The Sorkin Way
Vanity Fair profiles Aaron Sorkin and The Newsroom.
In the hands of a lesser creator, the gee-whiz set—not to mention the news itself—could dominate the show. But placing the series in the recent past makes the news a backdrop to the human story Sorkin wants to tell. “I like writing romantically and idealistically but still having one foot in the world we live in,” he said. “So a show that took place in a newsroom felt like all those things could live together. But I want to be very clear—we’re not doing the news, and the show isn’t about the news. It’s about the people who are doing the news.
Cross posted from http://bit.ly/JtUlWR
The Newsroom
A second trailer for The Newsroom. I had promised myself when this season of Mad Men ended that I’d stop watching TV shows in real-time. We’ll see.
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The First F-Bomb
Did you know the first time the word “fuck” was used on TV was during a Jefferson Airplane performance on the Dick Cavett Show? Here’s the story and video.
Cross posted from http://bit.ly/IDRy08
The Newsroom
Trailer for The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO thing.
Cross posted from http://bit.ly/HG583J
Batman Window Cameos
All of the window cameos from Batman. So great. [via]
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Doctor Who Series 7
The trailer for the upcoming season of Doctor Who.
Cross posted from http://bit.ly/GVmRWh
Essential Community
Community Should End
NBC was right to suspend Community. BLASPHEMY! Except that I think Fox was right to kill Arrested Development when it did (in retrospect), so maybe I’m just too close to see what’s clearly best. Still… ONE MORE SEASON!
Community was never built for the long haul. It may have borrowed its structure from the standard American sitcom, but it’s a different kind of show, one that values style and intellectual content over characters and emotional content. It spends a lot of time being everything else, but less time establishing what it is—you can only parody for so long. That doesn’t make it a failure. Community succeeded, just at a different goal.
Recovered Who
Two of the missing original Doctor Who episodes have been recovered.
Miscellaneous Best Of Lists
Other 2011 best-of lists: Best of Longform.org, the Atlantic’s best TV episodes, the New Yorker’s best and worst scandals, Paste’s best viral videos and RWW’s epic tech fails.
Famous People on Star Trek
Famous people you didn’t know were on Star Trek.
Colonel Potter
Colonel Potter died.
Paste Lists
More 2011 listings from Paste: Best songs, TV shows and comics.
Doctor Who Xmas
The trailer for this year’s Doctor Who xmas special.
