I’ve started watching The Newsroom, another Aaron Sorkin drama (West Wing, Studio 60). It’s very much like his other stuff, Studio 60 especially, but he’s made a wise choice in steering away from the SNL format. Studio 60 was cool, but never really worked authentically. The jokes just weren’t that funny.
The Newsroom is much smarter. It’s set in 2010, two years before the show debuted, and gets to use real news stories as a result.
Here is a clip from the opening 20 minutes that has been around the Internet a bit.
Sky Atlantic have already shown all 3 series and its certainly up there with the West Wing. Particularly love the character “Sloan Sabbith” played by Olivia Munn.
I guess you missed The Newsroom because it was so heavily trashed the first time around. US critics hated it often for the very reasons illustrated in that clip. UK critics hated it because it was so ‘clever’ (the anti-intellectualism of British journalism being one of its enduring signatures).
For me, it outdid The Daily Show as a scabrous, witty, intellectually bracing takedown of the ‘Imperial Colossus’ assumptions that have taken American exceptionalism to such ludicrous heights. Aaron Sorkin may be a coked-up, hyperactive, self-important Hollywood insider; but he’s also something of a genius at paring away the guff that obscures our narrow political views.
All are good, but Series 3 is the one to watch above the others - it tackles the oppressiveness of the Snowden episode with chilling, scary accuracy.
I’ve just watched the Valentines Day episode, where the underyling news backdrop is the Egyptian protests. Brilliant piece of TV that had me giggling away through the episode (it is very funny when it wants to be) and genuinely moved at the end of it.