Informal critical thoughts on The Newsroom pilot.

Yes, there is comic value in this 7-minute super-cut of oft-repeated phrases in the work of Aaron Sorkin.  But it also highlights just how damn entertaining his shows are and how much credit should go to the various actors of The West Wing, Sports Night, and the disappointing but not awful Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip.  And come what may, The Newsroom is 'okay Sorkin'.  It's not great, but it is relentlessly entertaining.    On just viewing the pilot, I wish the supporting cast didn't seem so heavily made up (thus far) of somewhat similar-looking young white men.  And the undercurrent of Sorkin's passive-aggressive sexism rears its ugly head in several unnecessary ways, be it Jeff Daniel's opening speech opining about the good old days when 'Men were men!' or an entire first half where most of the female characters almost exclusively talk about relationship issues.  And while the show once again taps into the excitement of seeing professionals excelling and putting quality of work over other concerns, it reminds us again that Sorkin's world is a fantasy, a utopia, which makes it hard to watch in times such as these.

A situation oddly similar to the current Community debacle.

After this weekend, with show creator Dan Harmon fired from Community by Sony Television and with much of writing staff exiting, one wonders why NBC bothered to renew the show at all.  The abbreviated 13-episode renewal was clearly meant to be a sort of 'we'll give you time to wrap up' olive branch extended towards 30 Rock and Fringe, but the last episode of this season served as such a fitting series finale that the show as we know it could arguably be done.  And that's a good thing in light of this news.  Come what may, the things that made Community special generally came from the mind of Mr. Harmon and at least some of the departing writers, of course aided by what appears to be a fully-returning cast.  So if the fourth and presumably final season of Community, without the behind-the-scenes people who made it worthwhile, ends up being lackluster and/or a shell of its former self, then we should be grateful that the Greendale gang saw fit to so explicitly tie up the show several days ago.  Point being, if the fourth season of Community is terrible, we can just pretend it never happened, or at least that it existed in some alternate timeline ("darkest timeline" perhaps?).  If this all seems familiar, it's because the pattern followed by Community was also set forth in the late 1990s by, of all things, an afternoon animated action drama.  Whatever Dan Harmon is feeling right now, I'm sure Greg Weisman is quite sympathetic.

Review: Moneyball (2011) is a light, intelligent baseball drama that doesn't over-inflate its importance or historical significance.

Moneyball
2011
133 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

The greatest strength of Moneyball is arguably also its greatest weakness, at least in terms of mainstream appeal and would-be Oscar love.  It is a film adaptation of the Michael Lewis book which chronicles how Oakland A's manager Billy Beane (played in a near-flawless movie star turn by Brad Pitt) used Peter Brand's (Jonah Hill) groundbreaking statistical analysis to build a winning team out of low-cost players that were considered borderline useless by the bigger and richer teams.  That's the movie in a nutshell.  What is most refreshing about the picture is that it simply accepts that it is a small drama about one baseball team and how they achieved one successful season back in 2002. Moneyball is, give or take a few needless detours into Beane's family life, primarily about the game of baseball.  It's about how two people changed how the game was played by trying a different strategy that would allow poorer teams to compete against the likes of the New York Yankees.  If you are a fan of the game, a fan of statistical analysis, and/or a Brad Pitt fan, you'll more than get your money's worth. But the film makes little effort to appease casual viewers or those who don't already have an interest in its subject matter.  Like Gettysburg or Miracle, it is a procedural drama about its specific subject matter.  If you don't like baseball, then what you are even doing reading this review?   

Must-Watch: Aaron Sorkin on 30 Rock

I don't know what it is about fifth seasons, but getting to season five often seems to creatively recharge long-running shows (Homicide: Life on the Street, Gilmore Girls, Law and Order, 30 Rock, 24, etc). Point being, 30 Rock is having one of its strongest seasons yet.

Scott Mendelson