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So the trailer for this season features a shot of will sitting in a church Given how much Sorkin has already cribbed from West Wing, I can only assume that in the final season of this show, he is going to try and recreate Two Cathedrals. Also, within the span of 5 minutes, we had multiple characters assure us that ACN is the most moral and correct news agency out there.
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Nov 11, 2014 04:09
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:57 |
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Fetus Tree posted:Forgot this season was about the marathon. Think im going to check out of this show. I think the marathon was just this one episode. It's probably going to be more about Snowden / other stuff involving journalistic integrity and whistleblowing.
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Nov 11, 2014 16:03
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MrAristocrates posted:There’s too much going on, for one. The episode covers a plethora of topics, like Sorkin venting his hatred of the internet through Will, Will getting death threats and being forced to get a bodyguard (Terry Crews), a plot about Mac using the staff to get opposition research on Will, Sloan bombing a spot on Fukushima, and a disastrous interview with a Rick Santorum campaign advisor, all wrapped up in the framing device of Will trying to get his shrink to give him a sleeping pill to cure his insomnia. I think the idea was solid, but the way it’s presented doesn’t quite work. For one, it never really builds to anything. The plots feel too separate and most don’t get any major resolution, so the episode mostly just tapers off at the end. There’s almost nothing to write about most of them, honestly, because for the most part they’re limited in affect to individual scenes. When the cause of the insomnia is some totally unrelated bullshit (Christ Will, what’s up with your loving diet?), I almost sympathized with Will for the time that had been wasted. This episode was the one that finally answered my question about why this show seemed so off to me in the beginning: The bodyguard plot and the whole gay republican interview are carbon copies of scenes from West Wing. Waltzing Along posted:Can someone explain why I, as the viewer, was told how great Maggie was on the air? She wasn't. Yet everyone acted all impressed. I had the same problem. Max fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Nov 11, 2014 |
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Nov 11, 2014 16:09
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MrAristocrates posted:I'm not the kind of guy to buy into that kind of patriotism but it was really just a universally unifying moment that finally gave some resolution to this awful tragedy that had been just hanging in our collective memories for almost ten years. I didn't really revel in the whole thing when he died, but I was in NY during when 9/11 happened. I understand why people were so disturbed by the reveling, but remembering what everyone was like a few days after the towers went down, I also understand why there was so much rejoicing, especially in the city.
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Nov 13, 2014 20:40
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sportsgenius86 posted:I think it hit on everything that's good about the show really well. Every time they got to that line that Sorkin usually likes to leap across unbothered, they pulled up. I still have a problem with how much is being cribbed from his other shows, but tonights was well done at least. Always nice to see Mary McCormack.
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Nov 17, 2014 15:13
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Shakugan posted:
I think the other issue is that when Mac was talking with the FBI agent hypothetically, there was a misunderstanding about HOW serious and confidential the documents were.
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Nov 18, 2014 22:31
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nooneofconsequence posted:This show should have been about the EPA guy. 100% agree with this. Toby graduated from HR to EPA where he still is despondent about everything.
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Nov 24, 2014 06:14
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mr. unhsib posted:I cannot loving BELIEVE Sorkin is re-using the "tech billionaire buys cable company" plotline again. This is something that shouldn't surprise us anymore.
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Nov 24, 2014 12:50
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Two things from last night: 1) I had forgotten how much Srokin almost fetishizes academic credentials. For a scientist, that's a given, but the way people justify a lot of what their saying by going "HE HAS TWO PHD'S" throughout the history of this show is grating. 2) Hello tv show just casually mentioning that a male staff member has been sleeping with a lot of women in the office and is apparently in charge of handing out assignments. I'm glad that's just played for laughs and the woman in question is eventually told off instead of addressing the larger issue at hand (SARCASM). I don't see how that HR rep can be an antagonist, because those were some really serious workplace problems. Like, Don, instead of telling his staff member directly that she needs to improve her writing, has another staff member who has a previous sexual relationship with her hand out the assignment to someone else without thinking it's a terrible idea. Max fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Nov 24, 2014 |
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Nov 24, 2014 18:16
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Shakugan posted:I enjoy that everyone now seems to realise what an insufferable rear end Jim is. No joke, that poo poo was infuriating. Also, I predict BJ Novack buys ACN and hires Jim's girlfriend back because she knows how to be disruptive. Fetus Tree posted:Tbf when don says that her writing sucks that was pretty funny On the show it is, but him delegating the job to the guy that slept with her to obfuscate why she wasn't getting the assignment was the definition of unprofessional and the HR guy should have shitcanned them right there.
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Nov 25, 2014 14:07
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Fetus Tree posted:Yeh but since its only a tv show and not real, This is sort of a cop-out answer when the rest of the show is asking us to believe the conceit that it's showing us how a real news agency should be working by having ACN report on stuff that actually happened. Sorkin is taking the moral high ground and trying to (I think it's failing) show news media how bad they are at what they do. That doesn't allow him to just ignore or make light of serious workplace issues that exist. That scene really undercuts Don's character, especially when the opening moments of the season have everyone espousing how much journalistic integrity they have over and over again. If this were on NBC or a comedy and not inviting critique then yes, it's not real and who cares. But it's not. Edit: Don booking it to Olivia Munn's office to tell her that they aren't dating and having her barely react was funny, as was Allison Pill yelling "gently caress!" when she spelling Baking News on the lower third. Both of those moments fit well within the episode and added some nice levity. I do not understand why we had to see Don defend his staff for doing something incredibly inapropriate and following it up with telling the woman who made the HR complain that her writing is bad. It doesn't make any sense. Max fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Nov 25, 2014 |
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Nov 25, 2014 16:02
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Yeah, I remember that interview. Personally, I don't buy it, and I still think this is a show that is ultimately critical about many, many things. Sorkin isn't someone that sets out to make mindless, fun entertainment when the work is political at its core. I mean, this season started with ACN doing the news right and had a meeting where the characters explained, with charts, how every other news station failed in reporting on the Boston Marathon bombing. How is that not a critique?
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Nov 25, 2014 16:47
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blunt posted:You don't think 'real' news networks would have had those same meetings a few days into the coverage? CNN and AP both ended up issuing apologies for some parts of their coverage. I'm not saying they wouldn't have those meetings, I was responding to the Sorkin quote. He said he isn't there to teach journalists how things should be done, but I don't believe him when he then turns around and writes a scene where the fictional characters of his show lambast the real media that exists. And I think that's completely fine, but he should cop to what he's doing. And yes, you probably enjoy it for the reasons you outlined. I honestly should stop watching things I don't like.
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Nov 25, 2014 17:21
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So It Goes posted:I don't understand the HR thing at all. Don and Sloan are both in high level jobs at the company and even though he framed it as Don being Sloan's superior, it's not like one of them is an intern or something. I thought the usual policy for these things in big corporations was that you had to sign some forms with HR disclosing it and etc., not that it is automatically required one of the workers to be transferred. Why is the new HR guy instantly in you guys can't have a relationship or one of you has to be transferred mode? Like what the hell? There wasn't even evidence yet that the relationship was affecting their work or something. I can't help but feel the subplot will be resolved by Don and Sloan coming clean to the HR guy who will then proceed to "forgive" it. ACN's NY office losing one of its few anchors or a senior EP just because of an inter-office relationship seems absurd. I think Sorkin put him in there because he is an intensely political writer and wanted to address how dire the issue of climate change is to the viewing audience.
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Nov 25, 2014 23:29
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He didn't direct it, it was directed by his other buddy that helped start the Dogme '95 movement.
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Nov 26, 2014 16:42
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brylcreem posted:I know. He wrote about a girl showing her growing breasts to her priest(?) because she misinterpreted a speech he gave. Lars Van Trier is creepy, news at 11. That's actually the only creepy moment in the film though, the rest is about a bunch of teenagers essentially exercising their right own a firearm in America. Its a strange movie, but pretty interesting, and ends with a big old timey western shootout It really didn't need to be brought up in here though. Max fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Nov 26, 2014 |
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Nov 26, 2014 19:50
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Pierson posted:edit3; Maggie's new boyfriend is a conduit to tell Maggie that she really does love Jim aaaaaarrrreee yyoooooouuuu kiddddddiiinngggg meeeeeeeee It's literally just the moment when the deaf woman tells Josh Lyman why Donna is pushing so hard for him and said deaf woman. There was a moment when Jim suddenly decided to needle his girlfriend for writing about her personal experience with Plan B that I thought "gently caress old media and gently caress Sorkin if they think that is acceptable behavior." Maybe they don't think that (in which case it was just terrible writing,) but yeah, Jim is the worst.
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Dec 1, 2014 13:35
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Were we supposed to be on Jim's side during that entire episode? Because at no point did I really care about him and actually just actively hated him.
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Dec 1, 2014 18:46
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Thwomp posted:This. I hate Jim because he's so loving wishy-washy on everything. I sort of saw where he was coming until he dropped that "So does your article start with 'Dear Penthouse'" right after she told him she was writing something about her personal experience with Plan B, which will probably have some emotional baggage attached to it. That smarmy look on his face after she stormed out made me just think he was the biggest rear end in a top hat in the universe and pretty much deserved the article she wrote about him. I was more surprised that she didn't break up with him right there, because your live-in partner saying something like that is a big indicator that things just aren't working out.
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Dec 2, 2014 22:57
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Toshimo posted:In the final episode, it's revealed that Jim has been working on a screenplay that eventually becomes Sports Night. His Sports Night rip-off moments really fly under the radar when compared to the West Wing rip-offs. That's not surprising, given their respective popularity, but it's still just as bad.
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Dec 4, 2014 22:31
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CobwebMustardseed posted:I don't get this mentality. It was a character saying that, not Aaron Sorkin. And on top of that, when Will says it, we're all supposed to understand that he's wrong and appreciate how far he's come since Mac and Neal and the rest showed him the light. With other show runners and creators, you might be right. In the case of Aaron Sorkin, anything being said by the main cast is something that he believes. He essentially creates propaganda for his own beliefs with every show he does. I agree with you that I thought "what the gently caress" when Will said that in the flashback, but I would make many bets on the fact that Aaron Sorkin really thinks that's the case now and that the audience would believe, but that there are ways we can make the internet better. Probably with some sort of Neal person. Also Jim is still a piece of poo poo.
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Dec 15, 2014 13:08
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GutBomb posted:Hmm. We disagree. About Studio 60 and this. Both were great shows. Aaron Sorkin does best when he is making work that deals with abstract or large issues, and how they should be addressed. Some of the best of West Wing has characters dealing with larger political issues that he doesn't have a particular chip on his shoulder about. The problem with this show (and Studio 60) is that Sorkin has a huge chip on his shoulder about the news and the internet, and he wants you to know about it. That fat nerd making a list about the top 9 overrated films? He's pretty much the same personification of the internet that the Trek Nerd was on West Wing. Both get lectured at by one of the other characters. I try to like his work, because when Sorkin works (and isn't spouting really terrible things about women) he makes good TV. I wonder what this show would have been if he had just gone full throttle towards the Newsroom universe reporting on made up stories, instead of trying to use real life examples of how the news should be operating. It probably would have been better, who knows.
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Dec 15, 2014 15:48
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Josh Lyman posted:To be fair, making a list of the 9 most overrated films on a news website that only goes back to 1999 and call the list "of all time" is objectively trash. Oh yeah, he is right to be mad about it because it's trash. But his presentation is just . . . so obnoxious. Like, of course he wrote a character to be everything he hates about the internet just so he can have his hero character come back at the right moment to lecture him.
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Dec 15, 2014 15:54
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DJExile posted:Didn't M Night Shyamalan do this in one of his movies? I swear I remember hearing something about a movie critic's doppelganger getting either killed in the movie or proven wrong by M Night's own self-insert character. The famous example I know of was a Siskel and Ebert stand in in the first American version of Godzilla. Ebert said it was a failure of an insert because why put them in if they aren't going to be stomped on by Godzilla?
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Dec 15, 2014 16:26
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I saw a review that said this season in particular seemed so focused on the internet because Sorkin felt it was this generations fault for the show not doing as well as he thinks it should have. That is totally unsubstantiated but I do believe he would make a whole season essentially say "Well, I guess you all hate me."Boogaleeboo posted:Jeff Daniel's Emmy win will probably be brought up in a "Man, Jon Hamm got hosed there" sense alone. I feel for Jon Hamm. He came up around the same time as Cranston, so he got locked out of the win for most of that time (even though Jeff Daniel's win interrupted that win streak.) Now he has to contend with Spacey and others for the same category for all the work he's done on Mad Men. Max fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 17:32
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Those On My Left posted:Didn't every single one of those events happen after he left the show and ceased being in any way involved with it Yes. The politics of the show when he was the show runner was way far to the left, compared to where it ended up after he stepped down. See: West Wing's views on charter schools pre and post Sorkin departure.
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Dec 17, 2014 18:29
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thrawn527 posted:Season 2 is amazing, what's wrong with you? They're saying the skip TO season 2
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Dec 18, 2014 17:06
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I remember way back when this episode aired, I really thought that the final cut to Charlie being deposed should have been the first mention of their legal troubles, as that would have added some suspense to the season. Starting the season off by telling us the Genoa story was fake had done a disservice to the storyline since every single scene involving it was dramatically flat.
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Jul 20, 2015 20:58
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Most of the show is a West Wing recycle.
Max fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 15:10
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:57 |
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The Don thing gets worse when you remember that earlier this season, Don was a coward and didn't want to tell one of the reporters on staff that he doesn't like her writing, so instead he just has her supervisor (who has slept with her) to give her some bullshit excuse. Then he gets mad at her when she blows up in his office (with the HR rep present.)
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Jan 25, 2016 20:43
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