The Newsroom Season 2

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

This is the most amazing serious show in a very long time (first 3 seasons). Classy, timely, fascinating for thinkers and observers, perhaps idealists. It actually covers real news, too–news of the recent past.
The premise and plots are timely and it has a message that needed to be conveyed. I wonder if the younger generation cares much about the message, or maybe even understands the premise of the show. But for those of us who miss the real news, this is our show.
The characters are fascinating, even riveting. The characters are distinctly odd and un-alike, as real people are in most innovative (or fresh) companies. Odd personalities thrown together to make great things, odd things happen. The personal plots surrounding them are timeless, to keep up the emotional interest in the characters, and the actors chosen to play these roles are the prefect fit for the roles. Completely and utterly believable, so far. Unfortunately, the producer was promoted in the 3rd season and the owner changed. It’s nice for the glass ceiling and another media style, but probably a huge loss for the show and its original audience. We’ll find out.
Some of the story lines are absolutely heartbreaking, but they’re done through the eye of the objective media, staying true to the old news media premise and its hard core specialist personalities. I was torn a little about that, but I liked that the show was staying true to the news–it’s premise. And, there’s enough emotion to go around, especially for the thinking, news watching people the show was originally geared to.
If you like cutthroat, this series has a good deal of that and is probably moving further in that direction. (Snore.) It is a reflection of the real world, unfortunately. Personally, not interested in deeper cut throat or cat fights, but that’s just me. I prefer the news stories and the stories behind them, not feeding corporate greed.
I have to feel I’m part of something greater than myself as a viewer of any media. The Newsroom has me there, right now. Can’t wait for the next season, but my expectations have been lowered by the finales (2 of them in the 3rd season alone), and one exceptionally well done. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised in the 4th season, but true to real life, I think the news is already out of the picture and the audience has taken over. We’ll see.

– J. Vincent

Witty. Interesting. Well produced. Aaron Sorkin has a way with dialogue that is reminiscent of his “West Wing” days yet, unique; however, the obviously political slant tends to take away from the actual premise of the show instead of enhancing it, which makes it less than 5 stars in my opinion: The struggle of a once prominent news organization to balance relevancy with an ever volatile audience and maintaining their credibility. By turning a ratings juggernaught that plays keep up with the rest of the media into an actual television news gathering and reporting program (News Night with Will McAvoy) ACN (the CNN/Fox News type news agency) takes a leading role in striving for integrity with each story.

Jeff Daniels has been and still is a fantastic talent and he really shows his acting chops in The Newsroom. Olivia Munn is also outstanding; in my opinion she is a breakout star in this series. The entire cast as a whole work well together to create a memorable ensemble. Through Sorkin’s vision and storytelling, the cast and crew are able to create a believable, real life newsroom that projects the behind the scenes drama, tension and excitement of reporting national and world event in real-time. It’s interesting to revisit some of the past events from Sorkin’s personal ‘hindsight is 20/20’ perspective.

All of that, sprinkled with a little romance and some peeks into the personal lives of the characters through tangent stories (woven in simultaneously to actual past events) make the Newsroom a worthwhile program. If you have watched other Aaron Sorkin scripted television shows you know you have to pay attention as he tends to make quick references and pepper the dialogue with a lot of material and irreverent humor. I was sad to read that this show was cancelled but I look forward to Season 3 when it’s available on Prime!

– Patrick

The pace is frenetic, but not in a newsroom sort of way. More like it’s a stage production and the director just shouted, “Look busy!” Will McAvoy is positively plodding compared to the forced frantic behavior of the rest of the cast. Why “Mac” was so beloved by the staff is beyond me. I found her tiresome. I became weary of people creating problems only to be congratulated when they solved them. The thwarted romance between Will and Mac became irritating. Why would a supposedly excellent Executive Producer choose the pinnacle of a crisis to whine to Will “But what did the rest of your message say?” Will did it too. When the viewers think he’s pondering what to do with the news, he’s actually pouting about Mac having broken up with him 6 years ago. The stellar performance came from Sam Waterston. Except for the stupid things the script forced him to do and say, he was magnificent. I knew when he was in the scene, whatever else happened, his performance would save it. Oh God, why did I watch BOTH seasons? Because everyone else seemed to think highly of Newsroom and it won important awards and I wanted to see for myself. Well, I saw but I didn’t like it.

– Sunflower.

DVD Wholesale Main Features    

Actors: Various
Directors: Various
Format: Multiple Formats, AC-3, Box set, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled
Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital-Plus 2.0)
Subtitles: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
Number of discs: 3
Studio: HBO Studios
DVD Release Date: November 4, 2014