Sorkin's Latest: "Newsroom"

Let me make one thing clear: I hate Aaron Sorkin. No, I hate his talent for writing smart shows. Perhaps it's more a serious jealousy as the guy simply writes his ass off and honestly...I think you could give him a cast of nobodies and they'd shine with any of his scripts.

Like I've lamented before in a previous post about his last show, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, Sorkin got a bad deal on that one. The show was pitch-perfect both in casting, tone, and humor. Its problem was that it came out at the same time as "30 Rock," another show about the behind-the-scenes view of a comedy program I've tried to watch many times, but whose appeal is completely lost on me and seems to pander to the lowest common denominator. I digress.

I was hesitant about this new one, this "Newsroom" that had popped up in entertainment mags and Life sections of newspapers. I knew the writing was going to be phenomenal; Sorkin never disappoints on that front. I knew it was going to be political, which is both Sorkin's strength and his weakness (as liberal as I am, sometimes I feel the political rhetoric gets too far lefty for me). But...I was more than pleasantly surprised. And I'm so glad this is on HBO. Overjoyed, in fact, because the cable channels have done in recent years what the basic programming channels have failed to do time and time again: grow some balls and put on intelligent, well-written shows.

The show opens up with Jeff Daniels' character sitting on a panel at Northwestern University. He's known throughout the news world as the great middle-man, in that he never chooses political sides and remains completely neutral. When asked what makes America great, he ends up on a Howard Beale-esque rant (not unlike the opening scene of "Studio 60" as well, which was a disappointing start for me) and loses most of his staff to a late night host on the same news channel. The rant itself starts off well and makes you really hate the character of Will McAvoy, but Sorkin does doubles down on the lofty idealism. The language is nice but you could insert Martin Sheen's President Josiah Bartlet or Judd Hirsch's Wes Mendell and...we've heard the sentiment before.

Cue three weeks later. McAvoy returns from a vacation to find the vast majority of his staff gone and his executive producer replaced by Emily Mortimer's Makenzie MacHale. It's referenced that the two had some kind of relationship previously that went sour, but it's not brought out into the full open in the first episode. What we know is that she's done him wrong in some way. What we also know is that, in real life, there's no way Jeff Daniels would ever be able to land a woman as attractive as Emily Mortimer. Ever.

As the two of them come to grips with how they're going to work with each other (McAvoy has his agent change MacHale's contract to his liking so that he can fire her whenever he'd like), the BP Deep Horizon explosion happens. Makenzie's long-time assistant producer, Jim Harper (played by John Gallagher Jr.) takes the lead and tries to get the newsroom up and moving on the story while McAvoy's previous executive producer Don Keefer (played by Thomas Sadoski) tries to assert his own control over the room. The two clash a bit before running the story by McAvoy, who decides to take it to the air.

As with every Sorkin show, however, there's always one character you can count on for the intentional/unintentional humor quotient. Strangely enough, this time it comes in the form of Sam Waterston's character Charlie Skinner, the bow-tie wearing, scotch-swilling president of the network. In what is easily one of the funniest moments of the opening episode, Skinner rails against Keefer's character, screaming:

"I am a Marine, Don, and I will beat the shit out of you. I don't care how many protein bars you eat!"

Pure brilliance. It would've been easy for Waterston to play this overboard, but it's so subtle that you actually wonder if he's drunk at the moment or simply unhinged, especially considering the conversation between him and McAvoy that comes right before this. And really, watching him play something other than an uptight lawyer is pretty damn decent too.

Final verdict: I'm stoked for this show. I wasn't before, but I'm thoroughly in it for the moment. While there will most certainly be some political preaching and moralizing, you're really not gonna find a better writer of television shows out there. Sorkin has already laid some really excellent groundwork in regards to these characters and I'm anxious to see what he's got in store for them all. Though when the credits came at the end of the show, I really wanted to continue hating McAvoy's character. I think that was an opportunity missed by Sorkin, but I'm sure I'll be right back to hating him with the next episode.

(13,726)