The Newsroom

[KTrain]

I've never watched West Wing. Is it worth watching it now or was it more timely when it first aired?

[Caged Great]

West wing is still one of my favourite shows.

It's definitely worth watching if you haven't

[JerzeeGirl]

Originally Posted by Arsenal14

The first season is 10 episodes so there are still eight to go. Plus it's been renewed for a second season.

Well that's good news - I could swear I had read somewhere that their first season was a 6 episode run, glad to know like S1 of The Walking Dead.

Thanks Arsenal, I'm glad to know that I was misinformed!

[troutman]

Sorkin was on Colbert:

http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the...es/#clip709011

[Mr.Coffee]

just finished episode two and I think it was much stronger than episode 1 and focused more on a story and characters.

The dialogue is sometimes still too quick and witty (unrealistic...) but otherwise a pretty good show!

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by KTrain

I've never watched West Wing. Is it worth watching it now or was it more timely when it first aired?

I started after seeing the pilot of Newsroom.

I'm already halfway through season 2. Yes, it's still worth watching

[VANFLAMESFAN]

Waterston versus Fonda for scene of the year?

"you wanna play golf or do you wanna f$&# around."

[getbak]

Funny that they brought in Jane Fonda as the owner of the network considering who her ex-husband is.

[JerzeeGirl]

She was interviewed about this role and was chuckling about her insight track on this type of character after being married to Ted Turner all those years. It was kinda funny...and I thought she killed it, was very good in last night's episode.

I thought the 3rd episode was best yet to be honest - this show seems to keep improving. The opening monologue where Will apologizes for his lack of journalistic integrity was great - even tho you really wouldn't see that ever irl.

Another excellent showing by Allison Pill as well - she & John Gallagher Jr. have great chemistry together...now if only she'd break up with Don!!!

[GGG]

I really like the show but I think the restriction of doing the show in the past limits the impact this news broadcast can have.

Spoiler!

For example they essentially spent the 2010 election by attacking the tea party. In the end the tea party wins a lot of seats and becomes a force in the election. Nothing that the actors in the show do changes the outcome of the world because it is set in our recent past.

What is kind of disappointing is that their method of only providing news and the best argument from each side is that it can never change the landscape of how television news is done in the shows world because the future is pre-determined. In order to change they would have to break with the assumption that the show is set in our recent past and that the future of the show will follow the same trajectory as our past. On the plus side they gain the ability to re-tell the news from a different perspective which is interesting. But this keeps the world the show is in very small almost limited to the newsroom itself.

[JerzeeGirl]

I don't think the point is for them to change anything - it's to show the contrast between what a real news show should be & with it being set in the recent past it allows you to contrast it against what we all would remember having seen when these events were covered by the actual news organizations.

Creating a fictional future where this radical change back towards journalism that doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator causes wide-sweeping change would be much less realistic to me, personally. People being idiots isn't going to change no matter how well a 1hr newscast shows them that what they're being fed by the political/corporate machines is BS.

[MarchHare]

I thought the third episode was the best yet, but there are still some things I find really annoying about the show. Not enough for me to tune out, though. I loved the scenes with the CEO of the parent company (Jane Fonda's character) going head-to-head with Sam Waterston arguing that she had a fiduciary duty to the shareholders to gain more advertising revenue that supersedes any desire the network might have to provide a more informative newscast.

Since we know the show is covering news stories from the recent past, I think it's fun to speculate what events will be the focus of upcoming episodes. In the fiction of the show, we're now in November 2010. I'll bet one of the next episodes will be about the wikileaks release of diplomatic cables (November 28), as they've already strongly hinted they'll be covering that ground. After that, we'll probably see the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, the Arab Spring, the Japan earthquake, the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, and the terrorist attacks in Norway. The season will probably end with the Occupy protests.

[nik-]

I'm not sure about this show yet. I agree with a lot of what it's saying, but the way it's presented is just a little too "look how smart we are with hindsight" for my liking.

[MarchHare]

A thought about Will's (i.e. Sorkin's) editorial point that congress should have prevented the networks from advertising during newscasts: wouldn't that provide a perverse incentive to create the cheapest broadcast possible? What motivation would the networks have to invest in their news divisions if the hourly broadcast will always be run at a loss?

[Arsenal14]

You could argue that a strong news show would attract viewers that would hopefully stick around for whatever you programmed after it. Of course, that leads right back to the commercial interests of having a highly rated news show and nothing is really gained.

[Mr.Coffee]

3rd episode was amazing, show is improving with each episode.

Really liked Fonda's character and the interesting struggle between responsible news and responsible business.

[KTrain]

I've started watching The West Wing. 10 episodes in and so far, so good.

My only complaint is that in every episode someone gets really mad, yells a lot and then apologizes to the person they yelled at. Every episode.

[Draug]

Tonight on Piers Morgan on CNN, they talk with Dan Rather and get his take on Newsroom. I haven't watched it yet, but its on the PVR, and apparently is quite interesting.

The same Piers Morgan loops throughout the night on CNN, so there is still a chance to PVR it if you are interested.

[Voodooman]

Originally Posted by KTrain

I've started watching The West Wing. 10 episodes in and so far, so good.

My only complaint is that in every episode someone gets really mad, yells a lot and then apologizes to the person they yelled at. Every episode.

Stick with it. Like many new shows, The West Wing improved dramatically in the second season, and seasons 3-5 were the strongest, then there was a little shark jumping in season 6, but the 7th and final season brought the series to a good conclusion. And not to give anything away, but there is a major improvement to the cast at the start of season 2. One of those addition by subtraction things.

For any fans out there, Best Buy has all 7 seasons for $9.99 each, both in store and online. If you order all 7, they include free shipping.

As for The Newsroom, I agree that episode 3 was the strongest yet, and the series shows good promise. I only worry that Sorkin's soapbox has gotten a little too big...

[FanIn80]

Episode 4 was my favourite one yet!