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post an update, chump
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Nov 2, 2014 00:43
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| # ? May 4, 2024 14:46 |
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I'm away from home unexpectedly. There's not a lot I can do about that.
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Nov 2, 2014 01:27
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Hey, new season! It's still garbage, probably.
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Nov 10, 2014 04:49
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Well...that was an episode all right. I guess Sorkins way of appeasing the people who complain about the women being silly and dumb is to make them strong and the men silly and dumb instead. Bravo. This is the thread, right?
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Nov 10, 2014 06:08
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Is there really not a real thread? gently caress me. I'll update tomorrow as that's when I'll finally be home again barring some new bizarre disaster for me to deal with. This has been quite a week.
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Nov 10, 2014 06:38
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Watching the new episode now, trying to figure out the plot is like trying to figure out the Sons of Anarchy plot this year but just lots of "muslim terrorist news bombings" instead of "guns heroin chinese blacks".
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Nov 10, 2014 09:09
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FuriousxGeorge posted:Watching the new episode now, trying to figure out the plot is like trying to figure out the Sons of Anarchy plot this year but just lots of "muslim terrorist news bombings" instead of "guns heroin chinese blacks". The conspiracy nut web pro also blatantly committed espionage and is connected to a Snowden analogue.
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Nov 10, 2014 09:31
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FuriousxGeorge posted:Watching the new episode now, trying to figure out the plot is like trying to figure out the Sons of Anarchy plot this year but just lots of "muslim terrorist news bombings" instead of "guns heroin chinese blacks". Short recap of the first episode: - Team Moral News Today (TMNT) was very cautious during the Boston Bombings (aka the time CNN quoted reddit) but instead of rewarding their morally correct behavior noone watched their broadcast and they got 4th place in the ratings. - TMNT parten company is not only owned by cold-mother and her rear end in a top hat-but-not-anymore son but also by his 2 half-siblings, who are stupid spoiled whores. Someone will use them to take over TMNT's parten company at which point TMNT will get fired and their newsshow canceld. You may remember this plot from Sports Nights. - TMNT's parten company is also doing very bad financially but I believe thats just part of the broader "hostile takeover" plot. - Reddit/SocialMedia geek got info from a "paranoid hacker" about "evil PR firm" doing "evil things" for "american interests in the region" (aka oil). But because he actively encouraged him to get more government documents (maybe someone should tell him about the freedom of information act) he is no going to get arrested. It will be a very interesting race between Sutter and Sorkin who can make the worse season of TV.
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Nov 10, 2014 15:26
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GaussianCopula posted:Short recap of the first episode: Jokes on you, under the dome already claimed that title.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:27
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Xoidanor posted:Jokes on you, under the dome already claimed that title. First of all, Under the Dome is summer tv and therefor not eligible for the competition and second I fell like it is more honest in his sucking as it has sucked from minute one, while SoA and SorkingTV (all his shows are basicly the same premise in different settings) all had seasons that were good.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:41
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Is this the season 3 thread?
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Nov 10, 2014 20:07
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Sure, why not.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:25
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Can someone explain why I, as the viewer, was told how great Maggie was on the air? She wasn't. Yet everyone acted all impressed. I'd have to say this was one of my least favorite episodes. It was almost like a different show.
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Nov 10, 2014 21:58
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I find it hilarious how clearly Sorkin hates/doesn't understand the internet. It's either mindboggling or obvious that he was chosen to write The Social Network, I'm not sure which.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:15
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The problem with this episode is that Season 2 wrapped up the entire show nicely. Will and Mac are engaged! Will is not going to quit! Sloan and Don are together! Yet - there's now more Newsroom after that, so it leaves the question: Where exactly is this show headed? Neal obviously can't be looking for Big Foot, so instead of trolling with reddit/4chan people, they now have him under investigation for espionage a la Edward Snowden. Will and Mac's wedding plans are boring. Maggie is still annoying but at least she lost her stupid hair and seems semi-adjusted back to reality? It's tough to pick up this new season simply because the last season was wrapped up so nicely.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:21
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Waltzing Along posted:Can someone explain why I, as the viewer, was told how great Maggie was on the air? She wasn't. Yet everyone acted all impressed. I think she's still supposed to be all hosed up from Africa, so they were just relieved that she didn't fling her own poo at the camera.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:21
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Kevyn posted:fling her own poo at the camera. I like where you are going here. Tell me more.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:26
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Waltzing Along posted:I like where you are going here. Tell me more. Watch Fox News.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:20
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Waltzing Along posted:Can someone explain why I, as the viewer, was told how great Maggie was on the air? She wasn't. Yet everyone acted all impressed. That scene at the beginning with her continuing to do sit ups while the trainer was giving borderline sexually aggressive encouragement was really bizarre.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:47
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pentyne posted:That scene at the beginning with her continuing to do sit ups while the trainer was giving borderline sexually aggressive encouragement was really bizarre. Especially because all the people next to her were fit and she looked like some actress chick who hasn't gotten fat yet having to do a fitness class scene.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:56
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The part about Neal possibly committing a crime was the least silly to me. That's a real thing. It's about James Rosen, not Snowden. Expect some plotlines about the government reading Neal's email and stuff to make the case.
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Nov 11, 2014 01:29
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Oddly enough, I just learned something. Thanks!
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Nov 11, 2014 01:35
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So the trailer for this season features a shot of will sitting in a church Given how much Sorkin has already cribbed from West Wing, I can only assume that in the final season of this show, he is going to try and recreate Two Cathedrals. Also, within the span of 5 minutes, we had multiple characters assure us that ACN is the most moral and correct news agency out there.
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Nov 11, 2014 04:09
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Don’t mind me folks, just seeing one of my terrible decisions through to the end. Season 1, Episode 6: “Bullies” This is a hard one to write about mainly because the episode is just really unfocused. It’s ostensibly about Will offloading his recent anxieties to a psychiatrist, but those anxieties don’t actually share that much or even really inform each other. The episode feels like a bunch of ideas that never really coalesce into anything greater. There’s too much going on, for one. The episode covers a plethora of topics, like Sorkin venting his hatred of the internet through Will, Will getting death threats and being forced to get a bodyguard (Terry Crews), a plot about Mac using the staff to get opposition research on Will, Sloan bombing a spot on Fukushima, and a disastrous interview with a Rick Santorum campaign advisor, all wrapped up in the framing device of Will trying to get his shrink to give him a sleeping pill to cure his insomnia. I think the idea was solid, but the way it’s presented doesn’t quite work. For one, it never really builds to anything. The plots feel too separate and most don’t get any major resolution, so the episode mostly just tapers off at the end. There’s almost nothing to write about most of them, honestly, because for the most part they’re limited in affect to individual scenes. When the cause of the insomnia is some totally unrelated bullshit (Christ Will, what’s up with your loving diet?), I almost sympathized with Will for the time that had been wasted. Honestly, it might have just worked better as a linear narrative, with some plots restructured and the insomnia/psychiatrist cut entirely. The framing device is clearly being used to set up reveals and delay the release of information, but the end result is somewhat confusing and the episode doesn’t gain anything from it. I wasn’t really surprised by anything the episode was trying to build up to and in the end more questions were raised than answered. Why save the reveal of Will’s terrible interview instead of just starting the episode with it? If I understand why he’s been feeling lovely, won’t I sympathize more? Speaking of that interview, why have both that and Sloan nearly torpedoing her career over Fukushima? I thought both scenes were good in isolation, especially because News Night was finally having internal problems rather than external but having them both in the same episode felt redundant, and having them both be caused by Will was downright nonsensical. Knowing that he feels guilty about the way he treated the campaign advisor makes his giving Sloan terrible that leads to her going way too far in her interview with the TEPCO spokesman really bizarre. One or the other would have illustrated the point well enough, and while there are some parallels, Will’s own interview feels almost like an afterthought in this context. The interview itself works because it feels like a fundamental rejection of the show’s own thesis. It’s a problem Will couldn’t just argue at until he was proven right. Instead, he ended up antagonizing a grown man nearly to the point of tears in the pursuit of a cheap point. Sutton Wall absolutely tears into Will, because the Great White Talky Man is trying to “save” someone who doesn’t want or need help. He’s completely unable to see past Wall’s support of Santorum against what Will sees as his best interest, and trying to pressure him about it ends in total disaster. I’m a little more mixed on the Sloan scene, mainly because we haven’t really seen much of her competence yet, so seeing such a major mistake informs what we know of the character badly. It’s somewhat hard to believe someone built up as so smart would make so many critical mistakes, even if she hadn’t anchored before, but it’d be somewhat easier to buy into if the show didn’t also use the Wall interview. Sloan’s plot is ultimately more important, though, in how it resolves. In order to save the jobs of both Sloan and the spokesperson she interviewed, News Night is forced to lie about the context of Sloan’s preinterview (in which she was told off the record that the radiation levels of Fukushima may raise from 5 to 7) and her fluency in Japanese. Even though the information she gained was correct, News Night has to sell itself out to protect her and an innocent man’s job. If the show had stuck to its guns it would have been terrible schmaltz, but as it is, an unavoidable consequence of a terrible mistake, it really works for me. This scene saves the Sloan plot single-handedly. It’s just a shame the other plots feel so disconnected from all that’s happening here. Romance Corner! The weirdest thing about the way The Newsroom handles its romantic plots is the way it tends to sequester them away from everything else, like even it knows they’re terrible. This week, we have the entirety of the opposition research plot, which is the quintessential Newsroom romantic plot in both of these regards. Mac has Neal, Jim, and Maggie do opposition research on Will at least partially as a way to dig up dirt on him because Mac is crazy. Absolutely nothing comes of this besides the shocking revelation that Maggie is just an absolute moron and that Mac and Will are awful, awful people. Mac finds out that Will got pretty far into negotiations for a talk show while they were together that would have separated them, accusing him of never having planned to marry her. Will, having somehow planned for this, bought a fake engagement ring and puts it in his desk to trick her into thinking he was going to propose to claim the moral high ground, what the gently caress. It’s an absolutely incredible scene that I still can’t believe happened. What the gently caress is wrong with these people?
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Nov 11, 2014 06:48
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so instead of a season 3 thread we get this thread? great.
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Nov 11, 2014 07:23
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the show graduated from terribly awful to just boring. Which in some ways is a downgrade? It's a Sorkinesque contradiction.
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Nov 11, 2014 07:43
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courtney_beth posted:
Remember too, this season is apparently only 6 episodes. So, with 5 episodes left, you've got to tie up the sale, the marriage, the cancellation, the treason, and the redemption from PTSD.
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Nov 11, 2014 08:14
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Forgot this season was about the marathon. Think im going to check out of this show.
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Nov 11, 2014 15:26
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Fetus Tree posted:Forgot this season was about the marathon. Think im going to check out of this show. I think the marathon was just this one episode. It's probably going to be more about Snowden / other stuff involving journalistic integrity and whistleblowing.
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Nov 11, 2014 16:03
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MrAristocrates posted:There’s too much going on, for one. The episode covers a plethora of topics, like Sorkin venting his hatred of the internet through Will, Will getting death threats and being forced to get a bodyguard (Terry Crews), a plot about Mac using the staff to get opposition research on Will, Sloan bombing a spot on Fukushima, and a disastrous interview with a Rick Santorum campaign advisor, all wrapped up in the framing device of Will trying to get his shrink to give him a sleeping pill to cure his insomnia. I think the idea was solid, but the way it’s presented doesn’t quite work. For one, it never really builds to anything. The plots feel too separate and most don’t get any major resolution, so the episode mostly just tapers off at the end. There’s almost nothing to write about most of them, honestly, because for the most part they’re limited in affect to individual scenes. When the cause of the insomnia is some totally unrelated bullshit (Christ Will, what’s up with your loving diet?), I almost sympathized with Will for the time that had been wasted. This episode was the one that finally answered my question about why this show seemed so off to me in the beginning: The bodyguard plot and the whole gay republican interview are carbon copies of scenes from West Wing. Waltzing Along posted:Can someone explain why I, as the viewer, was told how great Maggie was on the air? She wasn't. Yet everyone acted all impressed. I had the same problem. Max fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Nov 11, 2014 |
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Nov 11, 2014 16:09
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Decided to watch this despite my better judgement. So far the best part of this is sorkin reusing equatorial kundu from west wing
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Nov 11, 2014 17:12
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Waltzing Along posted:Can someone explain why I, as the viewer, was told how great Maggie was on the air? She wasn't. Yet everyone acted all impressed. I hope it turns out the ratings dropped to 4th due to her appearance.
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Nov 11, 2014 18:01
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Maybe they expressed their pleasure that Maggy isn't having psychotic breakdowns and cutting off her hair due to PTSD by commending her performance in on a task she doesnt perform regularly and probably hasnt ever done in that capacity by saying she did a good job at it but idk
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Nov 11, 2014 18:35
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Whatever it was it was a tell not show moment which is pretty normal on TV. The problem is those moments are supposed to happen off screen.
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Nov 11, 2014 18:39
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And then Jim saw Maggie in yet another new light and the love triangle continues. Just happy that Don got out of the cycle and he's with Sloan.
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Nov 11, 2014 21:05
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"It's not on there!" was the single line I really liked, welcome back you loving average bullshit show.
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Nov 12, 2014 01:40
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Pierson posted:welcome back you loving average bullshit show. thread title material. Sorkin scolded all the "other" non-ACN news networks for outsourcing their Boston investigation to Reddit and then implied that ACN's new MORAL HIGH-GROUND caused their drop to 4th place. He's basically saying that social media cripples the ethics of news networks but avoiding social media makes you irrelevant. I don't think either of those arguments are valid.
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Nov 12, 2014 17:40
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Season 1, Episode 7: “5/1” “5/1,” being completely contained within a single night, can’t help but be at least a bit more focused than the last episode. Unfortunately, it’s stuck with some glaring tonal flaws, and it's all tied together with some blatant emotional manipulation. The death of Osama Bin Laden is easily one of the most important and memorable moments of the early 21st century, so it’s somewhat confusing that the episode spends a good portion of its time dealing with petty bullshit unrelated to the matter. Jim accidentally told his Maggie’s roommate he loved her under pressure and Maggie’s trying to push him to break up with her because of it, Don, Sloan, and Elliot are trapped on a plane sitting on the runway trying to help break the story while the passengers chime in on the status of Don’s relationship, and Will is absolutely loving baked. I’m not sure whose idea it was to make one of the main plots in this episode Will trying to get over eating too many pot cookies, but I think I want to shake their hand and ask them what on earth they were possibly thinking when they came up with that. None of these extra bits really make sense. The Jim and Maggie stuff, for instance, just seems like noise. Eventually Maggie’s roommate, Lisa, breaks up with him because she realized she pressured him, but actually it’s because she knows Maggie likes him, ugggggghhhh. Jim then decides to acknowledge that the relationship started as an unwanted fix-up and ask out Lisa again with none of that baggage and start over, which I thought would have almost been a decent moment if their relationship wasn’t so transparently doomed from minute one. I don't actively hate Lisa like I'm starting to hate Maggie, but the show is just treading water at this point. Of these myriad unconnected scenes, the one on the plane is probably the best. The frustration they feel at getting locked out of one of the biggest stories of the generation is immediately understandable and even the constant remarks about Don’s rocky relationship with Maggie are treated with a sense of exasperation. There’s a charming rapport between Elliot, Don, and Sloan, and it’s just nice to have a scene where I’m not constantly wishing for at least one person to shut up. The show’s poor record with hindsight pops up again here, this time through, of all things, The Rock. Someone reads aloud a tweet from The Rock and Charlie just knows it’s related to what Obama is about to go talk about because he somehow knows that The Rock’s brother is a Navy SEAL. The entire series of events is hilariously contrived and totally unnecessary outside of the show’s desire to “prove” it remembers the past. The parts of the episode actually tied to the covering of the story do rather well, for the most part. There’s a nice weight behind everything as everyone scrambles to figure out just what’s going on via what little available information there is, and the looming specter of man what if it's what we think it is is pretty effective. There's even a great moment with Charlie where he espouses the importance of waiting to report based on a chilling story from the Gulf War where he accidentally helped the Iraqis range their targets through his broadcast. Unfortunately though, there's another half to it. The show knows how important this moment is and it's determined to milk it for all it's worth. Neal's girlfriend, who I strain to really call a character, goes out on the balcony and tells us that her father died in the World Trade Center, evoking an image which is at best hackneyed and at worst outright offensive. It sends my mind back to the first few episodes' bizarre lack of faith that the material they were presenting was strong enough to speak for itself. For whatever reason, this story needs to constantly remind us that yes, this is important, and it's important to the characters. One of the guys in the control room puts on an FDNY hat that he just has before Will reads the confirmation. Don gets calmed out of a freakout on the plane by the sight of the pilot's uniform, and decides to tell him the news first. When the cops escort Will's bodyguard, Lonny, into the building over a misunderstanding caused by Will completely losing his poo poo, Will has Lonny give them the news, because Lonny was in the military, remember, thank our brave soldiers fighting overseas! It's just too much. This episode is really strange because there's a ton of weird goofy poo poo completely unrelated to the main story, which was more than strong enough to stand on its own. Sorkin's writing seems so self-assured in its own obvious importance but this show's constant digression into non-sequitur is forcing me to rethink that.
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Nov 12, 2014 18:53
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MrAristocrates posted:[*]Why is Neal on this show? He’s a clown. All he contributes to this episode is the suggestion that maybe the announcement is really about aliens. So that Sorkin has an avenue to express his distaste for internet culture.
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Nov 12, 2014 18:55
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| # ? May 4, 2024 14:46 |
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What I find most weird about the show is that every character talks like they re on tv with script written by people trying to be clever, there are no real conversations, people sometimes finish eachothers sentences, or muse to empty space. It makes the whole show weirdly surreal.
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Nov 13, 2014 01:22
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