IHAO ... on the Newsroom

Aaron Sorkin is not my cup of tea.

I know a lot of people like him.  I get that.  I also understand why ... I think.

Sorkin has a habit of taking sitcom situations and placing them in hour-long dramas based around a setting of politic or entertainment importance.  Studio 60 was a fake SNL.  Well, you know what, I have to take it back.  While most people, myself included, know Sorkin best for West Wing, he's done plenty of films and even an actual sitcom.  Which does not surprise.

The thing I do not care for Sorkin is that he doesn't write how people talk.  He writes how people think.  He crafts characters that do not have any actual realism.  They are people that exist in a purely intellectual state where all they do is talk and think deeply about things.  And looking at what I do, you'd think that'd be what I'd be into.  Except it isn't.  Because I care about characters.  Nuanced, flawed, talking like real people characters.  And Sorkin characters just are not realistic.  And are not nuanced.  Hell, I could make an argument from the Sorkin things I've watched that they aren't even truly flawed.  Sure, they have flaws, but things just go right for them anyway, despite their flaws.  They don't ever have to worry about their flaws, because the conflicts that come up are because of sit com scenarios that aren't character driven, but situation driven, hence the "sit" in "sitcom."

Anyway.  The Newsroom.

It was ok.  Olivia Munn was always a pleasure.  I think that's the only really good thing I have to say about it.  There were episodes where the drama of being in a newsroom and dealing with that stuff and the news and the troubles of ratings and all that was interesting.  But those were few and far between because the show is inherently flawed in its own premise.

It lives in a fictional past where this new network existed.  So every scenario is either about how this news network ALMOST said it the honest way everyone wishes the news did it, or they actually did but it didn't affect anything.  It is a show without an true consequences because it lives in the past.  Every decision and element is already decided.  And while there was some actual drama in a few episodes, none of that drama (except for the BEST episode which featured Olivia Munn having to take over at the desk for  day and while she knew the truth, her inexperience made her use off the record reporting to make a statement that her Japanese contact was too honorbound to actually say about the nuclear meltdown in Japan) was based on the actual workings of the news.

Look at the episode where they disgraced their "real news" credentials to talk about the Casey Anthony story so that they could make a new, hard-hitting debate style happen for the Republican Nominee Debate.  We, the audience, knows what happened here: they didn't host the debate.  Which means the entire crux of the episode, all the drama of them having to report the "disgraceful" news of Casey Anthony for ratings just to make sure they got the right to host the debate, the stupid blackout convienent excuse they use at one point to let a character express all their problems outloud intellectually with fake emotion that is immediately swept up because the power magically comes back on in a few minutes and they have to continue to report the Weiner Sexter pre-tape ... just every ounce of "drama" was pointless.  Because we knew what would happen.

If you cannot tell, I did not find the Newsroom good.  I understand why other people do, though.  I just prefer real drama with real characters with situations that make sense and have some mystery to them so that the choices the characters make actually have an effect.

But that's just my opinion.