furrybastard
Posts: 5099
Joined: 30/9/2005
From: Ireland
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The first thirty minutes or so of this was awful. Really bad.
From when they start the newscast, it just about worked. Then fell apart again the moment that was finished.
The problem with Sorkin is that he's become a pretty poor writer, relying too much on past glories and becoming overwhelmed by the same faults he's always had but have now magnified over time. The West Wing was at times overbearing in its maudlin sentimentality and nostalgia/fantasy but that was more than eclipsed by a great cast and crew. At times characters would be nothing more than mouthpieces for Sorkin reeling off statistics like he's reciting them from a newspaper but they still always felt like characters, each with their own voice to a large extent. That was lost somewhat in Studio 60 but the core duo of Perry and Cox as leads managed to make that much work while the ensemble cast floundered.
With The Newsroom, Sorkin hasn't even bothered to create distinct characters. They feel more like cardboard cut-outs whose sole, uniform function is to act as self-consciously eloquant mouthpieces for Sorkin's views and yet more of the statistical recitations that he loves so dearly. Perhaps this will change in time; The West Wing had many of the same problems in its first season.
I thought Daniels was poor. He's not convincing at all, in my opinion. The dialogue is far too self-conscious and, yes, stilted. It sounds unnatural and clumsy on a number of occasions. The speech in the opening scene is laughably bad. Sorkin relies far, far too heavily on this awful kind of sentimentality, this air-punching crap, the kind of stuff someone like Steven Spielberg can do and he, frankly, cannot (or cannot anymore, if I'm feeling generous). It's the worst kind of Hollywood schmaltz, that 'you had me at hello' mid-90s awfulness that feels out-of-date in every conceivable way. Since then we've had shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men... things have moved on for the better.
Studio 60 proved that Sorkin can't do humour very well and that's again evident here. From the opening scene again, we have the audience laughing hard at jokes Daniels makes that aren't that funny. It's so smug and self-congratulatory and irritating. Most of the jokes fall flat throughout. It's all then punctuated by a weird score that seems to be trying to ape The West Wing's but just seems a bit at odds with the show's concept.
Much like Tarantino, Sorkin has become a worse writer over time and desperately needs someone to reign him in. The Social Network worked because Fincher has a strong, distinctive directorial voice that balanced Sorkin's overtly grandiose, often smug posturings as well as a cast who could work around some of his worst excesses. Same with Moneyball. In fact, Fincher probably would have been an ideal choice to direct this pilot.
Believe it or not, I was very much excited to see this and have liked a lot of Sorkin's previous material (even Studio 60!). Some of the problems I've pointed to above have usually only been minor niggles in his previous work. But now they've been given free reign and the results are... well, dull. And kind of embarrassing. I know writers like to write about Sorkin's writing and from the interviews I've read from him he seems to read them and believe every word which perhaps explains his descent into this kind of cheap, lazy schmaltz. Ironically, what happens to Daniels in the show is what needs to happen to Sorkin; he needs someone with an equally strong personality to come in and shake him out of his complacency.
This is not good enough for HBO.
< Message edited by furrybastard -- 26/6/2012 4:29:03 AM >
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RE: The Newsroom - HBO/Sorkin - 
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