The Newsroom:
Aaron Sorkin turns his discerning centre liberal eyes and pen from Government to News Media, once again making no bones about how he feels about how these institutions should be run and their people should act.
For the most part the show is pretty good (if you lean that way) and if nothing else, well, Will McAvoy’s (Jeff Daniels) by now infamous rant from the first episode has had considerable staying power.
Here’s the scene in question, just bear in mind it’s from 10 years ago.
The shows got some real powerhouse stars; Jeff Daniels obviously but big props also go to Emily Mortimer, Olivia Munn, David Harbour and Sam Waterson, who’s character is probably meant to be the now old and cranky version of a Newsman left over from Walter Cronkite’s era. Also, I can’t decide if Jane Fonda being cast as a media tycoon is irony or not. Most of the younger cast are pretty good too, but once again Allison Pill is the weak link.
Which incidentally moves me to what I think is in hindsight kind of baffling about Newsroom compared to The West Wing. The characters in Newsroom, all things being equal, if they were real would be intellectual giants compared to my if they were as genuinely smart as they’re written to be. Which is why I find their interpersonal scenes so weird because they all, except Waterson, act like they’re 12 or 13. I get people have foibles and just because we’re adults doesn’t meant we’re grown up, but Allison Pill’s character Maggie makes screw ups of such frequency and not inconsiderable magnitude that her continued presence is baffling on a show with this level of assumed verisimilitude.
