The Newsroom S2

It's interesting the route the chose to blow up the Genoa story. I don't know how I feel about it though. The entire thing is made to seem credible(while we know it isn't) but having Dantana edit the tape that way? Then having him blow up with his anti-Obama speech? I feel like it's just not the way it shod have went.

On another note, would anyone be surprised to see a Jim/Taylor(Romney's now ex-pr staffer) love story emerge? They play off each other well, and another way to ruin Jim's life

Titan_sl said:

but having Dantana edit the tape that way?

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Which is funny because if you look carefully at the video when he shows the "raw footage" to the other guys, you can clearly see the basketball match frames jump. It was so obvious.

I hope they hire Taylor, I'd be surprised if she disappeared into the night after the dinner role she was given. Mac will say we need someone to do xyzblahblah and Jim will pipe up with the ideal candidate.

I wasn't paying attention enough but apparently the edit he made was obvious on the basketball game if you were looking at that instead of the mystery shadowy figure.

Interesting Charlie says he knew 5 minutes after the broadcast it was a pack of lies, hopefully we see next week what caused it to fall into the shitter so quickly. "Just" having the retired general say he never said that wouldn't refute the rest of the evidence so something heavy must occur and fast for Charlie to be that positive they were played.

Edit: ^^^ Posted while I was typing this

Bondurant_sl said:

Which is funny because if you look carefully at the video when he shows the "raw footage" to the other guys, you can clearly see the basketball match frames jump. It was so obvious.

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That's going to be how they get caught

Lenas_sl said:

That's going to be how they get caught

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Well after the Dantana burst out against Obama, it's clear he has serious neutrality issues.

I noticed and thought the same thing about the basketball game on the TV but to be honest they flash back and forth between cameras a lot in basketball. It would have been much more obvious if it went from the game to a commercial or something.

There is a shot clock going at the bottom right that should help. Anyway, I feel Dantana's outburst is interesting, because it is motivated by a feeling that is not totally illegitimate: the press being soft on Obama because he has a D next to his name. The outburst also comes because his patience ran out before, when he decided that manipulating the raw footage was a lie that was worth it if it allowed the truth to be aired. But even this lie, this terrible gamble, was not enough for Charlie & Co. (who understand they are threading on a thin layer of ice on the surface of a lake of nitroglycerin).

That being said: the trip home with him and Maggie in the car when he was not sure if he could doctor the footage or not must have been fun... "Is it a slam dunk?""Yeah... probably... I was so focused on the levels that I am not sure. I'll have to check it by myself in the editing room when we arrive...""Dude seriously?" Convenient ellipsis!

Szlia_sl said:

There is a shot clock going at the bottom right that should help. Anyway, I feel Dantana's outburst is interesting, because it is motivated by a feeling that is not totally illegitimate: the press being soft on Obama because he has a D next to his name.

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I'm from Europe, is this really a thing in USA ? Like, press is going hard on Republicans but are soft whenever some Democrat is on the spot ? I know about FoxNews being known as biased towards GOP, I'm wondering about the "other" medias. Is there some "FoxNews for Democrats" around ?

Bondurant_sl said:

I'm from Europe, is this really a thing in USA ? Like, press is going hard on Republicans but are soft whenever some Democrat is on the spot ? I know about FoxNews being known as biased towards GOP, I'm wondering about the "other" medias. Is there some "FoxNews for Democrats" around ?

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MSNBC of the most part

Let's not turn this thread into the political thread 2.0, but there is very little doubt that if a republican president had Obama's record as far as drone strikes, whistle blower prosecution, mass scale spying and other similar niceties, the outrage would be on a whole other scale.

I wasn't getting political, I was answering the gentleman's question good sir. I tend to watch the shitshow that is CNN for giggles and Erin Burnett.

They handled that way better than I was expecting. Definitely did not see the lawyers being for Dantana.

I'm really curious as to how they will handle Benghazi though, seeing as how that wasn't even a year ago... Is the timeline going to quick? They are going to run out of shit to fake news about soon

I think this season has been some pretty good television so far. Tonight was the kind of show that Sorkin writes so well. It's a tense building pathos with a wholly unrealistic payoff appealing to our sense of decency and justice. It's the very traditional plot structure with our protagonists struggling through adversity only to be saved by a deus ex machina of people doing the right thing in spite of their better judgments. It is cathartic storytelling done very well.

I look forward to next week where it will all go off the rails again and that driving pathos slips into tiring bathos as Sorkin miserably tries to get out of his own way.

I think I watch this show just to rag on the show. The build up to the flawed show was reminiscent of the Walking Dead spending an entire season looking for Sophia. However, the execution was superior in The Newsroom. I found the breadcrumbs regarding the shot clock incongruent, repetitious, and heavy handed. MacKenzie could have easily discovered the editing without holding the audience's hand to make the same conclusion. I also found it hard to believe that Charlie would fire the son of a highly valued informant. The infraction seemed minor and he could have been easily demoted or moved to the mail room without jeopardizing his access to information. Admittedly, that does presuppose that Charlie knew who the kid was, but based on the recognition of the kid it seemed like an apparent relationship. The informant plotting his revenge was an amusing diversion. Lastly, Leona's reaction to the scandal was preposterous. From being so concerned with ratings and the direction of the show to being conveniently high when the crew tenders their resignation, it just seemed like a radical departure. When she comes down, I will be disappointed if she does not change her attitude.

That said, I enjoyed the ride, but the series requires significant suspension of disbelief.

The ratings never was an issue for Leona, it was the official reason she would be able to use to fire Will, the officious reason being him pissing in her political cheerios.

and the direction of the show. I suppose I could have ordered it better. Then again, Reese is directly involved with ratings.