don’t get the appeal of the Maggie character, either. The actress is okay–kind of a poor man’s Ellen Page–but there’s no reason for these two guys to be mooning over her. Jim should have stuck with her cuter friend last season.

I like Jane Fonda in this. Her character (and the son) make good antagonists for Charlie and Will.

I don’t care for Mac, but I am such a sucker for Emily Mortimer that it doesn’t matter.

I agree that the old theme music was better.

[pancakes3]

@Dewey_Finn

I vaguely remember seeing an interview with Aaron Sorkin last year in which he acknowledged some of the criticism of the show as being valid, but he pointed out that the show was already finished before it started to air, so he couldn’t change anything in the first season to satisfy his critics. So perhaps we’ll see some changes in the second season.

Really? I wonder what criticisms he’s referring to? To me, half of the criticisms relate one way or another to it being Aaron Sorkin-y, and the rest is the time-delay issue of the news. What else is there?