New Sorkin Trailer

One other thing that bugged me last night, the Tea Party people he interviewed were from Manhattan, Kansas, but had never heard of the Koch Brothers. Everybody in Kansas has heard of the Koch Brothers.

 

I've intensely enjoyed all three episodes.

 

No, don't you understand? America is filled with uneducated, illinformed people tricked by our political leaders. They need a a great, white, "reasonable" Sorkin hero--preferably well educated and wielding a law degree--to save them. Just like all the scatterbrained women on Sorkin shows.

 

I haven't watched Ep 3 yet, but I really liked the first two.

One funny thing -- everyone's knocking it for a lack of realism, and I absolutely get that, but in terms of the mechanics of TV news it's far more accurate than anything else I've seen in TV or film. TV news is usually portrayed in a way that's light years from reality. There was a Michelle Pfeiffer movie where she played a reporter and she was doing an interview inside a prison when a riot broke out. She yells "Let's go live," and suddenly she's live on the air, like her photog is a freakin' genie. Sorkin actually made an effort to get the basic TV stuff right -- they even use the same computer system, iNews, that we use in our newsroom. The bit about the governor of Arizona backing out of the interview at the last minute was hilarious for me and anyone else who has actually had to deal with the governor of Arizona and her staff. For a while we could only get an interview with her if we sent the male reporter she had an obvious crush on.

Obviously Sorkin is taking huge liberties with the newsgathering process here and there, but it's still nice tro see a TV newsroom that's recognizable as a TV newsroom.

The parallels to "Studio 60" are really strong, and not necessarily in a good way. My chief complaint about "Studio 60" was that the new producers were supposed to be geniuses, but the show-within-a-show was horrid and sophomoric. On "Newsroom" the news producer is supposed to be a genius and will focus on the real news... and to do that she downplays the massive oil spill about to swallow the gulf so they can focus on an immigration bill in Arizona. It's a dumb, journalistically indefensible position.

 

It would have been fine by me if Sorkin had put them in Montana or wherever, but it was like having somebody from Virginia who has never heard of Falwell or a Delawarian being unfamiliar with the Duponts.

If the second largest private corporation in the country in headquartered in your small state, you've probably heard of it.

 

Are the 2nd & 3rd episodes available on line or just the pilot?

 

PC, The Pfeiffer movie is the utterly forgettable Up Close & Personal.

I highly recommend reading John Gregory Dunne's Monster. John and Joan wrote the script for the movie and the book is the story of how it went from screenplay to movie. It started as the story of Jessica Savitch and ended up being what it was after like 20 drafts. Really interesting look at the movie business from a side you don't often see - the screenwriter's.

 

They're available online ... probably not on HBO's site, though.

 

I'll track that down - sounds good. Thanks!

 

It is on HBO's site, but only for subscribers.

 

Well, they're available online elsewhere.

 

Thomas Sadoski does a great job because I loathe the Don Keefer character on this show. Good thing it seems he only appears in seven episodes.