The Newsroom - New Drama from Sorkin

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A new HBO production written by Aaron Sorkin, of West Wing fame (but you didn't need to be told that!) has just started in the US and is coming to Sky Atlantic in July.

The ten part series will take an inside look at cable news programme News Night and the men and women behind it.

With an all star cast and potentially dynamite script, this is going to be one to look out for.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1870479/

Imdb Reviewer said:
In the tradition of his earlier 'behind-the-scenes of TV' shows, Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom takes a hard (and witty) look at the behind the scenes of cable news. And like all his other shows, The Newsroom deals as much with themes of honour, ethics, loyalty, idealism and love, as it does with the news. It's also written in Sorkinese – Aaron Sorkin's fast-paced, back-and-forth, sing-song dialogue that'll leave you heady on a good day but with a headache on a bad one.
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Sky Atlantic Trailer Here
 
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I saw the trailer for this the other day and it did grab my attention. I'll give the first few episodes a gander when it starts and see how it is. It could still go either way.
 
Enjoyed the first episode but a lot of the reviews have been negative.

I thought it did a good job of building up the tension in what most people probably wouldn't consider a particularly exciting environment. None of the characters really grabbed me though.
 
As Morfik says I really liked it and don't understand all the negative reviews. They all seem very personal about Sorkin, I've never watched The West Wing so that might be why.
 
Azza said:
As Morfik says I really liked it and don't understand all the negative reviews. They all seem very personal about Sorkin, I've never watched The West Wing so that might be why.
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The West Wing is my favourite television show, or certainly one of them of all time. Sorkin wrote the first four seasons himself and imho, it's the best television writing I've seen / the best television ever made for the first four seasons.

I think, people might be asking too much if they expect a repeat of that standard. Sorkin is a brilliant writer, not even up for question, but you only write something as good as the West Wing once in your career.

I'm looking forward to this though :)
 
Spectacular pilot. TV script of the year, easily. It will be completely lost on the typical 40 minute of crime investigation spelled out + 20 minute commercial breaks in an hour type of viewer, but if it continues at the level set by pilot this series will be legendary. The pilot felt like Sports Night was back after twelve years, but with punchier lead.

Sorkin still can't pick his female leads for toffee though...
 
v0n said:
Spectacular pilot. TV script of the year, easily. It will be completely lost on the typical 40 minute of crime investigation spelled out + 20 minute commercial breaks in an hour type of viewer, but if it continues at the level set by pilot this series will be legendary. The pilot felt like Sports Night was back after twelve years, but with punchier lead.

Sorkin still can't pick his female leads for toffee though...
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Main reason critics are being negative is it mostly rehashed all his greatest hits. Main guy rails on how America isn't great anymore, Studio 60, the playful banter of the assistent and the EP in the first scene in the studio was right out of sports night but it felt wrong. It felt like something the two who were dating in Sports night would say, in a casual enviroment in a comedy after we've got to know the characters, it didn't feel right at the start of a show first time we see them.

Likewise you can pretty much pick every character out of previous shows, when I saw the first trailer for it I was picking out characters from Sports night as I watched it.

It's good but very little of it is new as yet. Female leads though, CJ was fantastic, both in Sports night were excellent, Mortimer is a truly excellent actress and Studio 60, again both female leads(bible basher and the assistant) were brilliant.

It was an excellent episode all told though I think it needed a two hour ep and a bit more character building, and maybe a bit more reaction to his blow up at the beginning and a bit more reaction at the end. That might all be in ep 2, but I think for a more serious and big budget show, establishing said characters is really important and a longer ep isn't a bad idea.

The problem with Sorkin is West Wing, Studio 60, and now this are all a bit preachy, not in a awful way, his message being "america isn't great, but it should be, lets do it right", but American audiences absolutely don't want to hear that and american critics absolutely don't want to publically support a show that says that either.

Lastly, the whole show, if you've seen other Sorkin shows, was painfully predictable :( It could be great but, I won't be remotely surprised to see the progression of relationships and characters basically mirror the other shows he's written but more importantly I think the show will go Studio 60 way, be excellent, get a season and find itself cancelled because its too smart for american audiences(and English, rest of the world), its a show that will appeal to the smart people, but won't get the ratings to support a very expensive show/cast. Studio 60 and Sports night were excellent, both could/should have gone as long as West Wing.
 
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They should have just brought back West Wing starting with Jimmy Smits winning a second term. Could have written it in 2012 based on real life from 2010 - like he did with this pilot. Being preachy works when you are writing about the President of the United States. It doesnt work when it is a comedy studio and only just about works when it is a Newroom.
 
Interesting ... one of my favourite ever US shows was a Sorkin pre-West Wing series called Sports Night ... which was set behind the scenes in a cable sports news show ... I don't think it was ever released over here (I imported the US DVDs) and it only lasted two seasons before he left to do West Wing but it was a very good comedy/drama series.

Sounds like this could be very much along the same lines just without the sports.
 
drunkenmaster said:
It was an excellent episode all told though I think it needed a two hour ep and a bit more character building
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Yeah. 90 minutes - 2 hours would be perfect. They've done quite well job on it anyway though - it got two hour "syndicated timing" episode - ~75-80 minutes and it was made available for free on youtube, HBO.com and itunes to promote the show.

Female leads though, CJ was fantastic, both in Sports night were excellent, Mortimer is a truly excellent actress and Studio 60, again both female leads(bible basher and the assistant) were brilliant.
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It's not the lack of talent, but the characters given to particular actors. He's got this thing for the "looking too old for her age" dry, agressive, almost manly "raging forever alone" female lead types though. Very often that choice of cast is then given unachievable script tasks, like Felicity Huffman vs Peter Krause in Sports Night for example - as a Casey's love interest Dana was so out of her depth, out of her league and on top she looked at least decade his senior but the script made her behave like it was written for Amanda Peet vs Mathew Perry.

Any female fair looking in Sorkin scripts is ultimately almost always highly unstable.
 
I really enjoyed it, very fast-talking and had me laughing quite a few times too. Be interesting to see how this develops.

Have to say though, the intro sequence really didn't impress me, usually HBO do something quite clever for their intros but this one just seemed like it was thrown together in a day.
 
memyselfandi said:
Interesting ... one of my favourite ever US shows was a Sorkin pre-West Wing series called Sports Night ... which was set behind the scenes in a cable sports news show ... I don't think it was ever released over here (I imported the US DVDs) and it only lasted two seasons before he left to do West Wing but it was a very good comedy/drama series.

Sounds like this could be very much along the same lines just without the sports.
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Just saw this thread and was about to ask how similar it would be to Sports Night. I personally loved Sports Night. I also love Studio 60. Still haven't got round to West Wing yet though. Hopefully this programme lasts more than a season seeing as HBO don't need to satisfy advertisers, just viewing subscribers.
 
Watched the first episode last night.

Studio 60 being my favourite TV show, very closely followed by The West Wing. I had high hopes going in.

wasn't disappointed, thoroughly fantastic to have high speed, witty, intelligent writing back on television.

But see a lot of people's comparison's to his other shows. The 1 big difference here being, The cast's aren't nearly as impressive or standout as WW and S60.
 
shipinabottle said:
The cast's aren't nearly as impressive or standout as WW and S60.
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The screenplay and cast prep was for Jeff Daniels and Marisa Tomei. Tomei would be better in leader/leading role and would offer more believable romantic connection to the co-lead due to closer age gap. Unfortunately it wasn't to be and negotiations fell through. Mortimer is nearly 20 years younger than Daniels, a bit bland and would be better suited for John Gallagher Jr's role of co-producer. Incidentally, I think Gallagher and to a degree Alison Pill are the weakest point of cast, I hope the script won't dedicate too much air time to both.

Olivia Munn and casted in literally last moment Jane Fonda should improve things a little in future episodes.
 
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