The Newsroom Recap: The Password is…Illegals

6 Comments

1. 1
   hstrhth
   Posted July 4, 2012 at 1:58 pm

   that was absolutely horrible.
   you seem like quite a nasty person.

2. 2
   Matthew S
   Posted July 5, 2012 at 12:35 am

   i thought there were times you were nasty–i’m not sure if you used the term cum one time to describe maggie or if that was for something else–either way i’m a huge sorkin, i was totally looking forward to this show and i dont know i feel empty watching it. and then i read this and its fuckin hysterical. it sort of confirms that empty feeling, and thus i can’t delude myself into thinking the show is too good (well, actually, it has promise, but its so damn unoriginal, it’s like paint-by-sorkin-numbers). and youre remarks were great and funny and there you go good sir. YOU WIN.

3. 3
   JasonR
   Posted July 5, 2012 at 8:46 am

   I kinda liked the pilot, but this was Sorkin at his most preachy & intolerable, and couple that with characters acting in a way that professionals with brains never would in real life and it = suck. I’ll give this one more week and if it’s anything like this past episode I’m done.

   Nothwithstanding the bad episode, this was a GREAT recap!! Great job calling Sorkin & Co. on all the ridiculousness.

4. 4
   maryedith
   Posted July 5, 2012 at 10:02 pm

   I’m still scratching my head over why this show is on HBO. People wouldn’t have such high expectations for it if it were on the networks and there’s absolutely nothing about it that isn’t network. I usually hate it when people say this, but Jeff Daniels come across as completely unlikable, and it’s a problem because I think he sees his character as someone you just can’t help but love. Which makes me think Jeff Daniels is kind of dumb. I keep thinking of William Hurt and how he would have played the guy more subtly.

5. 5
   vallegirl
   Posted July 7, 2012 at 9:19 am

   Yeah, this is a straight up NBC drama. Especially since Sorkin isn’t even that comfortable writing in the vulgarity.

   But I think the biggest hurdle for Daniels is the cognitive dissonance of Will being such a preeningly awful person in general with the fact that the writing suggests that we’re supposed to identify and even admire the character. He has to find a way to make something as cringeworthy as interrupting a staff meeting to throw out factoids like he’s Mr. Burns “endearing.” He’s normally quite good at finding the charisma if not the likeability in difficult characters but thus far, Will hasn’t been able to show either.

   I don’t normally place all the blame for a bad performance on the writing, and maybe it’s because I’m a big Daniels fan in general, but Sorkin’s not doing Will any favors with the flat, obnoxious he’s being written. He took a truly unlikeable character in The Squid and the Whale and managed to convince us that, at some point, someone as smart as Laura Linney would find him attractive enough to marry him. Here, I don’t understand why he doesn’t get punched, or sued, on a daily basis and I especially don’t understand Charlie’s devotion. Specifically because if he’s based on Olbermann he should have alienated everyone he’s ever worked with, since Keith never met a bridge he didn’t want to blow up.

   In a weird way, Will would be more “likeable” if they’d acknowledge how utterly unlikeable he is. Let him really embody what a jerk Will McAvoy is in “real life” behind the public Jay Leno mewling affability and that would come across as more human than a douchebag who tells us what Neal’s name means, then have Neal tell him, starry-eyed, that he didn’t know that. Really? The guy who broke down the BP oil spill in five minutes didn’t know what his name meant?

6. 6
   maryedith
   Posted July 7, 2012 at 10:06 am

   Maybe hearing that Fresh Air interview with Daniels threw off my judgment of his acting, and intelligence. I completely agree with your idea that the character should be written as more unlikable. Because Daniels, in that interview, seemed to admire the character so much himself, I was blaming his acting. But reading what you say, I’m wondering whether the problem isn’t more that the other characters’ reactions to him just aren’t credibly written. I wonder too if Sorkin is so surrounded by people who all read and say the same things that he was figuring the HBO audience was just waiting with baited breath to see these opinions expressed on the screen and so he didn’t bother too much with details like character and dialogue?