What to Watch: The Newsroom
Probably one of the best casts to be on television since The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin masterpiece of a first season is what really set this show off an good start. Amazing writing that actually was not too appreciated by the critics at the time because, the critics kept comparing the first season to the 7 year run of The West Wing. The gold in this show was the casting. From Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer and Sam Waterstone helming the cast with great passion for acting. To the amazing Olivia Munn, Dev Patel and John Galagher Jr. hitting right out of the park with the dynamic characters.
I will admit, I have watched the whole series (3 seasons, 25 episodes) in it’s entirety at least three times since the it left the air in 2014. We watched the series when it first aired on HBO and every time I watch it, I always find something new that I missed. At times this show is pretty fast paced, similar to West Wing but i t also has its moments of lull’s. The whole Alison Pill cut her hair storyline was overkill. The first season along has so many amazing lines that resonate 8 years later after they were written. For example
“Fact are the center! We don’t pretend certain facts are in dispute to give the appearance of fairness to people who don’t believe in them. Balance is irrelevant to me. It doesn’t have anything to do with truth, logic and reality.”
"I call myself a Republican 'cause I am one. I believe in market solutions and I believe in common sense realities and the necessity to defend ourselves against a dangerous world and that's about it. Problem is now I have to be homophobic. I have to count the number of times people go to church. I have to deny facts and think scientific research is a long con. I have to think poor people are getting a sweet ride. And I have to have such a stunning inferiority complex that I fear education and intellect in the 21st century. But most of all, the biggest new requirement, really the only requirement, is that I have to hate Democrats. And I have to hate Chris Christie for not spitting on the president when he got off Air Force One. The two-party system is crucial to the whole operation. There's honor in being the loyal opposition. And I'm a Republican for the same reasons you are. So I hope your voice gets louder in the next four years.”
"You're using the word 'journalism' which means that there is an expectation that what they're reading is true.”
"It's a website. It doesn't have integrity.”
“Fourteen months ago you went on the air and called the Tea Party the American Taliban.”
“His religion was decency. He spent a lifetime fighting its enemies.”
I do have to go back to Olivia Munn. She was truly powerhouse and anchor for the series. Her character Sloan Sabbath had such hand in almost every storyline and it seemed almost every character looked to her for support of some kind or one could actually say, the truth. What I loved about this character was her ability to just lay it out there and take the punches for the things that got kicked back at her. Sorkin and his staff did an amazing job with this character. She was real. We’ve all known someone like this in our lives. Recently I was chatting about an old friends and fellow board member of our high school fashion club. If you know me, you will be shaking your head saying, of coarse that explains it all. This friend and I were catching up after many years of silence and she reminded me of the first Sloan Sabbath in my life. It was my freshman year, I had become obsessed about fashion 4 years earlier thanks in part to mothers subscription to Town & Country magazine.
Fast forward through 4 years of learning all I could about fashion and my terrible practice of mutilating the public libraries fashion magazines of all the best fashion shoots in Bazaar and Vogue. Yah, I was that kid. I was terrible. In my 20’s I actually ran across an eBay items that every issue of Vogue from 1990-1992. I bought the lot and had it shipped to my local library with a not that read, Sorry for mutilating your magazines as a child. My hope is some young boy will do the same to those magazines. I digress, in my Freshman year of high school, the president of the Fashion Club let me tag along like a guppy that year. Typically the board were upper class-men and well I was green behind the ears to say the least. And this president was proof of that. She amazing, she was strong, she dressed like she was ready for a corporate takeover of LVMH, did I say she was amazing. More importantly she scared me, and she scared others. Scared in a good way, the kind of scared where you wish you could be her, could you be here at that age (she was 3 years older). She was an inspiration in the end. And in the end I ended up on the board for the next three years and even became the first student advisor the school had ever had.
All in all, the show is great arch. The first season the show blossomed and the second seemed a little more severe, mostly due to the heavy hire of republican writers to balance out the show for the audience. Although I am sure “Tea Party Terrorists” was not that well received, on and off the show. The third season would be close of the show, wrapping up story lines and continuing the poetic casting of Jane Fonda and Marcia Gay Harden. But one of the most annoying characters and and an actor I seem to love more and more after each time I watch the series, is Christopher Messina’s character Reese Lansing. I hated this character the first time around and after rounds of the series, I get Reese and scenes with him and his half brother and sister are simply scrumptious. Because there is always someone out there who looks worse that the person you think is the worst.