Sometimes I have ideas which I’m not sure whether or not to post here. It’s true that this space is really mostly for me, but I like for the things I post to at least be interesting to other people (other people being the small circle of friends who I know read the site). I had one of those moments tonight.
My relationship with TV is kind of an odd thing. On the one hand, I have this oddly personal and emotional connection to the TV shows I like. I get the feeling it’s a bit atypical (and probably a bit comical at times *grin*). On the other hand, I get a weird feeling occasionally and decide that I need to make a new post that’s very similar to a post on my old web log. 🙂
I just got done binging a season of a TV show by probably my favorite TV creator: Aaron Sorkin. The show I was watching is The Newsroom. His most famous show is The West Wing, but he was also the writer/creator a couple other shows that are favorites of mine: Sports Night and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The West Wing actually flowed out of the movie The American President.
I happened to think that Sorkin’s shows are actually quite like Swearingen’s songs.
Funny, though, I think Sorkin’s shows are probably considered somewhat intellectual, while Swearingen’s songs are probably seen as fairly “bubble gum”. For me, Sorkin’s shows are the ultimate TV “guilty pleasure”. 🙂
Like a Swearingen song, a Sorkin show/movie isn’t very hard to navigate. Like all my favorites, his shows are all structured as narrative dramas with highly developed characters. One “standard premise” he keeps returning to is the TV program itself, so many of his shows are very “meta”.
I have to say, though, that (in general) real people only talk like his characters occasionally. More times than I would like to admit, I need to “rewind” what I’m watching to fully digest all the character dialogue, though.
Hi. My name’s Jeff, and I’m addicted to TV shows written by Aaron Sorkin. *grin*