The Newsroom [HBO - Spoilers]

I feel like they never get their teeth properly into serious issues. It seems like they will, it's all going very well and then it just ends abruptly.Like last years Operation Genoa. It was a great storyline but it felt like they never properly brought it home. There were too many loose ends just alluded to rather than tied up.

Actually the whole thing feels a bit like it's written by someone who has never made tv before and is still stumbling in the dark as to how a story ark should play out over individual episodes and over a series.

I'll still watch it though and like it...and still be frustrated by it.

That was pretty good.

I'm sure the people of reddit absolutely loved their portrayal. :P

Was a bit mixed on the new episode. I like that the legacy of Genoa is still there and isn't being brushed over.

Have mixed feelings over episode one if I'm honest. I lost interest in some parts of the show abd felt like it was dragging on a little. Very solid finish though. Looking forward to how Sorkin brings it all to a close.

I think they've fixed a lot of what was wrong with this show by now. Unfortunately it's too late. It's still a bit smug though. I'd still prefer it if they concentrated on fictitious news stories. It struck me that I felt sorry for the families of some of the victims while watching. It's a year and a half on and I'm sure if anyone connected to a victim watched this episode it would have brought everything back. I really think concentrating on real stories was the biggest mistake Sorkin made. That being said, I'm enjoying Maggie now. I still want to slap the group collectively during production meetings but it's vastly improved. Neil's stupidity finally got him into trouble but at least he's not gormless and annoying anymore. Maggie is being given something useful to do now. I like how her story has started. Sloane as always is just fantastic. Her arc was the highlight of the episode. Mac is still annoying. Delighted not to be seeming much more of her. At this point the best thing I could say is that I wish she just got them out on screen. Her rack is the best part of the character and It's being criminally ignored! I think if Sorkin had started like this day 1 the show would be facing into a full third season. The real problem is that the opening is wonderfully grave and important and it's only now that the peopel on screen are starting to match the premise set by the intro!

Much better episode this week. I starting to think that this is going to feel like a very unfinished end to Newsroom. Series can be based and run for 5 series on what we just saw in E02. Very interested to see how this continues.

errlloyd wrote: »

My only question, if Leona owns 45 percent, and the twins own 45 percent, then only 10 percent is publicly traded. For one company to easily buy 60 percent of the publicly trades shares seems a bit ludicrous.

They bought a 6% stake - enough to give them a controlling interest.

errlloyd wrote: »

Yeah as another poster said, it can't work that way. 45% is in a trust, Leona has 45% and presumably 10% is in play. I'm nit picking, but I think it is lazy writing. Plus, if I was Leona and there were 10% public traded shares, I'd have been trying to get them for years.

For a publicly traded company its unusual for one party to be in possession of 45% and not have to make a bid, even stranger for two separate entities to have 90% between them.

Also, Leona said the company was worth £60 billion, her 45% would be worth $27 billion, with that amount of stock as collateral, I don't see the big deal in raising 4 bills from the market.

den87 wrote: »

I have season one on DVD at home, is it worth a watch? Another message board I read does nothing but slate every episode

If you like Sorkin's other stuff, odds are you'll probably like this too. It's preachy like a lot of his stuff, but when it's good, it's really good.

I gave up on this show due to its incredulously boring love angle in the previous seasons. Is there any hint of that this season?

Every year people hated on The Newsroom because that was the thing to do (didn't it invent - or at least make mainstream - the term 'hate-watching'?), but kept watching and eventually came around by the end of each series.

Now that there's only a few left, I think people are starting to realise that they'll actually miss it.

I've been in from the start (and this thread will back me up on that - I'm not just going full hipster here). The show has had its flaws during its run but did well to set out its stall early, establish characters that you may not recognise immediately but still connected with, and build decent, news-based storylines that gripped you in spite of itself while always remembering to stay light. It's been idealistic, it's been loud, it's been utopian, it's been preachy at times, but it's human and has something charming about it. Not in spite of the above points, but because of the above points. Here we have a guy (Sorkin) making the show he wants to make regardless of its spot on the pop culture charts. We've had actors who are all-in with the project and bringing something unique and unflinching to each role. And we've had interesting, if arguable, takes on popular news stories and the media coverage surrounding them along the way.

Personally, I don't need a TV show to reflect my views on the world to enjoy it. I'm confident enough to watch a show that clearly has a one-sided agenda and decipher the rights and wrongs of the points its raising myself. I don't watch TV shows for validation, I watch it to be stimulated. To be challenged. And yes The Newsroom has been challenging to watch at times, but is that a bad thing? I lose interest in a show if I feel it's trying to win me over with populist views. Calling out the Internet and coming down on the side of cable TV as a bastion for integrity in journalism certainly isn't the latter in 2014. His points are debatable, and what's the problem with having that debate afterwards as long as the core material is entertaining?

Instead people pushed away from The Newsroom because Sorkin didn't say what they wanted him to say about the world, when that should've never been the point to begin with. Now he's in full 'eff you mode' with this series and no doubt out to show the world how good it could've been before walking away from it all. We didn't understand The Newsroom, or judge it for what it was (instead judging for what we wanted it to be), while it was here. And in a few weeks it'll be gone and we can have no complaints. If we didn't like it all this time anyway, what's the problem? Only, turns out, we did. We didn't deserve The Newsroom.