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[bennet_7]

I think I've told you all this before but I was thirteen (or perhaps not quite) when I started watching The West Wing and I was fan from the start. The series didn't quite click with mainstream Australia and the reason or the result was that it was jerked around the schedule a bit. It got pushed later and later into the evening and even in the

Comments

[_kirsty]

Lovely post

[bennet_7]

Thank you!

If only Sorkin had a writing partner or editor who was strong in the areas where he falls down. Someone to rein him in.

That might solve the problem. Not sure how familiar you are with his career but on his first three shows he had a directing and producing partner in Thomas Schlamme. However Tommy didn't seem to have a lot of input on the story side of things. And even though Sorkin always has a writing team they are generally researchers he'll share credit with on occasion.

I wonder if maybe he's done better with movies lately than with tv because the movies are based on books? He adapted someone else's material for the screen in the case of both of those films, so unlike the tv shows, he didn't come up with them from scratch. They're not coming to my screen direct from Sorkin's id. The story and the characters already existed in some form on the page, and he made screen magic out of them. In a way, he did have a writing partner for the movies -- first Ben Mezrich and then Michael Lewis./my random Sorkin theory!I think

[_kirsty]

No, I hadn't seen the Sorkin supercut until now, but I like a lot of his recurring lines and phrases. To me it comes off as a kind of classy-corny American English?! Like the dialogue from an old screwball comedy or something.

And I guess he's a prolific tv writer with a distinctive voice, so I'd expect him to have reused lines over the years, let alone phrases.

[spadada]

It's crazy that Sorkin has become guilty pleasure TV. Scandal is a better show. A Shonda Rhimes show about a crisis management team is better than a show by Aaron Sorkin about the news media. Something is WRONG.

But I just freaking adore Jim and the actor who plays him and sometimes Dev makes me laugh and I love that David Krumholtz is Jeff Daniels' shrink and Olivia Munn is as tolerable as she's ever been. (Though last week with the butt thing--not so much.)

I think the worst part of every episode is the credit sequence. Could those main titles be anymore earnest and slow and LONG? Ug.

And yet, it is enjoyable somehow. Maybe this is my version of Jersey Shore.

[bennet_7]

The Newsroom is train wreck television for me - almost a complete disaster but I can't look away. There are occasional moments of brilliance but the disconnect between what Sorkin thinks he's doing and what he's actually doing is staggering.

I'm a bit meh on Jim. He's too perfect. Do like the actor, though. I really like Olivia Munn - any faults with her character, like the butt thing, are on Sorkin.

The credits are terrible.

I don't think Scandal is a better show - I'm not enjoying it half as much as Grey's in its prime - but it has Joshua Malina who would improve The Newsroom with his mere presence. I really dislike the president on Scandal and don't buy his relationship with Olivia as "epic" at all.