No matter how many I times I try to psych myself up by watching the trailer above, I can't get away from one word: familiar.
Perhaps a more precise description would be "familiarly Sorkin." For me, that's not usually a problem: ever since I started watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip in 2006, I've belonged to the church of Aaron Sorkin. (It's a fast-paced sect, filled with clever, lightning-speed dialogues and radical idealism.) While it's been a mixed bag - I think Sports Night is one of the best shows of all time, but The American President, as silly as it sounds, is one of the greatest disappointments of my life - I've been quick to sign up for more Sorkin at every opportunity.
Until now.
The Newsroom, more than any of Sorkin's work, feels like he's running in place. Where there's no real-life story, as in Moneyball and The Social Network, Sorkin seems content to turn back to the same semi-autobiographical archetype: Newsroom's Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) is a handsome, unapologetic wise-cracker who gamely fights the system for what he believes in. Everybody loves him; nobody understands him; I just plain don't care for him. (On the bright side, he's not named Sam or Danny.)
What's more, based on its "sorority girl" and "men only do stupid things for one reason" exchanges, Newsroom seems to prominently feature the casual sexism Sorkin carries to so many projects. In Social Network, it was justified; as in The West Wing, its presence in this trailer is at best off-putting and at worst completely undermining the "man of the people" image McAvoy and Josh Lyman (the closest Sorkin analog on WW) so carefully cultivate.
I can't fault Sorkin for following this type before; after all, it made Sports Night great enough for me to rewatch it every six months like clockwork and The West Wing one of the most famous and successful dramas in TV history. After three other shows on the same template, though, it's feeling worn out. I'd much rather Sorkin poured his energy into the diverse slate of projects he has in development and left television to the next generation who have new things to say (and new places to say them).
Eventually, I suspect I will watch and enjoy Newsroom regardless; Sorkin has kept his quippy, intelligent style even when the work suffers, and I stayed in my college theatre troupe for a semester after I graduated specifically so I could play Sam Weinberg in A Few Good Men for crying out loud.
The change, really, is in my expectations. Since Newsroom is on HBO, it could take a while for me to see it, and that caused me no end of irritation for months leading up to the first promotional materials.
Not anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment