Aaron Sorkin, The Newsroom and Michelangelo's David

I've recently decided to stop reading reviews of The Newsroom, HBO's Aaron Sorkin-scripted drama that is currently in the middle of its second season. The simple reason for this is that I seem to be watching a different show from the one reviewed by most critics; episodes that I enjoy, that consistently make me laugh and intrigue me with their plots and character work, are routinely eviscerated by critics whose work I like and respect.

This isn't to say I'm right and they're wrong, or to claim that history will vindicate The Newsroom. There's a perfectly reasonable chance that, soon after the show comes to an end, we'll all view it as the ridiculous nonsense its critics argue it is. But even if my own oft-expressed admiration for Sorkin's past work biases me to an extent that I can't see the reality in front of me, the fact remains that I'm frequently baffled by what I read from TV critics.

I don't mean to say that the show's critics have no substantive complaints with the show; they do, revolving around issues of gender and race, characterization, plotting and the insufferability of just about every main character.

I find some of these complaints dramatically overstated (Dev Patel's Neal, for example, is not nearly the fool the show's critics accuse Sorkin of portraying him as), some of them reasonable (the complaints over gender) and some of them incomplete (the characters are quite insufferable, but they're also called on it frequently and suffer consequences for their arrogance).

Still, my differences with most observers over The Newsroom go beyond differences of opinion regarding specific characters and plot points. In fact, this gulf is, to my mind, remarkably illustrative of an important philosophical difference between the way I watch TV and the ways most critics do. It is a clash of approaches that not only goes a long way toward explaining how I can truly enjoy The Newsroom while so many dislike the show, it also says much about the elevated location in which I place Sorkin in my personal pantheon of great artists, certainly as compared to those who actually think and write about TV for a living.

Because it seems apparent that Sorkin's stock with TV critics is at the lowest point it has ever been. Certainly, Sorkin's reputation has fallen dramatically since his earliest ventures into television; SportsNight was a critical darling, if a commercial flop, while The West Wing was critically praised, commercially successful and showered with awards.

Much of this decline in the critical evaluation of Sorkin's work can fairly be attributed to an actual decline in Sorkin's work; Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, while often castigated with a passion that far exceeds what is justified by the show's sins, was too-often a mess, and The Newsroom, while far better than Studio 60, is certainly a lesser work, albeit one I greatly enjoy.

But even broader portraits of Sorkin, ones that take into account the earlier two shows, are often not kind to him. Watching an Aaron Sorkin drama is often looked at as the television equivalent of eating whipped cream straight from the aerosol canister; fun, and not without its many pleasures, but ultimately an empty experience, one that should be replaced with a far heartier diet.

That Sports Night and The West Wing weren't initially regarded in such a fashion is where the nub of the issue lies. What has changed since those shows debuted (1998 for Sports Night, 1999 for The West Wing) is the landscape of television, and what we view as quality TV drama.

Since The West Wing had its heyday, we've seen the complete (or near-complete) runs of many shows that are cited in arguments that we live in a new Golden Age of television. That list includes The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, Rome, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and more.

These shows set standards for unique and skillful storytelling. And all had at their centers complex, difficult protagonists, men who weren't just tempted by their worst demons, but often sought them out. These were torn and tormented characters, and their internal dramas were often even more compelling than the events swirling around them.

For critics who have come of age with this dynamic, Sorkin's work, even previously well-regarded programs like The West Wing, can't help but retrospectively suffer. It is an anti-heroic age, and Aaron Sorkin keeps writing heroes.

Compared to Al Swearengen, Don Draper, Tony Soprano and Walter White, Jed Bartlett, to many critics, will always look quaint, at best, and hilariously simplistic at worst.

We all value different things in our entertainment. When it comes to television, some people like great acting performances. Others prefer production values or atmosphere. Like most of those who think and write too much about television, my biases are for writing.

Where I differ from many in this bias is how I define “writing.” Quality television writing is often defined by skillful character work, or vibrant world-building or intricate, well-structured plots and narratives.

I'm in favor of all those things, of course. No one is against them.

But what I value, what I most hold dear in the TV I consume, is language itself. For lack of a better way of phrasing it, I have a word-centric view of writing. And this explains much, if not all, of my regard for Sorkin; the star of a Sorkin drama isn't Martin Sheen or Peter Krause or Jeff Daniels, it's Sorkin's words. This bothers many who believe Sorkin's writing is obnoxiously insisting upon your attention and utterly unrealistic. By contrast, it has always captured me.

To demonstrate exactly how this differs from many of the critics I quite respect, it is illuminating to look at a review of The Newsroom's season premiere. The review, written by Todd VanDerWerff of The AV Club, nods at a few areas of praise, but generally falls on the scathing side; at one point VanDerWerff says the show is “beautiful poison.”

At the end of the review, in a section for miscellaneous notes, VanDerWerff says, “Sorkin still has a way with words, and there are passages of dialogue here that are mesmerizing in their structure and rhythm. I just wish they had something to say beyond, 'Agree with me! I am right!'”

Put another way, in a review evaluating the quality of an episode's writing, VanDerWerff believes “a way with words” is so unimportant as to merit a dismissive, dashed off note.

The AV Club obviously isn't an entirely representative entity; it has a particular style and set of preferences. And Sorkin is about as popular as chlamydia with the site's readership and commentariat (what's the difference between chlamydia and an Aaron Sorkin monologue? With the right medication chlamydia will eventually end). But the site is a respected and valuable resource, not to mention one of my favorite on the Internet.

And I don't single out this review and this reviewer for any special opprobrium. VanDerWerff is a prolific, passionate critic whose insights on television are to be greatly valued. Instead, I note it simply because the attitude expressed in that one line is quite emblematic of the dynamic I identified earlier.

Even Sorkin's sharpest critics acknowledge his skill as a writer; that is to say, they acknowledge his skill as a crafter of prose and dialogue. But for those who dislike The Newsroom and dismiss The West Wing, Sorkin's snappy dialogue, clever phrasing, well-crafted jokes and eloquent speeches are something akin to a bowl of chocolate sprinkles. It's all fine as accents, as something used to bring out deeper, more important and substantive stuff, but consumed on their own they're just meaningless.

And that's where I part company. Those words of Sorkin's, those wonderful, forceful words, are worth the watching themselves. When we argue that the beauty of the prose is largely irrelevant compared to the depths of the characters or the subtlety of thematic developments, we lose sight of a crucial element of great art.

Two comparisons always come to mind when considering this point; one reasonable, the other ridiculous.

Shakespeare is the more reasonable comparison, which should demonstrate exactly how ridiculous the other is. It is true that there is much to love in Shakespeare beyond the beauty of the words. Certain plays have excellent character work; the title character and his wife in MacBeth, for instance, and Hamlet's internal torment. And some of these plays have crisp, tense, dramatically stuffed plots; again, MacBeth is an excellent example.

But it's long been recognized that the plots of Shakespeare's plays, where not taken straight from history or stolen wholesale from other, long-forgotten works, often rely on absurd coincidences and unrealistic behavior patterns. And for every great character in Shakespearean drama there is a villain who will turn to the audience and say, “I'm evil because I like being evil.”

And yet...and yet little of this matters. Shakespeare's words echo across time and oceans because of their beauty and eloquence, because of their ingenuity and wit. It's hardly an issue that these words are often put in the mouths of stock characters and used in the service of propelling forward ridiculous plots.

Speaking of ridiculous, that other comparison....let me acknowledge here that this is an absurd attempt to bring in a vastly different kind of work in a vastly different medium. However, when thinking of Sorkin's writing and how it affects me, I can't help but consider Michelangelo's justly beloved David.

There is little sense in looking at the David that one is looking at an actual human being; the head, hands and feet are all disproportionately massive, and the sculpture boasts Michelangelo's usual unrealistic musculature. In fact, “the David: the actual human body::Sorkin dialogue:actual human dialogue” isn't a bad little analogy.

There's also little attempt in the sculpture to identify the man as David himself. Oh, he's holding a slingshot, but it's not prominently displayed, and if you removed it from the sculpture few would notice or complain (but try and use a chisel to prove this theory and the Italian police get so worked up...). As such, there's no story in the sculpture, no narrative or conflict, as we can't really draw on our established memories of the David and Goliath battle.

To look at the David, then, is to stare at a grossly unrealistic portrayal of a human being doing nothing. And yet we understand when we look at him that we are engaged in something sublime and amazing; it is an atheist feeling as if he is in the presence of the divine.

A man carved from cold stone a figure of such power and beauty as to survive the centuries. The David is nothing but beauty for beauty's sake, artistic power that serves no greater purpose than to remind us of what human hands are capable of. And we adore it, and rightly so.

It's what I think of when I watch an Aaron Sorkin drama. Critics listen to the grandiloquent speeches his characters deliver and find them unrealistic and unnecessary; they hear the patter of the dialogue and complain of the way it undermines characters. They observe the jokes, recognize the skill involved in their crafting, and dismiss them as irrelevant asides that deserve little consideration in evaluating the work as a whole.

That is fine and fair. We all have our preferences in art. We all have our priorities. This is not and never can be a question of right or wrong.

But I see the same speeches and I hear the same dialogue and I observe the same jokes, and I am struck by the eloquence and power of the words involved. It is all a reminder of the heights to which our prose can travel, and like the David, it is a reminder of what we are capable of. When a Sorkin line is deployed in service of inspiration, it is inspiring. When it is deployed in the service of humor, it makes me laugh, which is, perhaps, an even greater accomplishment.

Language has value, considered on its own. Words have value, considered on their own. And Aaron Sorkin's words do more for my enjoyment of television than most deep, tormented characters and well-structured, well-crafted plots.

Take, to use the most famous example, the scene below from The West Wing's extraordinary season two finale, “Two Cathederals"; it is my favorite scene in my favorite hour of television:

When evaluated by the standard of basic human behavior, this is patently absurd. There is no recognizable human being, no matter how eloquent or educated or erudite, who would curse God in Latin in the National Cathedral. If word leaked out that Barack Obama used a dead language in the National Cathedral to castigate God, the House Judiciary Committee would convene a hearing to discuss the question of whether the President was the anti-Christ.

And yet there is something exceptionally powerful and moving about this scene, even going beyond Martin Shen's bravura performance. We are carried past disbelief at the unrealistic behavior by the power of Sorkin's prose.

Bizarrely, I sometimes think about how the cathedral scene would be played if it was handled in the style of The Americans, FX's outstanding, critically acclaimed show about Soviet spies living in an American suburb. 

The Americans is very much about all the words left unsaid, the speeches unspoken, the emotions unexpressed (until Margo Martindale and Keri Russell sit in a car together, in which case “on the nose” is the order of the day).

This is a recipe for much critical praise, and quite a lot of it is justified. So, obviously, The Americans' version of the cathedral scene doesn't involve Jed Bartlett monologuing in Latin. It probably revolves around Martin Sheen stubbing out the cigarette on the floor of the National Cathedral, then sitting in tense silence for 30 seconds while he considers the implications of his decision.

That would undoubtedly be more “realistic” and more believable, and it would offer a great deal of character insight while moving the plot forward in a much more subtle way, calling back to an earlier flashback where a younger Jed had talked with his father about putting out cigarettes on a church floor.

But what that version of the scene gains in realism, believability and subtlety it loses in power and beauty. It loses that element of the spectacular, the conspicuous ambition for grandeur that, in Sorkin's hands, is as moving as it is out of style.

This is not to say that The West Wing, for instance, is just quips and eloquence. There is plenty of exceptional character work and well-tuned narrative drama in that show, which is why it's an all-time great program. By contrast, The Newsroom leans heavily on the strength of Sorkin's dialogue and his humor; it entertains consistently, but rarely reaches great heights (season one's “Amen” perhaps coming closest to those levels).

But a way with words is enough.