There are, apparently, media folks who spend their Sundays hate-watching HBO’s abysmal (but cleverly titled!) newsroom drama The Newsroom. I can’t bring myself to do the same: last year’s premiere convinced me that futzing around with thumbscrews would be a better use of my time than watching the Sorkin-infused dreck.
I was content to just ignore the show. But then Gabriel Rossman introduced me to Dan Rather’s recaps. Which are written unironically. For Gawker. That’s right: Dan "What’s the Frequency Kenneth" Rather recaps a show about a pompous anchor of a TV news program for Snark Central and does so earnestly. Dreadfully, hopelessly earnestly.
I like to imagine the Gawker staff sitting there slack-jawed as they read the dishonest dinosaur’s take on the "downright fantastic" (his words!) HBO drama. I like to imagine them jonesing to snark, to tear down, to let loose the dogs of wit—kept in check only by fear. I like to imagine the ulcers eating away their stomach lining as they slowly realize that many, many people are reading Rather’s Blather on their preciously hip website.
Anyway. I still can’t bring myself to hate-watch Sorkin’s shit-sandwich of a show. Not even to hate-watch it. Those are precious hours of my life I can’t get back. But I can hate-read Dan Rather. Let’s start at the start:
The verdict's in on the season two premiere of HBO's The Newsroom, and if it isn't unanimous it ought to be.
So, the verdict’s in, but Dan Rather doesn’t know what the verdict is. He knows what it should be. But it’s in. Why doesn’t he just tell us what the verdict is?
This is a promising start to his recap.
It was good, very good, if not downright terrific (which I personally think it was).
This is an opinion piece, duder. You don’t need to give us The Range of Awesome for the episode in the interest of fairness, just your description of its awesomeness.
Most early reviews seem to say so, one way or another—some more straight out than others.
I question the utility of this sentence.
These include the reviews of some writers who last season were either picky, or even dismissive of, a show that started out strong and got better as it went along and was, by any objective analysis, one of the best dramas on television—if not the best of the lot, cable or standard broadcast.
This sentence is a train wreck. I defy you to diagram it. Messiness aside, it hits on a very interesting fact: that Dan Rather thinks there’s an objective analysis that will divine "the best dramas on television." BECAUSE SCIENCE OR SOMETHING. I want to skip ahead to another messy sentence:
Running through the hours of this series is a reminder that a free press—a truly independent, fiercely independent (when necessary) press—is the red-beating heart of democracy.
I’m curious to know when a "fiercely independent" press isn’t necessary in Rather’s mind. Might it … have something to do with who happens to be in power at any given time? Also: What is a "red-beating" heart? I assume he means "red, beating heart." But still. Unless! Maybe he’s esoterically trying to tell us that the press has a red-as-in-COMMUNIST!@!!1! "red-beating" heart.
I always knew it. Frigging commies.
One of the more difficult things to do in the wake of a successful first-season television series is to make the second season even better.
This is an interesting—terribly written, but interesting—sentence because it suggests that Dan Rather thinks that The Newsroom was a "successful" show. Allow me to correct that misperception: It was not. At all. It was critically panned and lightly watched (the season finale scared up just 2.3 million viewers). It won no awards of value. It was made the subject of fun on a regular basis.
Frankly, topping The Newsroom’s first season would not be a challenge because the first season was roundly hated by everyone who isn’t a self-centered, pompous, jackass of a newscaster who has been drummed out of the business but, due to his own self-regard, refuses to take the hint and quietly go away.
No wonder Mr. Blather finds the damn thing so entertaining.