#badplot

I love and hate summer time. There's so much to do with everyone marketing for summer holiday but at the same time, you are stuck with only a few shows all week if you are a TV junkie. 

I also love and hate Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom, the only show that I follow in summer since last year.

His signature rapid-fire dialogues and extended monologues can be both enjoyable, but sometimes they are tedious. Can you imagine they shoot one episode, comprising 80-90 pages script, in 9 days, whereas most feature films shoot 2-3 pages of script in one day? (Read The Sorkin Way on Vanity Fair, May 2012). While it seems the story develops easy and smooth with characters coming and exiting for conversations, he certainly has done a great job in researching and wording.But it asks the viewers to follow the dialogues and monologues very closely while many audience just want to relax when they are watching TV, so it's understandable that viewers either fully commit to the show, or discard it when it becomes tiring.

Also, he can push too hard to put his opinions into viewers' head, and he's always preaching through the delightful trio (Will, MacKenzie and Charlie) and their apprentices. Despite the occasional too unrealistic plots, like the cadidate debate in last season for example, the series is up-lifitng with attention to detail and accuracy.  

However, it is hard to watch the 5th episode. It seems as if Sorkin is no longer as attentive to facts and detail as before. While the story is not polished enough, some of the characters appear not only unprofessional, but  even annoying. 

To begin with, whyever Maggie and Gary should be sent to Uganda in the first place? They are a compact team, and their show focus on things concern American. Haven't they pledge to help American to make the best decision in public life? True, it's important for American to know about the rest of the world, but it's just illogical to send away two core members in the team for potential news.

Secondly, Maggie and Gary show nothing but idiocy in their trip to Uganda. Even a tourist knows he/she should make sure transportation and housing will not be any problem in advance, why two young professionals with the back-up of a big corporate can't secure these and end up crashing in an orphanage?

Besides, as someone who's been to Uganda, I find it disturbingly absurd  that they don't even get a chance to Kampala for some reason. Kampala is very close to the Entebbe Airport. It takes only about one hour drive from Entebbe Airport to downtown Kampala. If they do not have a car after they land, they can easily call a taxi. Several UN offices and many NGOs locate in or near the city, which they can ask for information and help after they arrive. There are also many orphanages in and near Kampala, if their object is not to chase news-worthy story but just to see how war orphans are living. 

Maybe I am asking too much for accuracy, but if the show in the series has a mission to civilize and clear away stereotypes of thinking, why Sorkin caters to people's imagination of a dark African country, where violence is everyday life and inescapable? How's that not ironic? The rest of the season remains largely a puzzle to the audience, but it seems that Sorkin creates this plot of Maggie being traumatized in Africa is just to make this character traumatized.