Best Coverage Anywhere

[captainsblog]

At the moment, I'm trying to make lemonade out of a thus-far lemon of a day- a morning run that ended too soon; an out-of-town morning appointment with, supposedly, a prepared and paying client which resulted in no client, nothing prepared, and of course no payment; and a late-afternoon appointment back at my main office which got last-minute canceled.  Go me.

So instead I'll gush over my latest obsession- HBO's The Newsroom. 

The comparisons to the dialog and formula of West Wing and such are lost on me; I've never Sorkined. (Just the thought of Charlie Sheen ever being an heir to the throne was scary enough to put me off that particular series.)  But about half an hour into this one's premiere, I recognized another formula that worked for me for a long time, which I think has potential to be present and working here.

Before that moment, you got Lines. Will (Jeff Daniels, who we'd just seen in a wonderful film the previous weekend called Paper Man), Mac (the beauteous Emily Mortimer) and a supporting cast of fellow news junkies, setting up their backstories and tossing script at each other, until the moment it all revved up into high gear:

Attention! All personnel! Incoming story!

And that's the shift that kept all of Larry Gelbart's witty repartee from becoming just too damn precious through all the early years of M*A*S*H. When these guys kicked into the to-be-chased story, which immediately defined the time of the pilot as well as the place, all the conflicts disappeared. Not instantly- egos do take time to dissolve, especially at network-anchor and network-EP levels- but within moments, this room full of people, who either had never worked together before or else had, badly, Put On A Show in real time with real talent.  And The Lines continued- Will's 60-Minute-ish takedown of a corporate shill is golden- but you suddenly cared a lot more about who they all were once you saw what they all could do.

Now they can't do this with a four-alarm news story every week, without it turning into total trope.  Maybe they could pull off something resembling Six Feet Under's opening-scene Death of the Week to at least make fun of it, if they're going to try. But I'm anxious to see how Episode 2 does relative to the promise of the first- and, now that I've been Rickrolled into acquiring a copy of "2 Broke Girls" dubbed into Nigerian which had billed itself as Newsroom E02, only to find the real thing several hours later, I hope to tell you tonight whether they've  pulled it off or not.

Comments

[platypus]

I like Sorkin's intelligence and his dialogue, both in snappy exchanges and heartfelt speechifying. But I haven't really been grabbed by this show yet. I said to Ken the other day that it seemed like the only topic important enough to merit the trademark Sorkinesque pompousness may be the presidency (though news is a better fit than SNL-style comedy -- Studio 60 was a truly awful show). The first few years of West Wing really were excellent television, as was the lighter Sports Night. He definitely draws good characters, and nice complex relationships between them.

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

I've been saving this show until it builds up a few episodes. The only thing better than an hour of Sorkin is four hours of Sorkin.

The first "West Wing" I saw was the second season opener - the discovery that the President has been shot while the limo is racing back to the White House, the handbrake turn to rush to the hospital, Secret Service grabbing the Veep and hustling him to a secure location... I found myself in tears at the utter dramatic perfection and verisimilitude of those first couple minutes. I was utterly hooked. I've got the whole damned show on DVD.

And then there was Studio 60 and the first episode, "The Cold Open". It was "Network" and the best of SNL rolled up in one perfect bundle. I thought Sorkin came down too hard on faith in general and Harriet Hayes in particular, but it was when I was struggling unsuccessfully to hold onto my own faith, so I was rather touchy. I was sorry it was cancelled.

There are very few writers who I will make time to watch. Straczynski. Whedon. Sorkin. When they're on, they're unbeatable.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I was about to say that I've phoned my mother in panicked tears because of Sorkin, but Leo's heart attack happened _after_ Sorkin left, and that was what got me.

Josh hearing the cello in the string music as an ambulance siren is the other bit that really gets me every time.

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

I kinda can't believe you never watched The West Wing. It was completely brilliant, and it holds up nicely. We are in the midst of watching it (for me the 5th time, Griffin's first). You'd like it, I am sure, because it's smart and amusing and very clever. I'm excited to see Newsroom!! I'm going to download the first episode tonight, and hopefully I won't get Gossip Girl in Bulgarian or whatever in the heck you got the first time....

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

This is totally a potshot, but WTF is Nigerian, Ray? No such language. I know, I know, it's not your fault Nigeria is a modern political fiction, sorry.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

So my special one-time act-fast order of Rosetta Stone's Nigerian language course isn't going to work? Damn- I just sent them the shipping and handling by Western Union the other day;)

[nentikobe.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of people that are enjoying that show. I do hope that Australia gets that one. We don't get many, but sometimes they get it right.