The Newsroom Forum

I liked it, Sorkin's fast dialogue was fast and full of fun sarcasm as always. It seem they will be replacing the "walk and talk" with "everyone talk in the same room about the same thing the while the camera goes all over the place."

I'm interested to see where this series goes, character-wise. Although I am a little biased in favor since my major in college involved a lot of live news broadcasting, so knowing how tense being live can be added to my enjoyment.

For those who watched, what did you guys think?

I thought it was really fun to watch and I enjoyed every minute of it. I just hope every episode is that enjoyable.

I really enjoyed the episode, but before this show I would have said Aaron Sorkin is my favorite writer working in film and television, no contest. But when I watched this episode I went "Oh wow, this is Sorkin at his most Sorkiny, this is pure uncut Sorkin, and I think I prefer my Sorkin a little watered down because this is too much for me." Like I said, I liked it and look forward to where it will go, but I don't know, maybe it was just too fast for me and a little too much like his previous shows for me. But I will keep watching because I want to see where it goes.

@obscurefan: I felt the same way about Sorkin's writing style, especially in the beginning. His writing style is a lot closer to Sports Night than West Wing or the Social Network in this, but I still found it enjoyable.

I really liked the pilot, and it was especially nice to see that it kept Sorkin's lightheartedness and idealism in full swing, which I felt would be hampered by HBO's involvement. I'm not sure how good it will be week to week, especially considering it follows the real world (It's going to be forced to have a lot of slow news days), but they've definitely got my interest for a few weeks.

I'm refusing the temptation to watch this on youtube because I'm not looking to get obsessed with another HBO show and having to wait a couple of years to get the entire series

I'm just going to copy what I put on the Screened article and paste it here, if it's alright with you lot?

I liked it. (Live in the UK and, thanks to some workarounds, watched it on YouTube) Yeah; it speechifies (Sorkin show, par for the course so I knew what I was really getting myself in for) and the middle where MacKenzie basically delivered 7 straight monologues to Will in a rowreally dragged, but the dialogue was snappy ("Can you flirt?" "Yeah." "Show me your flirting skills." "...hi?"), the characters were great and I really like the twist that they're going to, essentially, fake report on real events. It's a good outlet for Sorkin's insane attention to detail (just started watching The West Wing, began on Season 2, and I can just tell he did his gorram research).

I also loved the complete non-reaction the staff had to the news alert. Maybe I'm just easy to please. Also, "Dickless! Not you, I'm coming to you in a minute!"

The cast already seem to have the Sorkin patter down; vital if this show is going to be any good. Emily Mortimer, Dev Patel, Jeff Bridges and Alison Pill, in particular (incidentally, it really makes me super ultra happy to see Alison Pill back on TV. In Treatment and Scott Pilgrim have sold me on this woman being a phenomenal actress and I firmly believe that she needs to put that talent to good use).

Does anyone else feel that Don is rather one-dimensional at the moment? His complete and total "I really couldn't give a toss" demeanor just seemed highly exaggerated. If this is meant to make us root for Maggie and Jim to get together then mission absolutely accomplished (I also really loved MacKenzie immediately trying to set Jim up with Maggie. That was a good joke), but it means that one of the characters is already a rather unlikable dick.

I could do without Sorkin's constant irrational hatred of the Internet and all forms of social media. It just comes off like a petulant child who doesn't like anyone saying any bad things about his piece of work which he insists is perfect in every single way because his mother said so and, thusly, their going to spend their entire adult life preaching to people about just how eeeeeeeeviiillll the Internet is... and the metaphor has gone off the rails.

Finally, I really don't like that twist at the end. It just doesn't really make much sense and it makes me wonder why she'd do it in the first place. In fact, why doesn't he remember her from there? In fact in fact, why didn't she just tell him? And why is she just carrying that notepad around from 3 weeks earlier? It just reeks of lazy writing, a twist for the sake of a twist, and Sorkin is usually better than that when it comes to plot writing.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed it and would like more now, please! Bring on July 10th for the UK premiere!

I thought it was a well done episode that got it's point across very quickly of what kinda of show it was going to be and who the main character was (at least I thought so). I will have to wait and see what is done in later episodes to come to a conclusion of what I think about it.

Watching the new episode and Olivia Munn is souring the show. She almost killed the Daily Show with her awful skits and that is probably the reason I can't stand her. I hope she only has a small role.

I loved it.

I'm an aspiring journalist myself, so it really appealed to me! - I loved how it could go from lengthy, emotional dialogues and disputes to a quick, fast paced environment in just minutes and the progression didn't feel unnatural at all. Jeff Daniels is such a great actor too!

The show's taken kind of a drop in quality for me. Particularly with the character of Neil. He was fine in the first two episodes but especially in the latest one his humor is just way to broad. It seems way out of place and is taking away from the more interesting parts of the show. Also we're getting less Mac, or at least it seems that way.

And dude, lay off the Coldplay.

OK, it's official, I fucking hate this show. Holy shit, what an awful hour of television. For starters, Rudy. What the hell is a description of the ending of Rudy doing in this show? Does someone want to remind Sorkin of tonal consistency? And the ending homage was not cute. And Neil's speech about how he's the same as Amen is some of the worst writing I've heard in awhile. And Amen. Holy shit. Anyone, literally anyone, could see every detail in that story coming a mile away. And Neil getting so enraged at Rush Limbaugh he punched the TV? That was really the moment where everything fell apart and I said "it's official, I fucking hate this show." Just top to bottom a terrible hour of TV. Between this and Girls it's been a pretty shit year for HBO show premieres.

My girlfriend just kinda killed the show for me when she said it is easy to seem hard hitting and insightful in hindsight when you are fake news reporter covering news stories from two years ago after most of the facts are out. They are really doing a disservice by not being somewhat more topical and taking a risk about being wrong about semi current news.

The shows enjoyment really boils down to how much you liked Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night and his liberal political views. It is like crack for me but it isn't for everyone.

This show really highlights what terrible actress Olivia Munn is. Just watch her struggle to keep up with Jeff Daniels or Emily Mortimer anytime she has a dramatic scene with them.