I’ve written previously about my connection with the Girls’ character Hannah. It is not a connection I made up – I have literally received phone calls and texts from many people after a given episode, so amazed are they by the connection. It’s not entirely flattering: she’s a chubby, semi-unemployed, self-important whiner. But neither is […]
I can finally exhale. The Newsroom season finale is everything I wanted it to be. Or at least it’s almost everything I wanted it to be and knowing as I do that Aaron Sorkin is but a human being I will take “almost everything” any day. The episode wraps up stories that needed to be […]
Ah for the sweet relief of the back half of a two-parter *sigh*. For every awkward “Surprise”, there is the legendary greatness of “Innocence” and the same is certainly true (but more stark) with “Tragedy Porn” and “Mock Debate”, the two episodes that make up “The Blackout”, The Newsroom‘s season one penultimate outing.* As much […]
“The Blackout, Part 1: Tragedy Porn” was one of the weakest Newsroom offerings in quite some time. Not because it was lazy (like one infamous subplot from “News Night 2.0“), overly sentimental (like parts of “5/1“), or mildly offensive (like various things, depending on your sensitivities, from Charlie calling Sloan “girl” to Will’s condescension towards […]
I’ve heard this episode maligned a little bit but I really think The Newsroom has very clearly found its footing. After the triumph that was “Bullies” last week, “5/1” found a way to hold on to that honesty while bringing back the funny Sorkin was trying too hard to incorporate early in the series. The […]
“Bullies” was the darkest Newsroom episode yet as Sorkin used an insomnia-prompted therapy session to explore a bit more of the darkness in his principal “hero”. The format is a winner, as we’d already learned from a pretty good Sports Night episode and a spectacular West Wing episode (season two’s “Noel”- one of television’s greatest […]
This week’s installment of The Newsroom was my favourite since the pilot. With a news story big enough to force intensity, Will and Mack set aside their monumental issues at least a little bit. They seem to have reached a point of understanding (punctuated by Mack’s episode-ending gesture and the warm hug Will wrapped her […]
The third episode of The Newsroom is essentially a six-month montage detailing how Will, Mackenzie and Co. covered the events leading up to the November 2010 mid-term elections (they downplayed the Times Square bomb, shouted down anti-gay arguments, and went after the Tea Party). That’s all juxtaposed with the introduction of Jane Fonda as the […]