Unpopular Entertainment Opinions • Page 81

The Newsroom was so bad it was good.

 

Olivia Munn is fantastic as Sloan Sabbith

 

The term "prestige TV" has lost meaning because the overall quality of shows has improved so much. When the Sopranos revolutionized what it meant to make dramatic television, television had a reputation of being trash. Nowadays, famous actors take major television shows, not just when their career is tanking, and famous filmmakers like Scorsese and Fincher work on or create shows. In many ways, television dramas have replaced the mid-budget drama films for adults.

 

I haven't seen the Newsroom, but the two scenes I have seen are painfully awful. The famous one is Jeff Daniels yelling about how America isn't the greatest, which I see middle-aged moms share on Facebook at least once a month, but this one I saw more recently and the taste still lingers.

 

Most of my dislike for Sorkin is because of who he is as a person and how he implements so much of that in his work. WW being his best show isn’t really up for debate, but totally agree that it pushed a lot of really frustrating ideas about politics to the public consciousness that still resonate today. I can’t even count how many terrible thinkpieces have been posted in the politics thread written by people with WW in their bios.

 

But America sucks

 

Absolutely. It’s pretty heartening to see a superlative lose meaning because of an increase in quality and availability and not the other way around. The effect that rise has had on film is less fun of course, because you’re totally right that the interest has shifted pretty sharply.

 

yeah but his argument is a conservative / reactionary one, that America was awesome before and we’ve just lost our way. It’s literally MAGA lol

 

The overall quality of dramas have improved but tbh there’s really only a handful of shows that I think deserve to even be in the same conversation with great films. A lot of “prestige” shows just try to mimic the aesthetics of shows like Sopranos/Mad Men/Breaking Bad but end up being really shallow, and for a film that would just make for an otherwise average film, but with the length of a whole series that could turn it from “average” to “mostly bad”

 

I still like A Few Good Men but this scene was over the top

 

I think that’s exactly the kind of example of how the term has lost meaning. Lots of shows have the budget and knowledge of past successes to use the tropes associated with being “prestige” while being generally awful, but the quality of shows in general has increased so much that newer shows can exist in a different sphere that IS up to that quality while not really following the old patterns of what high-level TV meant. There are also a lot more examples now outside of the straight drama genre that do that kind of great work, so something just trying use the old playbook will look even more cookie cutter in comparison.

 

i dont know why i liked newsroom... but it was my favorite show when it was on.

 

Probably because it's a good show

 

If literally every episode of The Newsroom would have been like that plane Bin Laden death scene then it would have been the greatest show ever.

 

"Greatest" in the more literal sense that doesn't also mean "best," absolutely. It would be an absolutely stunning accomplishment

 

It would put The Room to shame for greatest bad art ever

 

BRB just gonna Stan for my opposite of prestige tv

 

I have no idea what this is

 

Oh Seth, I love you so.

 

All my great trashy novelas tbh. Like yes I can watch Chernobyl or the Wire or whatever and love it but like at the end of the day I'm also a sucker for the good old "I've been trapped in a dungeon all this time!" Plot twist

 

The Sopranos may be the greatest show ever but if you guys are sleeping/hating on The 100 then youre a bunch of dorks that are missing out on the best garbage ever made.

 

Srsly ur fave show wishes it had the twists of El internado which I should rewatch if it's still on Netflix!!

 

The internet told me that’s pronounced “the hundred” and finding that out shook me to the core.

 

Also can't forget

 

Watch it