CliqueClackHBO’s The Newsroom Blu-rays do not disappoint
The first season of Aaron Sorkin’s latest show ‘The Newsrooms’ gets a DVD and Blu-ray release June 11th.
Aaron Sorkin’s latest show The Newsroom had a pretty interesting first season. I thought the show was absolutely brilliant: the writing, the performances, the production quality … everything was reminiscing of the best of Sorkin’s previous work in The West Wing. Despite my enthusiasm, most critics didn’t seem to take to it. There was criticism ranging from how the writers handled the female characters to how the show set itself in the near past as it allows the characters to be right all the time.
The DVDs and Blu-ray discs of The Newsroom’s first season (set to be released on June 11th, $59.99 for the DVDs, $79.98 for the Blu-ray with HBO Select) follow in the tradition of great sets produced by HBO in recent memory – the Game of Thrones sets are some of the best in my collection. While not nearly as expansive as GoT – though I’m sure if you could find subject matter that they could produce animated histories of, I’m sure they would tackle it – the set provides a great behind-the-scenes look at the behind-the-scenes show. The Blu-ray set also includes – under the HBO Select brand – regular DVDs and digital downloads of all of the episodes.
The features included Director’s Commentaries on 5 episodes (“We Just Decided To,” “The 112th Congress,” “I’ll Try To Fix You,” “Bullies” and “The Greater Fool”) and provided some interesting insight to the production. Aaron Sorkin and the other producers took on some of the show’s criticisms: the reason why the show is set in the past is that Sorkin wanted to avoid “making up” the news while laughing off the idea that his female characters are written to look foolish – he wrote Jeff Daniels rolling around on the floor trying to pull his pants on.
A great deal of time was spent on the technical achievement that the show is. The discs include “Mission Control,” a featurette about how the set was conceived and designed. The control room that the producers use to manage the show’s control room is nearly as high-tech as its counterpart. I was particularly impressed by the production’s ability – and eagerness – to film Jeff Daniels in the studio, Emily Mortimer and the crew in the control and the “by-satellite” guests simultaneously for authenticity’s sake.
If you’re a fan of The Newsroom, put these sets on your list. The audio and visual transfer is great and the features – which also include a roundtable with members of the cast and production team, along with deleted scenes and episode summaries – provide interesting background that you’ll appreciate. If you’re not one of those people, then I don’t imagine you’re still reading.
This review is based on a complimentary copy, provided to CliqueClack, solely for the purpose of this review.
3 Comments on “HBO’s The Newsroom Blu-rays do not disappoint”
I’ve always found the HBO sets impressive, and plan to pick this up. I just wish they would switch to standard, more compact packaging. I am quickly running out of room on my shelves for TV-on-BD and these unnecessarily over-sized sets from HBO/Cinemax only make the problem worse. I also don’t understand the point of including low-def DVDs with the Blu-rays–they just add to the thickness of the box for something I will never use–I bought the Blu-ray because I only want to watch in HD! On the other hand, the digital copy is a nice bonus and would be the way I’d watch if didn’t have access to a Blu-ray player (plus it adds no thickness to the box).
I’ve found myself using the included regular DVDs quite a bit recently (While I have a BRD player in my living room, I don’t on my other TV), and appreciate their inclusion.
I hear you about the packaging, but I don’t particularly think it makes that much of a difference. I’ve got a specific DVD/BRD/Video Game bookshelf that I’ve got packed two rows deep. When I run out of space, it’s time to cull the amount of DVDs that I own. I do it about once a year.
That’s the problem–I never get rid of them–though I have pretty much stopped buying DVD-only releases for shows that are aired in HD. The larger HBO Blu-ray sets are at least twice as thick as the normal 6-disc blu-ray plastic cases used for shows like 24, Lost, Once Upon a Time and Nikita, and the Veep packaging was also twice as thick as a standard 3-disc blu-ray cases used for shows like Dexter, Homeland, Big Bang Theory, etc. It ends up making a huge difference when you’re buying as much TV-on-BD as I am–especially with Cinemax now having some great shows that I want to add to my collection, and those are getting the same horrible packaging.
I remember in the early days of TV-on-DVD shows like The X-Files and Desperate Housewives used these large, elaborate unfolding packages. Now they have switched/been repackaged into standard thinner multi-disc cases that are about the same size as a standard single disc DVD case. Retailers didn’t have the shelf space for these larger releases (and neither does the customer). I don’t care about lots of artwork inside the case–I’d much rather have it take up less room on my shelf. I want to be able to at least read the spines and not have to stack things multiple levels deep and hunt for what I’m looking for.