Been thinking about it this morning and I can't wait to watch this again.
What stood out:
1. Unregulated, profanity-laden Sorkin dialogue is a goddamned joy to witness. While I can understand the monologues getting a bit indulgent for some, you have to love the little character moments and rapid-fire exchanges when there's no degree of PC to consider. Loved when Sam Waterston jumped down the throat of the younger producer guy, Don. It's sad to me that this show had to be on HBO after the impassioned explanation of why it's better to be on network TV found in Studio 60; but I'm glad to see he's taking full advantage of it.
2. The token, main "tough love best friendship" being between Jeff Daniels and Sam Waterston is a fucking gold mine.
3. Alison Pill has some serious chops. I hope her character is as prominent as I feel the pilot points to. Didn't expect her to stand out so much (only know her from Scott Pilgrim). Sorkin's always been very solid at scripting natural chemistry, too "Bam - cupid!"
4. I thought Olivia Munn was supposed to be in this. Can't say I minded that she didn't show up :-/
I really dug the little "what did everyone else cover?" beat during the denouement. Jeff Daniels looks like he's gonna have a lot of fun with this.
I wa just really bewildered with how incoherent the universe of the show is. It all brings up so many questions, chiefly, what kind of man was Will before his tirade? I don't mean talk about it, I want to actually see it so the show can even justifiably say its part of his character because, holy shit, this guy is in no way some soft ball Jay Leno type. He was angry in every scene except for the end. Everyone seemed to feel like this was normal as well. And why were they cool with it? if his tirade was supposed to be so out of character for his public personal how are so few people even about damage control?
As to the bold: you will, undoubtedly, in well-crafted flashbacks. Count on it.
As to the rest, it seemed clear to me that his staff wasn't surprised by his attitude in that he had always been kind of an asshole to them, despite his public persona being the likable Leno-archetype. You didn't get to see a single softball-interview that his "old" style supposedly relied on. As to them being cool with it, all but 5 or so staff members were totally jumping ship...
Basically my biggest problems with the show boil down to the world building having the coherency of a fucking dream. Everything exists in a vacuum, or even a vacuum of a vacuum when you look at how his first show back didn't address his tirade at all. There are just so many holes and things skipped over for the sake of just getting the show to the place where Sorkin can do a revisionist shtick where he can yell at people he's angry at that the whole thing feels like a first draft. There were things I enjoyed, some rapid fire dialogue moments, but they almost all existed outside of the vacuum that is What This Show is About, you know? I'll keep watching to see how much more this world comes apart but right now this ship has got a lot of holes it needs to plug before it goes anywhere but the bottom of the ocean.
I'm not surprised that he didn't address his tirade on-air as:
1) The rant did not happen on his show, it was a public forum
2) As a hard-news anchor he isn't expected to comment on his personal life during broadcasts
3) There was legitimate breaking news to cover for the length of the show
About the "vacuum": If it's anything like the West Wing, the show exists in an alternate timeline where events from real life still transpire but the chronology is skewed, and fictional events take place as well that can be stand-ins for real news stories but transpire differently. The rules and conventions of the world will become clearer over time (i.e. the Election Cycle schedule in the West Wing universe).
Man, I really hope this finds an audience. Even if this thread is filled with complaints from beginning to end, just having something this legitimately high-caliber on TV again to talk about is worthwhile.
