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It is hard to find any good press related to HBO's Newsroom, which starts tonight (June 24). Here is how HBO is selling its new story:
From the mind of Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and screenwriter of The Social Network and Moneyball, comes The Newsroom, a behind-the-scenes look at the people who make a nightly cable-news program. Focusing on a network anchor (played by Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), the newsroom staff (John Gallagher, Jr., Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel) and their boss (Sam Waterston), the series tracks their quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles-not to mention their own personal entanglements.
And here is Emily Nussbaum in The New Yorker:
Sorkin’s shows are the type that people who never watch TV are always
claiming are better than anything else on TV. The shows’ air of defiant
intellectual superiority is rarely backed up by what’s inside—all those
Wagnerian rants, fingers poked in chests, palms slammed on desks, and so
on. In fact, “The Newsroom” treats the audience as though we were
extremely stupid. Characters describe events we’ve just witnessed. When a
cast member gets a shtick (like an obsession with Bigfoot), he delivers
it over and over. In episode four, there’s a flashback to episode
three. In a recent interview, Sorkin spoke patronizingly of cop shows,
but his Socratic flirtations are frequently just as formulaic, right
down to the magical “Ask twice!” technique.
I was a fan of the fast-paced West Wing, but also suffered through a few episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, so I know Mr. Sorkin can produce high quality drama and plain dreck. I also look forward to a TV version of the 1976 movie Network, and maybe Jeff Daniels can pull it off. Here is a clip showing Daniels starting it all that provides some sense of the passion to follow. My only concern is that, unlike West Wing, Newsroom will only be revisiting old headlines so he can provide a more politically correct pin. Hence, instead of heady case studies, we will get criticism of past media coverage. Looking back is often dangerous since it is 20/20 and can get very preachy. I wish HBO success with this series because I have little confidence in most of today's media. We need to move away from partisan networks to solid reporting. I just wish the leaders on this campaign were the real media players. Last I checked, HBO did not do the nightly news. Now there's an idea!
Tonight (June 17) you can catch the start of TNT's Falling Skies second season premiere. This two-hour episode will resolve last seasons cliff-hanger when history professor Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) goes aboard the alien ship. Last season was a riveting tale of a rag-tag group of civilians, military-types, and criminals trying to reclaim their small part of New England after the Earth had been occupied by an alien race that so far seems bent on using child labor. No this is not a Chinese occupation with children making Apple parts. But the intent of this extraterrestrial alien race is still unclear.
Tom Mason and his three sons form the center (and heart) of the resistance group, though the suffering Captain Weaver (Will Patton), potential girlfriend pediatrician Anne Glass (Moon Bloodgood), and criminal mastermind John Pope (Colin Cunningham) all add to the drama and fun. Of course, the enemy also has a pretty good cast, including the spider-like Skitters, armored robot Mechs, and the recently introduced Overlords.
TNT and Steven Spielberg have created an entertaining adventure that keeps you at the edge of your seat as you await the next alien attack. As I have noted earlier, the story itself brings to mind War of the Worlds combined with the scrappy resistance of townsfolk seen in TV's Jericho. I do not think Wyle's talents have always been well used over the years, but here he finds a solid and believable role as a concerned father and geeky professor forced to do things he would not normally want to do (a bit like his role in the The Librarian series, which was actually pretty fun as well).
Comingsoon.net interviewed Wyle on his acting choices. What is interesting is that he went back to ER rather than The Librarian:
Comingsoon.net: This is a very different character that what you've played in the past. Was that a big draw for taking the role?
Wyle: Sure, that's a big part of picking and choosing work, assuming
you get to pick and choose work. More often than not, it's less of a
grand design and more about the opportunities that are presented to you.
But I was looking to do a character that was very different from Dr.
John Carter, but still looking to find one that had as vast an arc ahead
of him as that one did. The pilot episode of "E.R." was his first day
on the job in the hospital, so he had the longest road to travel
professionally. Similarly, Tom Mason, as an academic character, had the
farthest road to travel to become a military leader. That seemed like an
interesting challenge, plus it's a physically demanding and dynamic
character, which I hadn't really done a lot of. It's also a totally new
genre as well.
And should you want to learn more about tonight's program, you can watch Wil Wheaton's interview with the cast following the episode.
Update: Good news! Falling Skies has been renewed for a third season, according to Deadline. That gives the 2nd Mass a fighting chance.
If you haven't seen it yet, you will. AT&T has been blanketing the television and print media with ads for its new series Daybreak. I cannot remember the last time I saw a corporate sponsor actually place its own program on the Internet. The story is about the son of a dead theoretical physicist who left behind the secrets of his work. And, surprisingly, everyone now wants to use that work to their own ends. Created by Tim Kring, who also created Fox's Touch, the production values of the short episodes are pretty good (the first episode is about 9 minutes). In fact, the storyline is related to Touch. Needless to say, but I will say it anyway, the show also highlights AT&T products and services. Three of the five episodes are already available, with the last airing (or streaming) on June 28th. Is this a new wave of programming and product tie-ins? Time will tell.
I am happy to read that Showtime's Nurse Jackie has been picked up for a fifth season. I have been a fan of Edie Falco since HBO's Oz, where she played Officer Diane Whittlesey (though she will always be best remembered as Carmela on HBO's The Sopranos).
As Nurse Jackie, Falco has continued to show her range of talents as a tough-as-nails urban nurse, loving mom, fickle wife, pain-killer addict, and sometime friend. And from the sounds of it, Falco and Nurse Jackie have a few things in common, including substance addition. In at Time Out magazine interview, Falco discussed her past alcoholism:
The day I stopped, a very specific day in my life where I thought, Oh,
I’m done; this is something that is having me rather than me having it.
It was the morning after an absolutely awful night when I woke up in an
awful state, and some very calm realization came over me that I’m never
going to do this again. And that was literally 20 years ago.
What is interesting is that it was her real-life friend, Paul Schulze, who plays the occassional boyfriend pharmacist Eddie Walzer on Nurse Jackie, took her to her first AA meeting. Real life can be just as strange as fiction (or as good). And Edie has much more to share about her past and present, including a new theater role that she discusses in a Daily Beast piece. She is one interesting lady as well as a terrific actress.
Season two of Denmark's Borgen is back on LinkTV. This fast-paced drama about a Danish prime minister has been a great success in Europe and now it is our chance to enjoy it. Here is LinkTV's brief summary of the new season:
The second season returns two years into Birgitte Nyborg's
term as Denmark's first female Prime Minister. Politically, she has
succeeded in earning the respect of her allies as well as her enemies,
but tensions between parties are mounting, and Birgitte is forced to
make more and more shaky compromises. The growing pressure causes her to
doubt whether she can maintain both her position and her integrity.
The broadcast of the season's first episode started on Sunday (June 3) and will remain available for two weeks. New episodes will be available weekly. Both of the seasons are now available on DVD as well if you have a multi-region DVD player. Fortunately, Denmark will be producing at least one more season of this show to be shown in 2013. While they say it will be the final season, I hope they reconsider.
Now that Denmark has brought us terrific programs such as Borgen and The Killing (remade by AMC in the United States), can we really ask for one more? It seems we can. We now await The Bridge (Bron), recently shown in the UK. Like The Killing, this third program also involves an unsolved murder. However, this time it will take the resources of two nations, Denmark and Sweden, to solve this crime since it happened on a bridge separating the two countries (hence the name). Here is the BBC's short summary of episode one of The Bridge, which will hopefully hit our shores in the near future:
A woman is found murdered in the middle of Oresund Bridge, exactly on
the border between Sweden and Denmark. Saga Noren from Malmo CID and
Martin Rohde from the Copenhagen police department are called to the
scene. What at first looks like one murder turns out to be two. The
bodies have been brutally cut off at the waist and joined together - the
torso of a high-profile Swedish politician and the lower body of a
Danish prostitute. The Swedish and Danish police need to cooperate in a
race against the clock, desperately searching for a murderer determined
to go beyond all moral limits to get his message across.
And here is The Guardian's quick take on the new program: "It wasn't as gripping as The Killing, but it was handsomely
mounted, well acted and reassuringly deprived of natural light and
colour. Expect a run on leather trousers."
Season one of The Bridge is also available on DVD. Season two will begin production later this year and be broadcast in 2013, so you have plenty of time to catch up.
Tonight A&E will try its hand at the western lawman with Longmire. Set in present day Wyoming, we have the story of a quiet lawman with a heart of gold and a pocket of lead. Robert Taylor, playing the part of Sheriff Walt Longmire, actually comes from Australia, another country with an untamed center. He is joined by a number of promising characters, including deputy Victoria “Vic” Moretti (Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Gallactica) and his friend Henry Standing Bear (Diamond Phillips).
A bit older than Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, the Kentucky lawman in FX's Justified series, we find ourselves with another quiet lawman with a cowboy hat, a bit of a grudge, and no woman (in this case the wife passed away rather than went away, as was the case with Raylan). Too traditional in its aim? Maybe, but the trailers for the show are enough to convince me Sheriff Longmire will be a man worth watching.
The reviews also tell me A&E may be onto something. Nancy deWolf Smith in her Wall Street Journal piece Crime Solving, Wyoming-Style writes:
Did I say the setting makes a standard genre look new again, or old in a
new way? When the snow begins to fall in one scene, collecting on the
brim of Walt's hat, it's so realistic you can smell the storm in the
air. And the sight of Walt sitting next to a badly burned mare that's
lying in the hay, while he's praying an Indian prayer and thinking of a
lost love—the way that horse looks back at him is enough to make a grown
person cry.
And if you want to read ahead, you can take a look at Craig Johnson's As the Crow Flies, the source of the A&E series. Craig Johnson lives in Ucross, Wyoming, and is the recipient of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for
fiction, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award for fiction, the
Nouvel Observateur Prix du Roman Noir, and the Prix 813.
This Sunday, June 3, will see the return of MTV's Teen Wolf. This fast-paced teen drama took off last summer with a whole new generation of werewolves. If you are looking for obnoxious jocks, swooning girlfriends, and, oh yeah, periodic corpses, this is the show for you. While the start of the show was a little choppy in terms of plot lines and even some of the acting, the characters quickly pulled you in. The friendship between Scott (Tyler Posey) and his geeky friend Stiles (Dylan O'Brien) works and is a strong core to the entire show when other things are not working out so well. And the idea of Jackson (Colton Haynes), the tough jock, wanting to join the pack is a great portrayal of teenage tribes, even if Scott wants to be an army of one.
I am also looking forward to the June 28th return of Awkward, another high school show with heart. Jenna's (Ashley Rickards) adventures last year put this show at the top of everyone's must-see list. While the story-line is somewhat typical with a teenage girl caught between two beaus, Matty (actually being a Beau - Beau Mirchoff) and Jake (Brett Davern), and even includes some sulking, this is no Twilight. You will not find dripping romantic dialogue here, but rather wannabe hard-edged kids trying to find the landmines of youth while maintaining some modicum of pride.
With the failure of MTV's other young adult shows this past year, from Skins to I Just Want My Pants Back, it is good to see MTV had a few winners and it not afraid to try it again. In fact, a new show called Underemployed is currently being filmed in Chicago. Produced by Craig Wright (Six Feet Under and Lost), the series this time will focus on an older crowd in their 30s and 40s who are not doing so well in this economy. Some of the characters are based on Mr. Wright's real-life friends. Is this a sign that MTV is growing up and broadening at the waist? If so, it is only because that is where the audience is heading as well.
Update: One June 25, Zap2it reported that Awkward has been picked up for a third season. And most importantly, MTV will expand the new season from 10 shows to 20. Given the continued quality of this series, this is good news for everyone. However, all good things will come to an end, according to Awkward creator Lauren Iungerich:
I think Awkward is a 4 or 5 season show. I don't want to see them go to
college. It's this period of time, these friendships, these
relationships.
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