so i went to see the farnsworth invention tonight and, i gotta say, i was disappointed. i think my expectations were unusually high because the play was written by aaron sorkin, the man responsible for bringing us the west wing, the american president, and some other stuff like charlie wilson's war. and he's a pretty damn smart guy and a great writer. so while the F.I. was a reasonably intelligent and interesting show, it didn't have the level of wit or insight i expected from my man aaron.
my big complaint was that basically, i think the show just took a really interesting topic and then focused on the most banal and uncontroversial aspects. the play is about the invention of the television, by a guy named philo farnsworth, played by jordana brewster's best friend from DEBS (you straight people might know him from Loser, where he played the skeevy roommate). it basically follows farnsworth's attempts to perfect the television, juxtaposed with the struggles of David Sarnoff (Hank Azaria) to develop radio, and finally, to Sarnoff's underhanded means of getting the television patent within his company (RCA and NBC)'s holdings.
there's definitely a lot of interesting stuff in there. personally, i thought the most interesting was the idea of how radio and television would be used as mediums, and the heavily commercial form they would finally take. my sister thought it was the issue of a scientific community versus intellectual property. but aaron sorkin seemed to think that the most interesting topic was how Sarnoff screwed Farnsworth over. which was certainly a sad tale, but i felt like there was nothing beyond that to make the story unusual. science history is full of stories like that, everyone is always stealing ideas from other people. and especially in this case, where Sarnoff sees that television is gonna screw radio over, so he basically has to do something to save his own hide.
when i complained about it to my mom (yes, it was a family outing), she said that she thought it was interesting, because she remembered hearing about the beginning of television back in the day. which is a fair point, i guess. it does teach you about a very important historical event, and bring it to life before your eyes. so, i guess that's good. it's just that from aaron sorkin, i expect great. what am i thinking though, that guy loves crack.