Will mcevoy calling them out 8 months before the 2010 elections is really impressive.

I like Macy. The other two, not so much.

This is already one of the worst threads on 2+2 and it's only aired one ep. Congrats.

WE'RE AFFABLE!

Well, the problem I have is twofold:

1)This is Sorkin's fourth show, and they all follow the same template-- "Workplace family in high-stress environment champions value of their work passionately and with big speeches, led by white male protagonist, wise elderly figure, and featuring a couple of office relationships where everyone is completely neurotic and the women behave and are treated like children"-- and besides the dialogue (see "Sorkinisms Supercut"), he repeats characters and relationships and themes, too. And while we know what we're mostly getting at this point, the fact that this show makes the same mistakes as each of his other shows is troubling. He either hasn't learned from them or doesn't think they're mistakes. And the show is missing a critical element of what makes Sports Night enjoyable to me-- a sense of humor, both within the show and about itself.

I think this sums it up well:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-n...ment-564564067

In other words, while his shows continue to have the same problems with relationships, they've been steadily losing their sense of humor and replacing it with a sense of self-seriousness. The things he does so well make it so maddening that he won't address the things he doesn't.

2)The reviews I've read suggest the pilot was the best of the first three or four episodes sent out for critics, which means that subsequent episodes are more likely to have less of the stuff I liked about the episode and more of the stuff I didn't. And since the the scale in this case is tipped too much away from the stuff I like about Aaron Sorkin, and too much toward the stuff I don't, I'm going to wait and see if it gets better before I get back into it regularly.

They are reviewing a TV show, not the validity of Sorkin's politics. They are not saying Sorkin is wrong, therefore i dislike the show. And anyways Based on the below post, there wouldn't be much to address re: Sorkin's politics because they are incredibly broad.

Yes, the all powerful conservative critic lobby is looking to destroy Oscar/Emmy Winner Aaron Sorkin's polemic.

Oh no! How dare a white male be a protagonist!

Since when is Sorkin held to a standard that only women or minorities are allowed to be heroes when Don Draper, Dr. House, and Raylan Givens are doing just fine populating the TV landscape?

(Also, if anyone on Sports Night was the "boss" it was Dana).

Nath, you make good points...but I still liked it.

Sounds like you have a bit of an anti-Sorkin ax to grind, but there's nothing wrong with that.

It does sound like that, doesn't it? That's not the case, really-- it's more a sense of, I love what he does when he does it well, and so it's a little infuriating that he's been setting aside the stuff he does well for the other things he loves doing with his shows. I want him to make good shows because no one else can make an Aaron Sorkin show, but this and Studio 60 are just too humorless and self-indulgent for my tastes.

If you like this, though, give Sports Night another shot. You don't even need to bother with the pilot-- Episode 2 ("The Apology") is a lot of people's favorites. It's basically Newsroom in a half-hour format with a lot more comedy and a lot less self-seriousness.

PJ - you know what the problem is because it's explained in that quote. It's that, in Sorkinland, the white guy is always the one who has all the answers to our Big Problems. None of the other protagonists you've mentioned are held up as models of virtue to aspire to. BTW, it's pretty telling that of all the problems I've posted and the arguments I've refuted (like the "Sorkin is making fun of Will in Will's speeches" position), that's the one thing you find to nitpick.

Um, what? McEvoy, while no doubt a protagonist, is still a clear ass hole. They've gone out of their way to show that he's a flawed character from the jump. He isn't some white knight, certainly not a Bartlett type. Did you also think Sorkin painted Mark Zuckerberg as a model of virtue to aspire to?

No doubt!

Nath is just trolling at this point. He's written the whole show off after seeing one episode.

Kind of insulting to assume I'm just trolling because you don't agree. But then, you're the guy who thinks Walt and Jesse are morally equivalent on Breaking Bad, so I don't think you really have anything relevant to say-- you're just dismissing an opinion you can't rebut. My opinion may be borne of frustration and disappointment with the show I watched-- because I believe Aaron Sorkin can do better, and he's such a unique voice that I think it's important that he do better-- but it's still honest.

Don't worry, though, if the show doesn't improve I won't keep watching and discussing it, so you can get back to this being a thread for fawning over the show.

I think Sorkin is a clear ass hole too, but I bet if you asked him about it he wouldn't think of himself that way.

And just because Will is an a-hole doesn't mean Sorkin isn't using him as a mouthpiece for his (misguided) Big Realizations about Real Problems (a more accurate term than "model of virtue" for sure, and closer to what I meant). Here are a couple of questions: After that Globe and Mail interview I posted, where Sorkin snidely dismissed a young reporter as "Internet girl," do you still think Sorkin is mocking Will with the "Worst generation ever" line? Do you still think the "let's go back to a time when men were men and news was news" part of Will's speech is something Sorkin used to illustrate how out of touch Will is, or do you think he agrees?

ITT people are mad that nath is telling it like it is

Okay, this is close to true... but when you used the 'model of virtue' phrase it seemed like you were under the impression that the main character was being treated as a flawless hero. Which is obviously not the case.

It's not that he doesn't like it. It's that he posts hundreds of times saying as much.

The top two posters itt like the show, you gonna get on their posting frequency too? Didn't think so

I can totally understand liking this show more than I or others in this thread do- but some of the arguments being made in this thead are tragic (and typically rebutting critiques that haven't actually been made).

Right, sorry for the confusion, poor wording on my part. My problem is that the way Sorkin Thinks It Is And How To Fix It isn't the real issue at all, and he seems so satisfied with himself for thinking he's got it figured out.

I'm having a conversation, and your response is to keep posting "SHUT UP SHUT UP I DON'T WANT TO HEAR WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY LA LA LA LA LA."

I guess the difference is I just don't see that satisfaction. I see him as more of an idealist but not necessarily one with all the answers -- just one who's asking interesting questions and posing a parallel universe where people talk like he wants them to talk and using that style to explore what's being batted around in his brain.

I think you can see this at work in Moneyball, which has the Zaillian structure but it's clear when the dialogue is Sorkin's -- and he's not saying that Beane solved baseball, he's just saying that it would be cool if a guy like this really could solve baseball.

I can see that, I suppose. But the difference between this and something like the West Wing (which I am admittely lower on than most) is that TWW dealt more with idealized responses to real problems, and not idealized responses to AS's misguided idea of real problems. The big speeches and ideas behind them just plain ring hollow when I stop to think about them for a minute, and even when they're right about something (McAvoy and all the stuff America actually leads the world in), they're undercut by something ludicrous (the "worst generation ever" / "this country used to be great" stuff).

On top of that, I thought all the groundwork for relationship drama was terrible, awful, and should basically be excised from the show. Basically, the good parts of the show weren't a nearly large enough percentage of the show's time.

Doing it on purpose doesn't make it any better. Regardless of the intent, the result is a smug, preachy show that undercuts it's own arguments with the choices it makes.

You look at society and say "we could be better" by showing ordinary people doing great things in realistic circumstances. You don't say "we could be better" by using Superman as an example.

I don't think it was that bad, but it was the weakest part. That said, I'm going to give it more than one episode to declare the relationship stuff awful, because it took Studio 60 and Sports Night a while to find their footing in that regard.

I'll still be watching, but every negative review I've seen that what was slightly problematic in the pilot only gets worse as the show goes on.

In terms of Will as Sorkin's mouthpiece, he's obviously not when he's tossing out slurs, but when the music cues and every single context clue screams "this is important" is more than fair to assume that is Sorkin talking to us directly.

That said- I don't see so much of this as an assault on younger generations, it's a recognition that their ignorance is a result of the failing of modern news media. What's silly is that if you want to hold up the older generations as what's good, you also have to acknowledge that it's all their fault too.