wrod.

I wasn't paying much attention to the show, clearly, and only watched two episodes--I'm assuming they made it clear in the pilot that this is taking place in the past?

The other episode I saw was the Gabrielle Gifford one, and I...it was weird. There's a reason I can barely read books that incorporate traumatic real world events. I don't like going back there. And I didn't remember misreporting her death, so I thought they were changing it so she died in their universe to make more of a gun control point, and....

Yikes, it was rough.

BUT, I think with Sorkin, it is his framing of real life that gets me, not his ability to write real people, because...there aren't any in that episode.

oh no. she was totally reported as dead and then suddenly wasn't.

I like the show. I like the weaving of real life events into the storyline. of course, I'm also someone who is just now getting around to watching The West Wing.

I'm a journalism graduate...we love all that meta bullshit.

ita - yeah, they made it clear it was in the past. The big news event in the pilot was the Deepwater Horizon spill.

The gabby giffords episode was one I liked. The one that really made my eyes roll was the episode about killing bin laden. It was a big news day that day, but I never felt like it was the first moon landing, which was kind of how it played in the episode.

tiggy, it should be amusing for you to watch West Wing and see a bunch of the bits you just saw on Newsroom translated into the White House.

Also, as I said on Facebook, I think Newsroom could be improved by the additions of Toby Ziegler, Josh Lyman, C.J. Cregg, and eventually Will Bailey, to the ACN staff.

It was a big news day that day, but I never felt like it was the first moon landing, which was kind of how it played in the episode.

I kind of wish I'd watched that one, because from where I work, it was very similar to the moon landing in terms of how the on-camera talent was expected to cover it.

(The difference being that with the moon landing they had a set of timed events to report which were known in advance, and so interviews to fill gaps were scheduled. With bin Laden, nobody knew when Obama was going to finally speak so they just vamped for two hours.)

[edit: The big difference from a viewer perspective is that, again, the moon landing was a scheduled event so everyone knew in advance to turn on the TV. Whereas if you weren't already watching CSI or checking Twitter, it was pretty easy to miss Obama's speech. But as far as the network news was concerned, it was a Really Big Deal And Everyone Was Watching.]

Rutger Hauer cast in True Blood.

That has quite the air of inevitability to it.