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You would think after getting picked up for a second season after the first two episodes, Aaron Sorkin and the rest of The Newsroom's writing staff would be on cloud nine. And yet, another two episodes later and almost all of the writing staff are getting their pink slips.

The Daily was the first to report that "most" of the writing staff of The Newsroom, except for Sorkin and his ex-girlfriend Corinne Kingsbury. He couldn't fire his muse for all the Will and MacKenzie scenes! The Hollywood Reporter reports that "most" really means every single person but Sorkin and Kingsbury are on their way to the curb. Which raises the question: on the most Sorkinian show of his entire career, the show where he's wearing his biggest flaws on his sleeve, how much input did the other writers even have? Let's look at their IMDB writing credits for some answers. Oh, well then. That settles that.

While ratings have been okay (the debut was the third highest for HBO since 2008, but don't ask us why that year is significant), reviews have generally been terrible. It started at first with Emily Nussbaum's brilliant New Yorker review, and continued from there. Our colleague Richard Lawson thought it was a, ahem, flawed hour of television. Just today, Salon's Alex Pareene writes that The Newsroom succeeds despite Sorkin, not because of him. It's "phenomenally bad good TV." The performances are great! "So is the production, and the direction, and even the editing!" he says. But it's all there to cover up the shortcomings of the show's biggest villain: Sorkin.

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