Sounds like Sorkin following all of his worst instincts.
Will still check it out, but this read was disheartening (just b/c all the complaints sounds pretty fucking on point with his predilections).
[quote]ON TELEVISION
Broken News
The artificial intelligence of גThe Newsroom.ג
by Emily Nussbaum
JUNE 25, 2012
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/t ... z1yI5gQnH8
גIגm affable!ג Will McAvoy yells in the pilot of גThe Newsroom,ג Aaron Sorkinגs new HBO series. McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels) is an irascible anchor whose brand is likability, and itגs a good line, delivered well. It is also a rare moment of self-mockeryגand one of the last sequences I was on board for in the series. In גThe Newsroom,ג clever people take turns admiring one another. They sing arias of facts. They aim to remake television news: גThis is a new show, and there are new rules,ג a maverick executive producer announces, several times, in several ways. Their outrage is so inflamed that it amounts to a form of moral eczemaגonly it makes the viewer itch.
This is not to say that גThe Newsroomג doesnגt score points now and then, if you share its politics. It starts effectively enough, with an homage to גNetworkג גs galvanizing גIגm mad as hellג rant, as McAvoy, a blandly uncontroversial cable big shot whom everyone tauntingly calls Leno, is trapped on a journalism-school panel. When the moderator needles him into answering a question about why America is the greatest country on earth, he goes volcanic, ticking off the ways in which America is no such thing, then closing with a statement of hope, about the way things used to be. This speech goes viral, and his boss (Sam Waterston) and his producer, MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer), whoגs also his ex-girlfriend, encourage him to create a purer news program, purged of any obsession with ratings and buzz.
Much of McAvoyגs diatribe is bona-fide baloneyגfalse nostalgia for an America that never existedגbut it is exciting to watch. And if you enjoyed גThe West Wing,ג Sorkinגs helpful counterprogramming to the Bush Administration, your ears will prick up. The pilot of גThe Newsroomג is full of yelling and self-righteousness, but itגs got energy, just like גThe West Wing,ג Sorkinגs גSports Night,ג and his hit movie גThe Social Network.ג The second episode is more obviously stuffed with piety and syrup, although thereגs one amusing segment, when McAvoy mocks some right-wing idiots. After that, גThe Newsroomג gets so bad so quickly that I found my jaw dropping. The third episode is lousy (and devolves into lectures that are chopped into montages). The fourth episode is the worst. There are six to go.
Sorkin is often presented as one of the auteurs of modern television, an innovator and an original voice. But heגs more logically placed in a school of showrunners who favor patterspeak, point-counterpoint, and dialogue-driven tributes to the era of screwball romance. Some of this banter is intelligent; just as often, however, itגs artificial intelligence, predicated on the notion that more words equals smarter. Besides Sorkin, these creators include Shonda Rhimes (whose Washington melodrama, גScandal,ג employs cast members from גThe West Wingג); Amy Sherman-Palladino, of גThe Gilmore Girlsג (and the appealing new גBunheadsג); and David E. Kelley, who created גAlly McBealג and גBoston Legal.ג Sorkin is supposed to be on a different level from his peers: longer words, worldlier topics. And many viewers clearly buy into this idea: years after Sorkinגs terrible, fascinating גStudio 60 on the Sunset Stripג was cancelled, I still occasionally run into someone who insists that Americans were just too stupid to get it.
As Dan Rather might put it, that dog wonגt hunt. Sorkinגs shows are the type that people who never watch TV are always claiming are better than anything else on TV. The showsג air of defiant intellectual superiority is rarely backed up by whatגs insideגall those Wagnerian rants, fingers poked in chests, palms slammed on desks, and so on. In fact, גThe Newsroomג treats the audience as though we were extremely stupid. Characters describe events weגve just witnessed. When a cast member gets a shtick (like an obsession with Bigfoot), he delivers it over and over. In episode four, thereגs a flashback to episode three. In a recent interview, Sorkin spoke patronizingly of cop shows, but his Socratic flirtations are frequently just as formulaic, right down to the magical גAsk twice!ג technique.
Thereגs no denying that Sorkinגs shows can be addictive: I couldnגt stop watching גStudio 60,ג which was about the making of a גSaturday Night Liveג-style sketch show, no matter how hard I tried. That thing was alive! It was lit up with payback, as well as with portraits of Sorkinגs exes so glowing that they were radioactive. The showגs deliriously preening heroes were so memorable that they inspired a set of fictional Twitter feeds, in which the characters live on, making remarks like גDeciding if the satire Iגm about to write should be scathing or whip-smart.ג
גThe Newsroomג sounded more promising, journalism being a natural habitat for blowhards. But so far the series lacks the squirmy vigor of גStudio 60,ג particularly since Sorkin saps the drama with an odd structural choice. Rather than invent fictional crises, heגs set the show in גthe recent past,ג so that the plot is literally old news: the BP oil spill, the Tea Party, the Arizona immigration law. That sounds like an innovative concept, but it turns the characters into back-seat drivers, telling us how the news should have been delivered. (Instead of גBroadcast News,ג itגs like a sanctimonious גZelig.ג) Naturally, McAvoy slices through crises by גspeaking truth to stupid,ג in McHaleגs words. But he also seizes credit for גbreaking storiesגגlike the political shenanigans of the Koch brothersגthat were broken by actual journalists, all of them working in print or online. In the fourth episode, the show injects a real-life tragedy into the mix, pouring a pop ballad over the montage, just the way גE.R.ג used to do whenever a busload of massacred toddlers came crashing through the door.
There are plenty of terrific actors on this show, but they canגt do much with roles that amount to familiar Sorkinian archetypes. There is the Great Man, who is theoretically flawed, but really a primal truth-teller whom everyone should follow (or date). There are brilliant, accomplished women who are also irrational, high-strung lunaticsגthe dames and muses who pop their eyes and throw jealous fits when not urging the Great Man on. There are attractively suited young men, from cynical sharpies to idealistic sharpies, who glare and bond and say things like גThis right here is always the swan song of the obsolete when theyגre staring the future paradigm in the face.ג
The show features three people of color. The most prominent is an Indian staffer named Neal Sampat, played by Dev Patel. The dialogue makes fun of McAvoy for calling him Punjab and referring to him as גthe Indian stereotype of an I.T. guy,ג but the show treats Neal with precisely that type of condescension. Neal is a WikiLeaks fan who writes the showגs blog, but heגs a cheerful cipher, a nerd who speaks nerd talk. There are also two African-American producers, who are introduced to the audience when McAvoyגwho is publicly memorizing the names of his staff, having been accused of not remembering themגsays, גGary. Kendra. Garyגs a smart black guy who is not afraid to criticize Obama. Kendra got double 800s on her S.A.T.s, makes Gary crazy. I studied.ג
Nobody reacts, and I suspect weגre supposed to find his behavior charmingly blunt or un-P.C. But, again, neither Gary nor Kendra is at all developed, or given any role in the showגs wince-worthy set of love triangles. It gave me flashbacks to one of the worst plots on גStudio 60,ג in which the comic played by D. L. Hughleyגthe גsmart black guyג who was always reading the newspaperגwent to a comedy club to anoint the one true young black comic among the hacks and mediocrities. Sorkinגs shows overflow with liberal verities about diversity, but they reproduce a universe in which the Great Man is the natural object of worship, as martyred by gossips as any Philip Roth protagonist.
Despite a few bad bets, HBO is on a truly interesting run right now. It has built a solid Sunday lineup, with גGame of Thrones,ג the excellent גGirls,ג and גVeep,ג a political sitcom that just ended its funny, prickly, but also rather dead-hearted d
) but still shit on it hard for all the same reasons as Nussbaum.
at the comment: "Aaron Sorkin is Tyler Perry for liberal arts majors"