Seriously though, I have a blog?...
So I watched The Newsroom pilot. (The, The Newsroom, pilot?)
It is well documented, here, and in other places, that I love The West Wing. I love it. I just do. And I do so without apology despite its many OBVIOUS flaws and despite the things that even I don't like about it. And I always thought that that love was a love of the way that Aaron Sorkin writes, and I do, I love the rhythm and the pace and loftiness and it just really gets to me. It does.
But the thing about great writers is that they're supposed to evolve. The West Wing was the perfect idea in the perfect setting and it worked so well. But the more that he tries to recreate that by writing the same damn thing over and over again in whatever setting he can sell to someone, the less and less respect I have for him, the more I feel like that one great idea, is kind of his only idea. And that just makes me sad.
So basically I know that this is not the best show on earth. It's not even his best. It has some redeeming features (John Gallagher Junior and Dev Patel are both SERIOUSLY adorable, and Sam Waterstone is odd in the best possible way, he plays a drunk in a way that I don't think anyone else would, and Jeff Daniels is I think really good for this role because he isn't trying to mold his speech pattern into Sorkinese and that, coupled with the fact that he's not playing it to be liked even a little bit, makes him a little bit different from all other Sorkin Patriarchs. And I also kind of really dig the whole "very recent past" thing, I think that's a pretty decent and novel concept)But mostly what this, the first episode, did, was remind me of the one thing that I'm finding it harder and harder to get over.
I REALLY HATE THE WAY HE WRITES WOMEN
I mean, I'm serious, who are these people? Who are these women who place all of their self-worth in the hands of a mean, nasty, clearly too taken in by the myth of his own intelligence, asshole who clearly could not care less about who she actually is or what she thinks and only wants someone who relies upon him to make them feel better about themselves at the end of the day, which he does, but in the most backhanded, sanctimonious way that a man can ever speak to a woman? WHO ARE THEY? Are they real? Are these the women he knows? Or, scarier, are these the women that he wishes he knew?
So, I'm going to keep watching, for however long it lasts, god knows that with the way that critics have been writing the thing up, it aint gonna be long. I'm going to keep watching, I'm going to try and ignore the wealth of insanity that he has washed upon the women of the piece (all two of them) and try instead to focus on the talents of the women playing them. And I'm going to hope, against hope (just like Sam Beckett would have done) that the man will either get over himself in the very near future, or that someone with more power than him will start reigning him in a little bit.
Neither seems particularly likely.
A world. Of sigh.
It is well documented, here, and in other places, that I love The West Wing. I love it. I just do. And I do so without apology despite its many OBVIOUS flaws and despite the things that even I don't like about it. And I always thought that that love was a love of the way that Aaron Sorkin writes, and I do, I love the rhythm and the pace and loftiness and it just really gets to me. It does.
But the thing about great writers is that they're supposed to evolve. The West Wing was the perfect idea in the perfect setting and it worked so well. But the more that he tries to recreate that by writing the same damn thing over and over again in whatever setting he can sell to someone, the less and less respect I have for him, the more I feel like that one great idea, is kind of his only idea. And that just makes me sad.
So basically I know that this is not the best show on earth. It's not even his best. It has some redeeming features (John Gallagher Junior and Dev Patel are both SERIOUSLY adorable, and Sam Waterstone is odd in the best possible way, he plays a drunk in a way that I don't think anyone else would, and Jeff Daniels is I think really good for this role because he isn't trying to mold his speech pattern into Sorkinese and that, coupled with the fact that he's not playing it to be liked even a little bit, makes him a little bit different from all other Sorkin Patriarchs. And I also kind of really dig the whole "very recent past" thing, I think that's a pretty decent and novel concept)But mostly what this, the first episode, did, was remind me of the one thing that I'm finding it harder and harder to get over.
I REALLY HATE THE WAY HE WRITES WOMEN
I mean, I'm serious, who are these people? Who are these women who place all of their self-worth in the hands of a mean, nasty, clearly too taken in by the myth of his own intelligence, asshole who clearly could not care less about who she actually is or what she thinks and only wants someone who relies upon him to make them feel better about themselves at the end of the day, which he does, but in the most backhanded, sanctimonious way that a man can ever speak to a woman? WHO ARE THEY? Are they real? Are these the women he knows? Or, scarier, are these the women that he wishes he knew?
So, I'm going to keep watching, for however long it lasts, god knows that with the way that critics have been writing the thing up, it aint gonna be long. I'm going to keep watching, I'm going to try and ignore the wealth of insanity that he has washed upon the women of the piece (all two of them) and try instead to focus on the talents of the women playing them. And I'm going to hope, against hope (just like Sam Beckett would have done) that the man will either get over himself in the very near future, or that someone with more power than him will start reigning him in a little bit.
Neither seems particularly likely.
A world. Of sigh.