MiniCap: The Newsroom

The Newsroom

By vallegirl | Monday, June 25, 2012 | 12:24 am | 23 Comments
Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in: MiniCaps, Recaps, The Newsroom

White people crazy.

Welcome to the premiere of The Newsroom. Aaron Sorkin’s latest in his long line of entertainment about how affluent, fast-talking assholes have to save us from ourselves. Here it’s Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy, the Jay Leno of news anchors, who loses his shit on some hapless college sophomore before he finds it again, but no one cares about that because no one cares about context or resolution once he starts blaming it all on vertigo medication. Will eventually decides to save the evening news by reporting it two years later the way it should have been reported two years earlier.

Helping him is Emily Mortimer as Mackenzie McHale, a woman who could have legally killed her parents for cursing her with such a perniciously, preciously, twee name, but instead will be his sparring partner/ex-girlfriend/current Executive Producer. She flits, she speechifies, she recites lines like she’s not used to speaking 200 words a minute, she puts her hands on her hips when she means business.

Sam Waterston is their big boss Charlie Skinner and he’s more often than not drunk off his ass.

They’re all surrounded by a bunch of overeducated, overly ambitious assistants, and associate producers and senior producers who spend most of the hour looking at computer monitors and speaking into phones. They’re very important and very busy. They also manage to be the people to “break” the BP oil spill because one of them had several deus ex machinas on his speed dial.

There’s handheld and tracking shots, there’s walking and talking, there are very big words being said by people who probably don’t know what they mean but say them with so much authority you feel compelled to believe them. But there is no Bradley Whitford, so SCORE!

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vallegirl
About

Vallegirl has never actually lived in a valley, has a lot of time on her hands and likes to yell at kids about how things were in her day.  Currently in LA, she's also spent a lot of time in the great states of  New York and Florida so she's not crazy, it's just a cultural thing.

23 Comments

  1. 1
    LIBelle
    Posted June 25, 2012 at 3:47 am

    I’m so happy you are re-capping this, can’t wait for the long form.

  2. 2
    Classy Drunk classy drunk
    Posted June 25, 2012 at 7:55 am

    Why was everyone talking so fast?!?!!? Or is that just how people speak in the news world…

  3. 3
    maryedith
    Posted June 25, 2012 at 8:46 am

    Fresh Air has done a couple of segments on this show. I listened to the first one until they named “Mackenzie McHale” as a character and I compulsively turned the radio off. The second one was an interview with Jeff Daniels. The show sounded so preachy. Is HBO taking a preachy direction in general? I’m thinking about the obesity “documentary” and the Sarah Palin movie. I hope not.

  4. 4
    maryedith
    Posted June 25, 2012 at 8:48 am

    Vallegirl, it sounds like your recaps are going to be entertaining as hell — I may have to watch just so I can read them.

  5. 5
    NotWithoutMyTV notwithoutmytv
    Posted June 25, 2012 at 9:13 am

    I get the impression it will be preachy. I saw a promo on HBO, and I honestly thought it was supposed to be ironically funny. The cast and crew were bloviating and hyperbolizing all over themselves about how they “really felt they were DOING something”, and et cetera. They were so OTT intense I thought they were spoofing other promos, or that the show itself was a comedy.

    So, yeah. Strap in for self-importance mode.

    Is Sorkin as bad with the preaching and the characters spout PSA’s as Dick Wolf is/used to be in the Law & Orders multiverse?

  6. 6
    NikkiHughes
    Posted June 25, 2012 at 11:30 am

    I actually thought it was pretty damn funny and clever. I’m going to enjoy it. I’m loving all these new, GOOD tv shows finally. :D

  7. 7
    snowshoecat snowshoecat
    Posted June 25, 2012 at 3:09 pm

    We are the Last of the Mohicans to get HBO (for a trial) so I’m eager to see it. At least for a while.

  8. 8
    Derek Hazelton
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 7:30 am

    NWMTV, if you watched any episode of Sports Night or West Wing, you’ll see that AS is as preachy as they come. I liked this show for the most part, but I’m more intrigued by the brewing love triangle than the Jeff Daniels romance with his producer/former girlfriend. And, who in the hell thought that this would be a good companion piece to True Blood? Programming fail.

  9. 9
    NotWithoutMyTV notwithoutmytv
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 8:38 am

    Yeah. I CAN’T watch True Blood and I haven’t watched The Newsroom yet, but I can’t see fang fiction viewers sticking around for an Aaron Sorkin show (or vice versa, as the case may be). Unless HBO is just too cool and doesn’t think of the influence of lead-ins the same way networks do.

  10. 10
    Chicken Lips
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 9:19 am

    @NWMT – I’m sure that they will repeat each episode ad naseum so I’m sure that True Blood won’t always be the lead in. This month’s movies on HBO seem to be Back to the Future, From Justin to Kelly and Life as We Know It. Plenty of quality programming in the intended demographic to really enjoy The Newsroom.

  11. 11
    Classy Drunk classy drunk
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 9:33 am

    Well I am almost certain that back in the day the lead in to the Sopranos and Oz was Sex in the City.

  12. 12
    vallegirl vallegirl
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 9:39 am

    HBO also has Broadcast Newsavailable at least on HBOGo so they considered what would be a good companion movie for it’s premiere.

    And Newsroom pulled in 2.1 million viewers, which is better than Girls and on par with Game of Thrones so lead in wasn’t that important. HBO’s also made the pilot available on YouTube, so they’re doing a pretty big push to get viewers.

    But classy drunk, get used to the fast talking because it has less to do with broadcast journalism than it has to do with Aaron Sorkin. He just has so much to say, so the faster the better.

  13. 13
    maryedith
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 9:41 am

    Really? I thought Sex and the City was on at a different time of the year from the Sopranos. But maybe it changed later.

    I’m annoyed that this show is on HBO because it sounds like there’s nothing remotely groundbreaking about its format. It sounds like a network show with stock characters and done-to-death relationships among them. But my huge disappointment in both Veep and Girls could be clouding my judgment.

  14. 14
    maryedith
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 9:42 am

    @vallegirl, just read your comment and it’s funny because I was just sitting here thinking about Broadcast News and how it managed to skewer the news industry without being preachy at all.

  15. 15
    vallegirl vallegirl
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 9:44 am

    I still quote Aaron (Albert Brooks’ character, not Sorkin) on a regular basis. (“Tom, while being a very nice guy, is the devil,” and “Can you name all 12 members of the cabinet?” “Yes.” “There’s only TE-EN!” are my favorites.)

  16. 16
    maryedith
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 9:48 am

    “I sincerely hope you die soon.” I think of that line every time there’s another news report about layoffs.

  17. 17
    Classy Drunk classy drunk
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 10:00 am

    @MaryE you might be right. It may have been that it was reruns of Sopranos as I think Sex in the City and Oz were summer shows.

  18. 18
    maryedith
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 10:18 am

    Those were the days, weren’t they?

  19. 19
    maryedith
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 10:34 am

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S78RzZr3IwI&w=560&h=315

  20. 20
    Classy Drunk classy drunk
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 10:38 am

    They definitely were. But now there’s Sunday Night Football so the void has been filled.

  21. 21
    NikkiHughes
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 2:18 pm

    @maryedith That video was hysterical.

    Was it really two years later? I could have sworn it said 2 weeks later….

  22. 22
    maryedith
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 4:42 pm

    Glad you watched, Nikki. (That was the first time I’ve posted a link on here. I opened a bottle of champagne and thanked everyone I’ve ever known after it worked, but don’t tell anyone).

  23. 23
    NikkiHughes
    Posted June 26, 2012 at 4:44 pm

    BWAAHAAHAAHAA

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