12 Years Ago, This Rotten HBO Show Got Tarantino Obsessed: ‘I Watched It 3 Times’
Don’t trust everything Rotten Tomatoes tells you.
By now, it has become commonplace for anyone looking for a new movie or TV show to watch to turn to aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb for the most relevant reviews and ratings. While these are generally very useful tools, in some cases they can be deceptive.
There are examples of stories that are highly rated by critics but hated by audiences, just as there are fan-favorite stories that are destroyed by critics. HBO's 2012 drama The Newsroom fits perfectly into the latter category.
Is The Newsroom Worth Watching?
Recommended by only 48% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes, The Newsroom is not the most successful of Aaron Sorokin's shows. After hits like Sports Night, Entourage and 30 Rock, the writer set out to create a show that would capture the hectic environment of a newsroom, but it wasn't greeted with the same excitement.
The three-season political drama was panned for taking itself too seriously, something no show wants to face. While there was a certain charm to the show, and the majority of viewers enjoyed the acting, the behavior and motivations of the characters dragged The Newsroom down. However, it manages to charm one very unexpected fan.
Speaking to Vulture in 2015, famed director Quentin Tarantino admitted that he didn't enjoy the one show that everyone was calling a new classic, True Detective, but that he was actually obsessed with another HBO series instead. Here's what he found so exciting about The Newsroom:
“The HBO show I loved was Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. That was the only show that I literally watched three times. I would watch it at seven o’clock on Sunday, when the new one would come on. Then after it was over, I’d watch it all over again. Then I would usually end up watching it once during the week, just so I could listen to the dialogue one more time.”
No matter how you feel about True Detective, The Newsroom is a TV show worthy of everyone's attention, and an 84% audience score for Season 1 on Rotten Tomatoes is a testament to that. Whether you come back for more, like Quentin Tarantino, or stick with a solid watch is up to you.
To make up your own mind about one of Aaron Sorkin's most controversial shows, stream The Newsroom on Max.
Source: Vulture