I’m still on the fence about this show (I’ve never given up on a Sorkin show before; if this doesn’t get better fast it will be the first), but I love the theme music.
Haha really? My wife and I mercilessly pan the theme music every time it comes on. It’s the weakest part of a pretty weak (but still enjoyable) show, in our opinion. 
It’s just a mishmash of notes that happen to be in the same key!
Your mileage varies of course, just registering an opposing impression…
A funny observation I read elsewhere (don’t remember where):
“Fix You” by Coldplay is four minutes 55 seconds long.
It played for six minutes 45 seconds at the end of this episode.
I’d put him down in the Forer effect camp. Show a newsman getting accolades for his principled stand against the partisan spin that has been the norm in the media for the past decade and newsmen will see themselves in that character. It’s the same reason we read our horoscopes and the description of the traits of a Scorpio and think “yea, that’s me!”
Who the hell answers a co-worker’s call when you’re getting busy with a hot babe for the first time?
And more musical theatre references? Ado Annie, Annie Oakley, Man of La Mancha(well, maybe technically this was a literary reference since they were talking Don Quixote). Still, come on, who talks like this? Certainly not career journalists. Career theatre people sort of do. Around my house it’s hardly possible to exclaim “Jesus Christ” without some smartass adding a sing-song “Superstar!” afterward. But we’re weird and we’re ok with that. It’s a natural consequence of my more than two decades in the theatre and having raised a family of kids in the theatre(Cathy Rigby in Peter Pan tonight 
Ticket burning a hole in my pocket).
Enjoy,
Steven
I guess this is something he does to amuse himself. The references haven’t added anything to the story and they don’t fit the characters, particularly the younger ones.
Count me in on the general POV: frustrating in so many ways already discussed - and the Bigfoot thing was just embarrassing (I kept hoping that the character would be given a pivot to show how BF was a metaphor for some relevant point about journalism today, but no, it was just…stoopid).
But…I find myself watching it and, for now, will likely continue to do so - lousy so far for Sorkin, but not bad overall…
Ha!
Am I the only one who wants to put Maggie in a burlap sack and toss her in the river? She doesn’t seem smart, or funny, or competent, or even pretty. What the hell is she doing there?
It was nice to see Hope Davis, and she looked smokin’ hot and seemed like an interesting character. You know, a strong woman who is actually strong and could butt heads with Will. Olivia Munn is absolutely lovely and I thought Will and her character will be hooking up at some point, but probably only to spin out Mackenzie and create a really stupid and frustrating triangle.
No. No, you are not. To that list of her flaws you can add the fact that she is weak willed and about as manipulative as Don. Maybe they do belong together after all.
I didn’t think it was preachy ENOUGH. Too much relationship stuff. The producer and the redhead/airhead who are close friends (he slept with her friend and didn’t tell her) reminded me A LOT of Holly Hunter and the curly-headed guy in *Broadcast News. * I want to see more nuts & bolts of the news business and less intraoffice romance.
I will keep watching. Also a big Sorkin fan.
Good interview with him on Fresh Air this week. I love that he says he invents witty dialogue but can’t do it himself. He said most of his characters would have nothing to do with him. He sings a tiny bit, too… nice voice.
Those things are not mutually exclusive. I’d prefer much less preaching and much less relationship nonsense. And it might happen: it’s being reported that almost all of the writers have been let go and there will be a new staff (except for Sorkin and one other writer) for season two.
For whatever reason, I loved this episode. Maybe it’s just that I expect or ignore the stupid stuff now, but there seemed to be less of that in this episode than in any of the others so far. I just really, really liked it. Even the heavy-ass-handed Rudy thing at the end seemed apropos coming from Mac.
I am now officially addicted.
I liked this one better, but a lot of the same problems remain: Mac is a self-centered idiot. More lame attempts at comedy (the guy hitting his head on the glass door, twice). Maggie is still a shrill bitch.
The “Rudy” stuff was manipulative, but I liked it anyway. And the “protection money” angle with the gossip news was interesting. I liked the scene where Charlie got in the earpiece of the douchebag and forced him to shut up and cut to commercial.
When Mackenzie asks Sloan to teach her about economics because she has basically been faking an understanding, it was exactly like C.J Craig asking Sam Seaborne to teach her about the census.
With one obvious exception. Sloan tried to teach her something and Mackenzie asks a question about a completely unrelated topic, as though she is not listening at all. She did this several times. I would not have thought less of Sloan if she jumped across the table and stabbed her.
I know it’s been stated several times the Will makes a lot of money, but would he really have 250 million of his own to give away.
Also, am I the only one who thought it was odd that everyone on the floor just happened to have their checkbook on them? I write one or two checks a month, I haven’t carried a checkbook in ten years.
It was a quarter of a million, not 250 million.
I’ve been enjoying the show. And, all of the relationship interactions. I haven’t found it perfect, but even at it’s worst it has been better than that Sunset Strip show.
:smack: That makes much more sense. I thought it might have been that, but I didn’t want to go back and double check.
Also, I thought they were laying on the Jim and Pam thing a little (well, a lot) thick. I thought that even more when I found out Jim’s last name was Harper. Jim Harper. They might as well have called her Pam instead of Maggie.
Is anyone still watching/liking this show? I loved West Wing, Sports Night, and A Few Good Men SOOOOO much that I want to love this series, too. So far, I don’t, but I’m still hanging in there. Sometimes it takes a while for a series to settle down.
The cast shouts so much and all at the same time… they did that some on WW, too, but for some reason, it was more tolerable. It’s like Sorkin is trying to out-Sorkin himself.
The Big Guy Anchor is totally full of himself, like a Frasier with no humor, but at least he doesn’t shout.
When they hired the stringer “Amen,” I guess everyone else
knew he was going to disappear immediately, right?
And when that one guy (I don’t know their names yet) kept accusing the reporter on the scene of having no balls
we all knew the reporter was going to run out into the street and get shot, right?
The ending was cool, however, with the reference to
Rudy’s shirt and the team.
I’m still watching the show and, frankly, still enjoying it. It’s the closest thing I’m going to get to the West Wing. Sure it has it’s moments of utter cheese, but that’s accented by moments of Sorkin at his best. I think the American viewing culture has become too impatient. This show has potential to be as great as the West Wing if given time to grow comfortable with itself. If a series hits certain notes for me in the beginning I’m willing to invest two seasons to see if it lives up to it’s potential. Goodness knows I had to suffer through the growing pains of ST:TNG and The X-Files before those rather excellent and iconic shows lived up to their potential.
Will McAvoy is an engaging and interesting character. I’m glad he’s wriiten as a three dimensional character, who is both a self-centered ass and idealist. I do hope that this so-called Republican shows a little more of his conservative side, because he’s screaming liberal at me at the moment.
I agree that Mackenzie is a bit of a shrill, self-centered idiot. She needs more fleshing out, because I can’t empathize with her at all.
Sam Waterston is by far my favorite, but we don’t see enough of him.
I hope the ratings justify it being given a chance to blossom.
They did give Neil something useful to do in this episode and got put a little more energy into the journalism side, so I appreciated that. But I still find most of the love life drama bizarre and charmless. Maggie seems to become more of a manipulative psycho every episode. And I thought this exchange (paraphrased) pretty well summarized the atttitude The Newsroom takes toward female journalists:
Sloan: “[After Glass-Steagall] We had six decades of economic growth, unprecedented expansion of the middle class, we went to the moon and put a computer in everyone’s lap. Oh, and we won two world wars. So what did we do then?”
Mac: “Cheated on the perfect guy with the guy who dumped us?” (Cries)
We’re still watching this for the cheesy entertainment value but I realized a week or two ago that I’ve already stopped taking this show seriously.