HBO's NewsRoom, which I am watching as a farce about inane self-satisfied twits making a terrible news show they think is great (see previous posts here, here, and here), had its most West Wingish episode to date this week. It actually re-used entire bits from the previous Aaron Sorkin show. Anchor Guy is prickly toward his bodyguard after a death threat -- just like CJ! He reluctantly sees a therapist who outwits him into revealing his feelings -- just like Josh! He reveals that his personality was shaped by his physically abusive father -- just like President Bartlett!
Well, at least the show is actually acting like a real TV show, with the characters doing things and whatnot, even if those things do feel a little recycled. As I said from the start, the reason I'm bashing the show's attitude toward media and politics is because there was nothing else to like about the show. (And also, maybe a little bit, because of all the comments I see and hear about how brilliant the show's depiction of media and politics is. AAAAHHHH!!!)
The major story line this week concerning the spunky journos putting on their show involved bizarre Economics Babe, who is the latest upgrade in the Sorkin Inept Brainy Chick product line. Economics Babe is for some reason called upon to substitute host another show on the network, and since she is exceptionally inept, and devoid of self-esteem, she ends up committing an egregious journalistic, not to mention public-safety, sin on live air -- revealing an earlier off-the-record comment by the Japanese PR guy that the nuclear reactor problem is about to go to DEFCON RED ALERT PANIC AND RUN status.
This could have been an excellent opportunity to examine why journalists do not always report what they have learned -- a subject that many media consumers understandably find strange, frustrating, and perhaps elitist. Here, not so much. Economics Babe is briefly suspended by network news boss Sam Waterston -- who, I swear to God, has orchestrated the entire show-within-a-show as an elaborate scheme to set up one Jason Robards tap-the-desk moment before he dies. (If you don't know that reference, you have no business watching anything about journalism and politics; go watch All The President's Men and come back when you're finished.)
Where was I? Oh, yeah, Waterston briefly suspends Economics Babe, but then quickly figures out a cover story that will allow everybody to save face. There is recognition that this requires her as a journalist to tell a fib, but no concern by anybody that this also means that at this news network there are absolutely no consequences for an inexcusable lapse -- to the contrary, everyone is pleased and supportive of the train wreck pseudo-reporter.
Which is exactly as someone watching as I am would expect. Hey, we are the good guys, our little band of fight-the-power do-gooders, so our errors and misdeeds are in the name of good and light. Like the ethical lapses of Mac -- another Inept Brainy Chick -- exposed by a gossip magazine in last week's episode; or the endearing stupidity of Inept Not-Brainy Chick who, despite being constantly revealed as not knowing Georgia the country from Georgia the state, is entrusted to be a Serious Reporter for the show. We are all on the same team, after all, and will defend one another's obvious need to be removed from the staff -- until eventually, I assume, we will get to the episode in which they are finally forced to come to terms with the Stephen Glass-like trail of journalistic wreckage one of them has been hiding. It's fun to watch and guess which one it will be!
On another note, those of you who read last week's installment will be glad to hear that Sorkin outdid my expectations with the Anchor Guy Is A Republican gag. The staffers, doing research on their boss, are stunned to discover that... Anchor Guy is a registered Republican!!!
There's also a weird bit in which Anchor Guy goes overboard in beating up on the latest easy right-wing interview target -- an openly gay surrogate for notoriously anti-gay Ric Santorum. Unlike all the other conservatives who are unsympathetic victims of Anchor Guy's verbal abuse, this one has human emotion and is capable of responding forcefully and eloquently. To put it another way, Sorkin had to create a conservative with a perspective he finds defensible -- being gay -- unlike actual conservative perspectives of actual conservatives. In fact, Sorkin had to invent this character, because I'm pretty sure that Santorum didn't have any openly gay surrogates, and in fact I don't think that any GOP Presidential candidate other than Fred Kargan sent any openly gay surrogates to do national television interviews. So, to sum up, Sorkin needed, as a plot point (to illustrate Anchor Guy's need to get to a therapist), to create a straw man Republican foil who could be sympathetic and articulate, so he had to invent something that really does not and cannot exist, because he couldn't imagine any actual existing type of Republican being sympathetic and articulate.
In any event, it's good fun because while gay Santorum surrogate demands that Anchor Guy respect his humanity, the viewer can play "has Aaron Sorkin ever written a gay character?"