My wife said something to me today before she left for work: “Oooh, Newsroom is on tonight!” and “Stop leaving dishes in the sink, we have a dishwasher for a reason!” My wife works in the newsmedia. I’ve stopped trying to explain exactly what it is she does, because she wears several hats there, and unfortunately, none of them are fedoras with a card saying “Press” sticking out of the band of fabric on it. When it came to light that Aaron Sorkin was creating a show for HBO called “The Newsroom” that was billed as a fast paced, fictional, insider look at a news program, we were both intrigued, though I couldn’t help but wonder, will the show shoot itself in the foot by being in the “real” world?
For me, it’s Aaron Sorkin, writer of “A Few Good Men” and “The West Wing” (I haven’t seen Moneyball or The Social Network yet, so you get warmed over references from 8 years ago), so that promises a liberal slant, witty, fast dialogue conducted between two moderately attractive, mid 30s white people, wandering labyrinthinely through what I would’ve assumed was endless hallways in a building designed by MC Escher.
For my wife, it’s a chance to either love the accuracy of the Newsroom, or laugh at the ridiculousness of it. This is always the killing blow to a TV show in terms of suspension of disbelief. If you hold the position, or closest simulacrum to it in the real world, everything becomes a chance to pick nits at its accuracy. If you work as a court stenographer, and you watch the greatest hour long TV Drama ever produced for the Fox Network called “Verbatim”, about a court stenographer who is functionally illiterate, you’ll be upset by the way the actor playing the court stenographer conducts themselves in the courtroom – every last bit. You’ll be frustrated by the fact that the bailiff conducts himself more like Rusty from Wapner’s version of the people’s court than like a true officer of the court. You’ll be angry that the judge constantly gavels arguments, and that the attorneys never request permission to approach the witness. It will ruin your ability to enjoy the show. Any show set in New York City, where even the geography doesn’t make sense frustrates the hell out of me. If someone is in Times Square, and then ten minutes later, they are in Battery Park City, I’m out. This is why I love the opening credits to Louie, on FX. He gets off the subway at the West 4th street station, walks down West 3rd (the West 4th subway station has a set of stairs on West 3rd), stops at Ben’s Pizza, which is on W3rd and MacDougal, and then walks to the Comedy Cellar on MacDougal. It all makes total sense.
So, when it comes to the Newsroom, my wife spent a great deal of time pointing out what things are. For example, the traffic light news indicator that flashes the deepwater horizons story? Apparently real. However, “Yellow,” which is what the deepwater horizons story was originally categorized as, is generally used for stories like lottery winners and other non-essential news. Deepwater Horizons would’ve come across as fire engine red with lightning bolts.
In fact, Deepwater Horizons is actually the major plot point for the episode. Up until that point, including Jeff Daniels’ crazy expletive filled rant, everything had been some sort of one-off insinuation and hint at actual modern problems with our political discourse. Once it was firmly planted in reality, I started wondering about the plausibility of this show moving forward, given the limits of it existing in the real world.
For Aaron Sorkin’s other show that I’ve watched, The West Wing, it is a show based on our world, and our universe, but it is a Back to the Future-esque alternate reality. The show’s universe schisms from our own after the presidency of Richard Nixon. This leaves in tact our glory of the world wars, our shame of Vietnam, and the long national nightmare of the only President to resign from office. It leaves out the general malaise of the Carter Administration, not to mention the bumbling klutziness of the Ford administration, the Reagan years are omitted, as are Bush and Clinton. The writers took great pains to avoid references to things that happened during those eras. Ford never slipped and fell down Air Force One’s staircase (or tripped up it.)
This presented issues later on, as 9/11 never happened (which was right in the midst of the show hitting it’s golden age, creatively), though they did present a 42 minute screenplay, in which 9/11 is explicitly referenced, though it exists outside the canon of the show’s universe, which is explicitly referenced by Martin Sheen in the cold open to the show, talking directly to the audience. The show eventually weaved in terrorist like themes, and was able to create a similar existence, mostly because it had to. By that point, there wasn’t nearly as dark a theme to the show, because it reflected our society at the time. People threw eggs at George W. Bush’s motorcade on Inauguration day. If anyone threw anything at any President’s motorcade, egg or more nefarious, the secret service would’ve freaked out. The show became more about the issues of the post-9/11 America – national security and international diplomacy. However, it felt organic, because it was organic. The show was able to move in that direction of its own accord. It would’ve been weird if the show kept bopping along, not mentioning anything with regard to national security, instead focusing solely on Clinton-era things like White House impropriety and left/right size of government arguments.
Another show that is similar to this is 24. 24 started before September the 11th. Most of the 1st season was written prior to 9/11, and the show began in early November, 2001, obviously a few months after 9/11. The timeline of the show itself is supposed to be either 2001 or 2002. Obviously, the show makes no mention of 9/11, but in later seasons, Homeland Security is an office that exists, meaning that 9/11 happened, but the president at the time was not President Bush. Little is known about the past, nor is much known about the machinations that created the Department of Homeland Security. This is all kind of shadowy, nor is it central to the plot.
This is where The Newsroom may trip itself up. Since the Newsroom exists in our universe, and will be responding to real stories (or, so we believe – maybe we witnessed the schism of the two universes…) basically, it will be a member of the venerated 4th estate, and a major member, as well. I couldn’t really tell what ACN was in relation to our news networks. The new 10pm guy seemed to be an ideologue of some sort, be it right wing or left wing. Jeff Daniels, however, seemed to be some type of affable guy who didn’t want to ruffle feathers – almost a nightly news Anchor, like Peter Jennings or Brian Williams, maybe even a Tom Brokaw. His demeanor in the newsroom seems to feed from those Gawker posts from the Fox Mole about Bill O’Reilly, and there was something about him that seemed to scream O’Reilly to me. His quick, clipped manner of speech made me think of Keith Olbermann, if I closed my eyes. I guess he’s supposed to be everyone. The question of what type of network ACN is, is more along the lines of “how influential is it?” Obviously, it’s 24 hour, and it’s somewhat popular, because Jeff Daniels is “the Jay Leno” of hosts, bland, charming, and boring. So, if he’s popular, and the network is national, and 24 hours, and it is responding to real life stories, how is it going to DRIVE news believably? Deepwater Horizons is 2 years old. We know, more or less, what happened. If this is a real life universe, this show is going to need to be hard-hitting enough to prove to be more dramatic than real life, but bland enough to not affect history so much as to throw us off our current trajectory.
In our modern age, the newsmedia are both reporters and drivers of news. Fox News and MSNBC create pageviews and grab eyeballs by making sensationalist claims that get ratings. All over the first episode of “The Newsroom”, Jeff Daniels (his name is Will on the show, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t fly away home with Anna Paquin, her Academy Award for best supporting actress, and those geese) keeps talking about ratings. So does Emily Mortimer (she’s goose-less). So, those ratings mean people listening, and people listening means their coverage will affect the way other networks and other Americans view the news, meaning the newsmakers they are covering will respond. Just look at what happened with that jackass who interrupted President Obama during the Dream Act speech? He was the news himself, and everyone covered it. Fox does this all the time. So did Olbermann when he had a show. Rush and Ann Coulter make a living stirring the pot, getting people to respond (Rush had people calling him the leader of the Republican party after the 08 elections). So, if Emily and Jeff really want a show that will garner ratings and ask the hard-hitting questions, they are going to affect the news, and history.
This is similar to Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, explaining the theory of the pebbles and the boulder in LOST. For much of LOST, they talked about the temporal paradox. Everything that happened has already happened. Everyone kept trying to change the future, but by doing so in the past, everything they did would only reinforce the future, because the future had already happened – they and their memories were proof. Sayid even shot Ben Linus in an attempt to prevent his reign over the island. This ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy, however, as Ben was then brought to the Others’ camp, and became who he was. Davies/Faraday then explained that all their actions, up to that point, were like throwing pebbles in a stream. They existed in the stream, maybe changing things ever so slightly, but the stream kept flowing the same. A boulder, however, would change the path of the water, and the river – they needed a boulder to throw into history.
Because the Newsroom is reacting to the news the way it does, it is trying to be a pebble. This creates a kind of uncanny valley for me. I want to believe that the whole thing is real. I know it’s not, but I can suspend my disbelief for the technical nuts and bolts. It’s when I get up and look closely that it is falling apart for me. Obviously, I’m giving it more time, because, hey, I hung the fuck on with Rick and Shane and that ridiculousness of the Walking Dead for half of season 2 before it actually got good, and they finally killed that overly rapey, hyper violent, half sociopathic southern deputy sheriff, and now I’m getting my payoff because they introduced the samurai sword weilding zombie caretaker with the hoodie.
The uncanny valley is what makes incredibly lifelike things seem less lifelike than stick figures. Like this creepy ass robot:
or Tom Hanks in “The Polar Express”:
YOU HAVE NO SOUL, ANIMATED, MUSTACHIOED HANKS!!
No comments:
Post a Comment
I am rubber, and you are glue. Remember that when commenting.