The Newsroom – The Complete Series
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: B-
Since The Mary Tyler Moore Show, TV series keep
trying to recreate the journalism comedy over and over. Lateline was a recent attempt with Al
Franken that had a short run that just came out in its entirety on DVD, while
the late Phil Hartman had somewhat better luck with NewsRadio until his
untimely death. Give or take the
dramatic, belated Lou Grant spin-off, none of the comedies have lasted
long. They have all had some good
qualities and The Newsroom, a Canadian attempt at this type of comedy
back in 1997 is yet another interesting such show that also did not survive
long.
Newsroom – The Complete Series goes
for the shaky camera cliché sands the laugh track. That does not emphasize the comedy, but it thinks it does. The show is good, but it is more clever than
funny and is set up in a topical way that dates it a bit. This set offers all 13 episodes on two DVDs
as follows:
DVD One
1) The
Walking Shoe Incident (with optional audio commentary)
2) Dinner
at Eight
3) Deeper,
Deeper
4) The
Kevorkian Joke
5) A Bad
Day
6) Petty
Tyranny
7) Dis
& Dat
8) Parking
DVD Two
9) Unity
10 thru 12) Meltdown (in
three parts, starting with David Cronenberg)
13) Campaign (with
optional audio commentary)
So the show carves its own niche and Ken Finkleman is good
as George, the aging reporter who should have some kind of seniority at the
Public Broadcasting outfit, but nothing seems to help his run of bad luck and
wacky situations. Finkleman, a former
feature film director and writer, is the producer/writer/creator of this show,
which has enough of a following and critical acclaim in Canada to justify this
set and an upcoming telefilm reunion called Escape From The Newsroom,
which seems to faithfully continue the style and pace of the series, despite
figuring the events of 9/11/01. If you
like this kind of TV or the like series noted above, you will want to catch
this.
The full frame 1.33 X 1 image is from very clean video
masters that show their age, but are just fine for their visual limits. Though I am not a fan of the style all the
time, this is as good as this is going to look for the most part. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has no major
Pro Logic surrounds to speak of and that mode puts the sound too much into the
center channel. Extras besides the
Finkleman commentary tracks on the first and last show as noted above include a
preview for the reunion telefilm, biography information on about a dozen
participants in the show and a documentary on the show that runs about as long
as a typical half-hour episode. I am
curious about the telefilm and am glad I got to see this show. It is at least ambitious.
- Nicholas Sheffo
