HBO orders Aaron Sorkin drama about cable news
Oscar-winning writer returns to his "Sports Night" roots
Aaron Sorkin.
HBO has ordered Aaron Sorkin's untitled drama series about cable news to series, premiere date TBD.
The project features an impressive cast, including Jeff Daniels as the anchor, Emily Mortimer as his new producer, Alison Pill, Olivia Munn and Dev Patel as newsroom staffers and Sam Waterston as the wise boss. (Looking at this from a distance, the Sorkin shorthand seems as follows: Daniels is Casey, Mortimer is Dana, Pill and/or Munn is Natalie, Patel Jeremy, and Waterston a hybrid of Isaac and Leo.)
When it became clear that Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" wasn't working - in part, but not entirely, because the show-within-the-show never seemed nearly as funny as the characters insisted it was - a sentiment arose that viewers wish he had just taken the "Sports Night" approach to life at a cable news channel, rather than sketch comedy. Now he is, and with the backing of HBO plus the authority that comes with winning an Oscar for writing "The Social Network."
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September 8, 2011 at 2:10PM EST Reply to CommentI cannot wait for this :)
I loved Studio 60.
I think I never had a problem with the show within a show being funny because I don't find SNL that funny and that's what the show is based of of so it made sense to me .
asdf I completely agree with this. The criticisms of Studio 60 not being realistic were stupid. People thought The West Wing was a realistic depiction of the White House?
September 8, 2011 at 8:15PM ESTsepinwall Whether or not someone is a good president or presidential aide is an abstract concept that can be fudged if need be. Bartlet gave inspiring speeches, and that's all we really needed to know. But we can easily tell what is and isn't funny, and when you have a show where the characters wander around talking about what a brilliant comedy they're making, and their comedy very clearly is NOT brilliant, that becomes a huge problem.
September 8, 2011 at 8:36PM ESTOr, at least, it became one of many huge problems for some of us.
PopCandy Yeah, I feel the same way as Amy and ASDF, I never thought that the comedy show was brilliant, but I could care less about it, because I usually don't laugh much watching these kinds of shows anyway. So I watched Studio 60 just for the relationships, and was very pleased. Of course it was not a perfect series, but for me it was very good.
September 9, 2011 at 1:56AM ESTbybrandy
September 8, 2011 at 2:12PM EST Reply to CommentI thought this happened months ago. Was he just shopping it months ago?
sepinwall HBO ordered and produced the pilot a while back. This is them now saying that they want it to be a series.
September 8, 2011 at 2:27PM ESTGraham
September 8, 2011 at 2:28PM EST Reply to CommentThis is an outrage!!! Weren't we all promised that Olivia Munn's career would be over once Perfect Couples was canceled?
dave@mailinator.com Agreed. Her presence alone may make the show unwatchable
September 11, 2011 at 9:22PM ESTSaveFarris
September 8, 2011 at 2:42PM EST Reply to CommentMuch as I love Sorkin, he always does better when he's got someone at or above his pay grade who can at least threaten to drop the hammer on him if he gets too Sorkin-y. (the ABC suits on SportsNight, John Wells on TWW, Fincher on Social Network). When he's doing his own thing (Studio60), it gets ugly fast. And given HBO's track record of hands-off approaches, this might not be the best fit.
Geoff
September 8, 2011 at 2:42PM EST Reply to CommentWhat was missing from Sports Night and Studio 60?
F-bombs.
Welcome to HBO Aaron.
Zach L Don't forget boobs!
September 8, 2011 at 3:01PM ESTstan
September 8, 2011 at 2:53PM EST Reply to CommentI was excited until I read "Olivia Munn".
Rev. Slappy
September 8, 2011 at 2:53PM EST Reply to CommentI'm really looking forward to this. I think it's cool that Sorkin doesn't seem to have that attitude that writing for television is beneath writing for film. A great idea for a series is not the same thing as a great idea for the screen. Also, I'd like to see him adapt his play The Farnsworth Invention as a movie, although it's very similar to The Social Network.
OnlyMe
September 8, 2011 at 3:10PM EST Reply to CommentOne of the many (very many) problems with Studio 60 was that _Sorkin_ wasn't interested in what happened backstage at a sketch comedy show.
From the very second week, his characters would go off on long political screeds instead of talking about their jobs - because he didn't seem to want to write about their jobs, he seemed to prefer writing about politics. (Also, the episodes and plotlines that got the most criticism were not the "inside baseball" episodes. For the most part, those were kind of ok. The episodes that were truly awful were ones that had politics shoved where it didn't belong episodes). People at a cable news show at least have a reason to talk about the issues of the day, which should make things easier for him to work in the topics he wants to discuss.
But Studio 60 was such a spectacular failure, I can't help wondering how they're going to keep from making many of the same mistakes on what could be a very similar show.
apearlma I think Studio 60 also had the big problem that they kept telling the audience that the show was hysterically funny with Matthew Perry as the writer, but never even really trying to show it until one of the final episodes. Compare with 30 Rock, where they've never told the audience whether or not anyone finds it funny. You can simply make educated guesses based on snippets.
September 8, 2011 at 4:17PM ESTI think Sorkin will do a lot better with cable news - he can write a Tea Party politician who visits the show rather than talk about something that happened that the Tea Party did that he disagrees with...
Brian
September 8, 2011 at 4:37PM EST Reply to CommentIMO, the first 5 seasons of West Wing were the best thing ever put on television, so, yea, I'm pretty excited about this news.
The Mutt
September 8, 2011 at 5:06PM EST Reply to CommentI just can't picture Jeff Daniels being able to handle Sorkin dialog.
Leroy
September 8, 2011 at 5:40PM EST Reply to CommentWhat's so wrong with Olivia Munn? She would be right at home at a real cable news station.
John Thanks to that random Jezebel article a few years back when she was on The Daily Show, the internet became convinced that she is only successful because she's hot. She has henceforth become the cypher for all "pretty-not-funny" internet screeds.
September 8, 2011 at 6:26PM ESTPersonally I've never seen her work with material that was anything other than "hot girl says words", so I guess we'll all find out if she's good once this show premieres. I personally don't mind.
odessasteps If nothing else, she should be complimented for working the "hot nerd girl" gimmick from co-host of a nerd TV show to The Daily Show to movies to TV show to now an HBO show.
September 8, 2011 at 7:13PM ESTPopCandy She was good on Perfect Couples. And it was a little more than hot girls says words.
September 9, 2011 at 2:00AM ESTodessasteps Admitedly, never saw an episode. I had grown tired of her schtick by the time she left G4, so never followed her to any of her later projects and most reviews I saw on Perfect Couples (including Alan's I think) were middling at best. Like I said, she should be praised for finding an exploitable niche and having a still-rising career.
September 9, 2011 at 10:48AM ESTodessasteps
September 8, 2011 at 7:15PM EST Reply to CommentOn a totally unrelated matter, can i say how annoying these pop up ads are on the site? In the course of reading this article and posting a response, I've had that ad for Up All Night (no sign of Gilbert Gottfried or Rhonda Shear yet) pop up three times.
Susanc You have to click "skip" and it goes away. I left the site I was so disgusted and couldn't get rid of it. Then I went back and saw the "skip". You have to get to it quickly or the popup follows you around forever. Very annoying and not fair to the writers like Alan. I had to leave his blog before I found the "skip". There's no X in the popup so you have to outrace it.
September 9, 2011 at 2:57AM ESTodessasteps I have no problem sitting through commercials before getting to content, but ads that pop up after a certain point on a site or the ones that start video automatically are, to me, the worst offenders.
September 9, 2011 at 10:50AM ESTDanny I've had problems for the past week trying to get to Alan's blog. I keep getting the message that a script is running that is slowing down the computer. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the skip pop-up, which might be blocked by my Hosts file. Lately, I've had to use Firefox to read Alan's blog. Today, I'm able to read it via IE, but I had to go a backdoor route and go to The Fien Print first and then slide over to Alan's blog. The only quirk today is that there is a very faint search block that can't be clicked on...it just stays right in the middle of the text as I scroll down. Annoying to say the least.
September 10, 2011 at 10:28AM ESTHannah Lee Danny, I've had a very similar problem. Off and on I've been unable to load Alan's page, or it loads once and then freezes. The Fien Print hasn't had the same problem. Usually I go from Alan's to Dan's page, but this week, I've had to do the opposite on several occasions. It's made the site annoying at times and unusable at others.
September 10, 2011 at 1:12PM ESTLisa I'm having the same problem Danny. I'm able to get to Alan's blog at home with almost no problem.(although it sometimes freezes my computer for a few seconds). But at work I'm unable to get to it at all.
September 11, 2011 at 10:06PM ESTDouble down
September 8, 2011 at 10:53PM EST Reply to CommentI was far more interested in this when Marisa Tomei was going to star in it.
Jim Shea
September 9, 2011 at 12:12AM EST Reply to CommentWhile it paled beside "Sports Night" and the first few seasons of "The West Wing", I liked much of "Studio 60". I do wish they'd kept the actual skits mostly off-screen, though. ("To Catch a Predator" with Santa almost made up for it....)
Meanwhile, two "bold" predictions about the HBO show:
1) Joshua Malina will turn up at some point (preferably as a recurring character);
2) The last episode of the first season will be titled, "What Kind of Day Has It Been".
Ann Adler 3) One of the characters will realize his father's been having an affair for 27 years and it will affect his work.
September 9, 2011 at 1:23AM ESTSaveFarris 4) One of the characters suffers from substance abuse.
September 9, 2011 at 9:02AM EST5) The FOX News Network will not be held in high regard.
6) Two people will walk from the office area to the stage while in conversation even though neither person has any reason to walk from the office to the stage.
David Sanders 5.An on air personality will be a jerk/stupid and the backstage people will make fun of him/her.
September 10, 2011 at 10:11PM ESTDavid Sanders I meant 7)
September 10, 2011 at 10:12PM ESTOmar 8. Someone will say, "this isn't news camp, I don't care if everyone doesn't get to play!"
September 17, 2011 at 11:38AM ESTDave
September 9, 2011 at 2:04PM EST Reply to CommentI'm hopeful but a little scared. I was a huge West Wing fan, so I love Sorkin at his best, but he sure lays it on thick sometimes. Studio 60 was uncomfortable to watch. You felt, this is supposed to be GREAT; why is it so forced? And after watching a few Sports Night episodes on Netflix, I wanted to throw the remote at the TV -- all the characters speechifying for minutes on end, all seemingly just mouthpieces for Sorkin (and poor Josh Malina's character was such an unbelievable doofus). Social Network was a return to form, but as Alan hints, this looks too much like a rehash of Sports Night/Studio 60 to be confident that it will be better.
Miles Ellison
September 9, 2011 at 8:12PM EST Reply to CommentThis might not end well. Olivia Munn? Really?
forg
September 9, 2011 at 9:10PM EST Reply to CommentThe first scene [the speech] of Studio 60's pilot is very fantastic, classic TV
Barry Lyons
September 10, 2011 at 8:59AM EST Reply to CommentI loved Studio 60, and if the show had premiered on HBO or Showtime we'd still be watching it today. As for the sketches within the show, "The Nicholas Cage Show" WAS funny, and I enjoyed Sarah Paulson's Juliet Lewis as the host on "Meet the Press."
Hannah Lee
September 10, 2011 at 1:24PM EST Reply to CommentI'm cautiously optimistic about this show. If it avoids the S60 pitfalls (for me that means limiting the OTT constant non-sensical specifying and no celebrating creepy stalker behavior) it could be wonderful.
Alan, I agree with your character assessment for this compared to Sorkin's prior series. What concerns me is that there doesn't appear to be a Danny (there's always a Danny). Part of me hopes that Munn's character will get a ticket to Mandyville.
Hannah Lee That's "OTT constant non-sensical speechifying" not "specifying"
September 10, 2011 at 1:25PM ESTjukeofurl
September 10, 2011 at 10:26PM EST Reply to CommentI'd watch anything by Sorkin---along with some other commenters --- I had no problem enjoying STUDIO 60. Compared to current hyped shows on network i.e. MODERN FAMILY which is slick cloying gunk. AND pay channel stuff like The WALKING DEAD which is a maudlin soap
w/zombies (ironic since zombies don't bathe), STUDIO 60 required an above average IQ. Aaron Sorkin is not God. But until God smites hack TV writing, Sorkin will do. No doubt this new production will join WEST WING, The WIRE, DEADWOOD, CURB, MAD MEN, ROME & BREAKING BAD, as provocatively written TV.
jukeofurl
September 10, 2011 at 10:28PM EST Reply to CommentAgreed --- I enjoyed viewing the process from the inside. Even if the inside wasn't 100% real. SFW...