"Current" Political Dramas

If only the script had been edited this heavily.

Political Animals and The Newsroom, two dramas currently airing that are rooted in the recent past.

Okay, pilots are difficult. I try my hardest not to judge a show by its pilot. But I won't be watching any more episodes of Political Animals, so I'm going to judge.

PA revolves around a female Secretary of State whose ex-husband used to be President...but she's from Illinois. Okay, phew. For a minute there, I thought this idea was a smidge biographical.

Besides a small lacking in originality, PA breaks my number one screenwriting commandment: show, don't tell. In the first scene, the Secretery of State to-be gives a televised speech as a Presidential candidate. Each of her family members steps onto the stage one at a time, and a reporter reads us a bio. This felt like a trip down the lazy river waterslide of screenwriting. In the next scene the SoS's mother refers to one of her grandsons as a "homo" which blew what could've been a fun reveal later on. PA spells everything out for us before we meet anyone, and the few reveals later on are lame.

Also, all of the scenes feel too long. So much dialogue without saying anything. Ugh. In the only enjoyable part of the show, the SoS gets out politicked by her ex-hubby, which was a nice twist. However, this satisfaction is short-lived as she promptly gives a feminist pep talk inspired by elephants. I love elephants, but this was offensive.

Looks like we both feel the same way about the show.

I made it through two episodes of The Newsroom before deciding that my time could be better spent doing just about anything, including daydreaming.

Wait, what? We're going to go back in time and Newsroom is going to tell me how the news should have been reported? Are you freaking kidding me? I don't need anyone preaching to me, even if I'm in the choir.

The two female characters are both the same character: Crazy. The same kind of emotionally unbalanced, insecure, I-need-a-man crazy. No, thank you. I can't even start on the romance they are setting up with Alison Pill. It's unbearable. (I know Olivia Munn is in the show as well, but being that she was in one scene in the 2nd episode and then referred to as Victoria Secret and then vehemently defended for her Ivy League degree, I'm already bored).

The Newsroom also suffers from a lack of show, don't tell. In the first two episodes we see Jeff Daniels have a public outburst that makes him quite likeable. Then we hear a bunch of characters saying how unlikeable he is. And then more and more negative mumblings and Emily Mortimer bending over backwards trying to verbally convince everyone he's not a dick. 6ty78ui76yt5rf4e34er5 t6wq2s5werfcgtvl,uiliu8vybhbhtrs. Hello! Sorry, I just fell asleep on my keyboard for a moment.

Arguing over whether or not someone is a dick is not compelling television. And, at this point, all we have seen of Jeff Daniels is him being refreshingly honest. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel, but I'm more inclined to feel how I've been shown how to feel rather than how I've been told how to feel.

In The Social Network, we know exactly how we're supposed to feel about Mark Zuckerberg from the first scene. We know he's smart, we know he's dickish and angry. Nobody needs to tell us a thing about him, he already showed us in a fun, riveting verbal whirlwind. I wish The Newsroom had been executed more along the same lines. While the show definitely has the verbal whirlwind going on, the breezes come from all directions, seemingly not knowing which direction to blow.