Getting back with Sorkin
I rang in the new year rekindling my relationship with Aaron Sorkin. I saw Charlie Wilson's War. Two things happened: I've decided that without a doubt Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the best actor out there and that despite our problems, I'm ready to go back to Aaron Sorkin.
We hit it off at first sight. I started watching The West Wing in the middle of the first season. I loved it. Then there was the Second Season -- with the amazing opening and the best Christmas episode in the history of TV and then that closing MS story arc. I went into NYU full of Sorkin love, which I then pushed onto Laurie and Steph.
But then the third season was a bit lack luster -- not that it didn't have some great episodes. And the fourth season, also not nearly as good. Then Sorkin left the show, and the quality REALLY plummeted. I drifted by, not much thinking of Sorkin and finding new writing deities. (Chekhov being the most important of those.) During this time, I went to see a production of A Few Good Men at Raven Theatre, and I remembered how much I loved Sorkin.
Then last year he came back on the air with a new TV show - Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. And instead of being the comeback kid of greatness -- I wanted to throttle him. The love stories were beyond pathetic. If Bradley Whitford acted like that to me, I wouldn't melt, I would get a restraining order. The dialogue was still crisp, and still unmistakably Sorkin. But I really couldn't give a damn about the characters. I figured this was an inevitable parting of the ways.
But then I saw Charlie Wilson's War this New Year's Eve -- and my love is back. But it is with reservations. He isn't the end all and be all of writers for me anymore. But I can appreciate that he can do one thing and he does that one thing very well. And that is big story telling on a personal level.
So now I've netflixed Sports Night, and we're taking it one episode at a time.
We hit it off at first sight. I started watching The West Wing in the middle of the first season. I loved it. Then there was the Second Season -- with the amazing opening and the best Christmas episode in the history of TV and then that closing MS story arc. I went into NYU full of Sorkin love, which I then pushed onto Laurie and Steph.
But then the third season was a bit lack luster -- not that it didn't have some great episodes. And the fourth season, also not nearly as good. Then Sorkin left the show, and the quality REALLY plummeted. I drifted by, not much thinking of Sorkin and finding new writing deities. (Chekhov being the most important of those.) During this time, I went to see a production of A Few Good Men at Raven Theatre, and I remembered how much I loved Sorkin.
Then last year he came back on the air with a new TV show - Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. And instead of being the comeback kid of greatness -- I wanted to throttle him. The love stories were beyond pathetic. If Bradley Whitford acted like that to me, I wouldn't melt, I would get a restraining order. The dialogue was still crisp, and still unmistakably Sorkin. But I really couldn't give a damn about the characters. I figured this was an inevitable parting of the ways.
But then I saw Charlie Wilson's War this New Year's Eve -- and my love is back. But it is with reservations. He isn't the end all and be all of writers for me anymore. But I can appreciate that he can do one thing and he does that one thing very well. And that is big story telling on a personal level.
So now I've netflixed Sports Night, and we're taking it one episode at a time.