The Newsroom,3rd & Final season... | The Boneyard

The Newsroom,3rd & Final season...

coachcap

coachcap

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Starts off with a bang (literally) with the cast's coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing. This first episode, I think is actually one of the best. Sorkin has finally captured the essence of coverage of a major news event with decision making on the fly. Additionally, he has set the stage for the season with the various subplots (wedding plans, hostile takeovers, espionage). Should make for an exciting denouement of the series.
Oh, & there's Olivia Munn.
 
coachcap said:
Starts off with a bang (literally) with the cast's coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing. This first episode, I think is actually one of the best. Sorkin has finally captured the essence of coverage of a major news event with decision making on the fly. Additionally, he has set the stage for the season with the various subplots (wedding plans, hostile takeovers, espionage). Should make for an exciting denouement of the series.
Oh, & there's Olivia Munn.
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I agree on the season opener - I was concerned that the show came back at all (what with the horribly neat wrap up from last season and all) - The show is at its' best when showing how stories play out and the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings was top notch. The introduction of a season long issue (espionage) was something I expected - but it will be fun to watch it unfold. And yes, Olivia!
 
Really good so far. Sorkin is amazing with dialogue, which compensates for his frequently uneven plot pacing. The board room scene with the twins is vintage Sorkin, but then he does something weird like having Jim's girlfriend make a crazy tweet that no one as smart as her would ever make. Also, Neil is way too smart to ever induce someone to commit espionage.
 
The show is knocking it out of the park this season. Disappointed there is only 3 episodes left
 
I knew Nelson would love this show, the anchor has said that the tea party is the most dangerous movement in America.
 
Got up this morning, made the coffee, & turned on the tv for the weather. The Mrs. saw all of the coverage on the grand jury's decision in St. Louis & declared that it would make a perfect plotline the The Newsroom.
 
.-.
Palatine said:
I knew Nelson would love this show, the anchor has said that the tea party is the most dangerous movement in America.
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Ironic that the anchor is a republican.
 
The second episode might have been the series' best, up there with the one where Jane Fonda screams "THEN GET IT BACK!" and they hard cut to the credits.
 
This show is pissing me off a little. It is like Sorkin crammed a season's worth of random ideas into 3 episodes, and then walks away from the show. I won't go through all the problems with last night's episode until everyone has had a chance to see it, but there are a lot of them.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
This show is pissing me off a little. It is like Sorkin crammed a season's worth of random ideas into 3 episodes, and then walks away from the show. I won't go through all the problems with last night's episode until everyone has had a chance to see it, but there are a lot of them.
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I'll say this about Sunday night's show. Because I knew that this is the last season, it would have made perfect sense for that episode to be the wrap-up. It took rolling through the credits & seeing the preview to know that there is one more episode.
 
I will miss this show a great deal. I like the idea of a short series run, but three seasons is not enough.

There should also be another episode dedicated to showing Olivia Munn in dark blue jeans....but that may be asking a little too much.
 
Each of the story line's, other than Charlie's, made sense and was solid as a stand alone. Cramming them altogether into one episode that is the second to last of the series was a mistake. I don't even want another season, because I do feel like the show may have run out of steam on its own, but this season should have been 10 episodes. One of the reasons I believe that most shows' best seasons are their second and third is because they don't have to waste scenes explaining who characters are after the first season. Less exposition = better TV. Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Mad Men are all examples of this.

For example, Pruitt is an interesting character and I think the democratization of news is a really important topic, but by cramming Pruitt into 3 episodes and having Charlie inexplicably act like a complete idiot does the show and its viewers a disservice. Don's meeting with the girl in Princeton was fascinating if also incredibly uncomfortable to watch. That deserved more time. The NSA plotline with Neil deserves more time. The right of free speech vs. the need for national security has been covered before in other TV and movies, but is interesting nonetheless.

I feel like Sorkin is just dumping every scene idea he ever had onto the screen, no matter how disconnected they are. The scene with Will in jail was absolutely awesome and vintage Sorkin, but again, it was somewhat disconnected from the rest of the show.
 
.-.
I have given this show a third try. It's still basically an hour of people yelling at and lecturing eachother. I have no idea what the allure is. Will can't even find peace in a jail cell with some anti-semitic dude lectuing him and informing him that his Dad was just trying to teach him how to fish.
 
ZooCougar said:
Will can't even find peace in a jail cell with some anti-semitic dude lectuing him and informing him that his Dad was just trying to teach him how to fish.
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Then at the end you realize that that guy was his dad. There was never anyone physically in the cell with him; that was a giant confrontation with his subconscious. Being locked in a cell forces you in to your head, and you never know what you may find deep down in there.

Unfortunate it took until the penultimate episode for Will to have some kind of epiphany.
 
Finally caught up watching on demand, right before the end of the series. Ah well.

I think I like this show better than the West Wing, but maybe that's because it's not going to drag out for 6 seasons or however many years that was. I'm not a huge Sorkin fan but i guess his dialogue style has grown on me (I did really like A Few Good Men when I saw it on stage when I was in high school, I think it was better than the movie). But I don't like how interchangeable the characters are - every single cast member is A-type/snarky/articulate/driven/high anxiety/slightly socially awkward. Maybe that's just how it is in organization like the WH or a news org, but... for the sake of drama try having some different character types.
 
junglehusky said:
Finally caught up watching on demand, right before the end of the series. Ah well. I think I like this show better than the West Wing, but maybe that's because it's not going to drag out for 6 seasons or however many years that was. I'm not a huge Sorkin fan but i guess his dialogue style has grown on me (I did really like A Few Good Men when I saw it on stage when I was in high school, I think it was better than the movie). But I don't like how interchangeable the characters are - every single cast member is A-type/snarky/articulate/driven/high anxiety/slightly socially awkward. Maybe that's just how it is in organization like the WH or a news org, but... for the sake of drama try having some different character types.
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There's dialogue on this show? I just watch with the volume off to get a peek at Olivia Munn's stems .

Seriously though,
I like the show, but your character analysis is pretty accurate.
 
Charlie, Reece, Leona and a little bit of Will are the only different characters. Maggie was interesting when she was incompetent, but now she is just like everyone else on the show.
 
The series finale: Don't know what to think. Sorkin just used it to tie loose ends by revolving them around Charlie's funeral. Viewers had to have seen basically the whole series to understand some of the denouements.
The 3 scenes that were the most striking to me in no particular order:
-Neil's return to the newsroom & asserting authority over the bloggers
-Will chatting with the female staffers & them immediately reading between the lines while the male staffer is clueless
-the flashback that showed the beginning & catalyst of Sloane's affection for Don. In fact, that scene struck me as the most poignant. Throughout the series, whenever Don made some debatable point, Sloane always cut him short. Sloane had been previously been portrayed as the highly intelligent, no-nonsense woman that didn't tolerate mental inferiors. That flashback showed who really was in control in that relationship. Sloane realized that she'd finally met her mental equal & soul mate & was the aha moment in her pursuit of Don. Sloane always gets the last word (as the ladies do in most relationships), but the viewers now know that she will always be on edge when she does.
 
.-.
junglehusky said:
Finally caught up watching on demand, right before the end of the series. Ah well.

I think I like this show better than the West Wing, but maybe that's because it's not going to drag out for 6 seasons or however many years that was. I'm not a huge Sorkin fan but i guess his dialogue style has grown on me (I did really like A Few Good Men when I saw it on stage when I was in high school, I think it was better than the movie). But I don't like how interchangeable the characters are - every single cast member is A-type/snarky/articulate/driven/high anxiety/slightly socially awkward. Maybe that's just how it is in organization like the WH or a news org, but... for the sake of drama try having some different character types.
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Everybody just talks AT eachother. And yes, many characters seem surplus, to the point where it is difficult to tell the difference. I like The West Wing better.
 
The flashbacks with Charlie first talking to Mackenzie are entertaining, if a little disturbing. So did Mackenzie manipulate everyone the last 3 years to get the job she wanted and the guy back that she had cheated on?

This show could have used a few more episodes. Too much was crammed into too few shows, and Pruitt in particular ends up not being nearly as interesting as he should have been. Going back to the beginning of the season, I wanted to see the feud between Reece and the twins play out a little more too.

Jim and Maggie annoyed me after a while. I would have liked it better if they didn't finish together. I didn't need that storyline to have a happy ending.
 
Waquoit said:
Tell me about it, Luck only got 1.
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That's because they killed every horse in a 1000 square mile radius.

I liked that show though
 
August_West said:
That's because they killed every horse in a 1000 square mile radius.

I liked that show though
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That show took itself a little too seriously.

Boss is probably the show that has pissed me off the most with an early cancellation. I rewatched the first episode of the series on Netflix, and it was just awesome. Then they cancelled Magic City after just 2 seasons, and now I think I am done with Starz series.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
That show took itself a little too seriously.

Boss is probably the show that has pissed me off the most with an early cancellation. I rewatched the first episode of the series on Netflix, and it was just awesome. Then they cancelled Magic City after just 2 seasons, and now I think I am done with Starz series.
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Wasn't Boss cancelled because because of some some dispute between Kelsey Grammar & the network?
I agree about Magic City- it was compelling. In light of yesterday's political events, it would have been interesting to see how that series played out post Bay of Pigs & Cuban Missle Crisis.
 
.-.
coachcap said:
Wasn't Boss cancelled because because of some some dispute between Kelsey Grammar & the network?
I agree about Magic City- it was compelling. In light of yesterday's political events, it would have been interesting to see how that series played out post Bay of Pigs & Cuban Missle Crisis.
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Kelsey Grammar wanted to do a 2 hour Starz movie to wrap up the show when it was clear it would not be renewed. The ratings weren't great, but a show like that needs some time to find an audience. The first episode is simply awesome, and while it flirted with jumping the shark a few times, it held things together. The strange thing about Boss was that it had a built in limit to how long it would be on TV because Grammar's character had a terminal illness. Why not just do one more season to wrap the show up and see if Grammar can win an Emmy? I don't think a Starz show has one yet. Grammar won a Golden Globe for the first season, and I think he deserved it.

Between Boss and Magic City, Starz has a track record of not giving good shows a chance, and I don't have time to invest in shows that will get cancelled before they should.
 
I liked Boss when I saw it. But I totally forgot it existed until now.

I can't believe Tyrant gets another season and Boss doesn't.
 
The last episode was a bit sappy, but I thought the show finally hit its stride this year and I'll miss it.
 
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