THE NEWSROOM

THE NEWSROOM
2012-2014 - 25 episodes 
Creator:  Aaron Sorkin
Country: United States
IMDB: 8.6

Epic Enthusiast's Rating: A-

(some spoilers)

Greetings, readers. It's been some time since I've posted, but I'm now a full-time sports reporter, so I'm writing just about every day away from the blog. In my first post of 2016, I'll be ranting about Aaron Sorkin's electric HBO drama, The Newsroom.

Having previously seen its famous opening scene in the pilot episode, and because of my journalistic ties, I decided to continue my TV-series trend and give The Newsroom a try. I'm glad I did. I'll skip the positive/negative bullet points for this one and keep it simple — watch The Newsroom.

It's been almost two weeks since I've finished the show (and now another couple weeks since I started writing this review), and I begin with a dream I had last night. Bear with me here.

I knew from the get-go the dream was a bizarre one — I somehow ended up employed by the FBI in some luxurious high-rise somewhere. I don't know what my role was, but I remember telling a friend in the dream that I was "now carrying a gun for the FBI," and was working alongside none other than The Newsroom's lead man, Jeff Daniels. 

In some sort of training exercise, I launched out of Jeff and I's office with a silenced shotgun and accidentally shot another agent in the thigh. I don't remember any blood, so maybe I was using rubber bullets. Then, in front of the high-rise outside, I was attempting to figure out why I had misfired upstairs and put the shotgun on what I thought was safety mode. Unfortunately for me, the safety was not on and when I fired another 50-caliber-esque test round (yeah, it was far too large for the gun) into the street, it ricocheted into another expensive-looking building across the way and left a huge crack in the wall.

Why are you guys in my dream?

I didn't necessarily anticipate the massive construction crew repairing the building that I later saw upstairs, but I did anticipate an earful from the big boss man, who happened to be another The Newsroom star, Chris Messina. There was some other dialogue with Daniels and another random friend that I don't recall, but the atmosphere seemed to mimic that of the show's.

So, what does all this mean? Hell if I know — I've never even fired a gun before. 

What I do know, is that I've never had a dream with a television show character in it, let alone two television shows characters in it. While it was easily one of the weirdest dreams I've ever had, I can't help but give credit to Sorkin for creating such memorable, dream-penetrating characters in The Newsroom. I think, among other irrelevant things, that my dream says a lot about how I feel about the show and its quality. 

Ok, now we can start.

Daniels, in his first and only television lead role, plays Will McAvoy, the primetime news anchor and face of Sorkin's fictional news network, Atlantic Cable News. McAvoy is a very blunt, hot-headed talking head that you'd expect to find at a massive network like ACN — think CNN, MSNBC, etc. — and not surprisingly, it gets him into some trouble. 

Sometimes, a lot of it.

The pilot begins with an infamous rant from McAvoy about why America actually isn't the greatest country in the world and takes off running from there. Being an uber famous news broadcaster certainly contributed to the hefty backlash he received for said rant, and it also didn't help that it was directed at a sorority girl at Northwestern. It was a great way to begin a prevalent "Did Will actually just say that on television?" type theme on the show. We soon find out that McAvoy very rarely gives a shit about what he says, which makes for some great television as we watch him spark a fire on television through a television.

By the time season two rolls around — nine episodes  focused on the leaking of a massive war crime story that turned out to be false but reported anyway — McAvoy and the other newsroom members are well-developed, and Sorkin dives into more serious journalism. We don't often think of news anchors as journalists, but The Newsroom makes clear that they absolutely are.

The role of McAvoy is a truly demanding one for Daniels, who shows tons of acting flexibility throughout the series. One minute he's on the news desk telling the nation about landmark events like the Boston Marathon bombings or Bin Laden being killed, and the next he's in a rundown meeting bantering with reporters and slinging one-liners. 

McAvoy is a very complex character that Sorkin takes his time developing in full, but by the end of the show (where McAvoy quits smoking and essentially turns his life around because of some unexpected news), I felt quite attached to him and his background. 

Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy in The Newsroom

It's sort of like The Sopranos — why does everyone favor a ruthless, cheating murderer in Tony Soprano? Why was everyone outraged by the show's ending and almost rooting for him to be alive? Good character development. 

Why did I feel somewhat attached to the narcissistic asshole that is Will McAvoy? Good character development.

I'm not sure if Sorkin sought out Daniels for the role or if he just nailed the audition or what, but he fits the role pretty snuggly. "News Night with Will McAvoy" is the name of the depicted primetime telecast on the show and in a lot of ways, it's "The Newsroom with Jeff Daniels" — he totally dominates the screen at both all the right and all the wrong times.

Given his mostly comedic background (I haven't even seen Dumb and Dumber), I didn't expect him to excel in such a hard-hitting, visceral role, but he certainly does. Though, his comedic tendencies certainly do come into play on The Newsroom, mostly because of the writing from Sorkin and others.

As I've said on the blog before, good writing makes for good content — you can't have a great film or TV show without great writing (rare exceptions). And, when pointing to the strengths of The Newsroom, the writing is right up there with stellar performances from Daniels and the rest of the cast.

Sorkin and company manage to intertwine sober, taut dialogue with playful (occasionally drunk) musings pretty seamlessly. It's one thing to develop strong dialogue within a certain work environment, but it's another to pull those characters out and throw them in a completely new atmosphere while keeping things consistent. I never had to stop and say "ok that line was off" or anything like that, which points to a solid script.

However, if I have a major qualm with The Newsroom it's that the dialogue is almost too perfect sometimes. What I mean is, some scenes in the show were so well put together and so flawless that it took away from its natural and realistic feel sometimes.

Throughout, I was sometimes wondering "do people actually talk like this? Even at an upscale Manhattan skyscraper like ACN?"

The short answer is no. No, they don't. Even the most intelligent and well-spoken people stumble or come up speechless sometimes, and while there were moments like that in The Newsroom they almost felt placed or purposeful. Yes, the character development was excellent and Sorkin gives us plenty of human-like moments, but the dialogue remains almost flawless and borderline pretentious throughout.

With some characters, like Sloane Sabbith played by Olivia Munn, the writers get away with it. Sabbith is a near-genius economics expert that plays the stock market and predicts drastic financial trends. She's also incredibly snarky and witty and despite the "a genius is an excuse to write anything" notion, all her dialogue felt appropriate. The other characters, though, not so much, and it took a bit away from an otherwise tremendous show.

The low-key very talented Olvia Munn as Sloane Sabbith

A good example came later in the show, when a minor character said something along the lines of "How long do you people hold a grudge in New York?" MacKenzie McHale, the executive producer of News Night played by British actress Emily Mortimer, responds with "Just ask A-Rod."

Now, for those of you that follow sports, you'll know that that's hilarious. It's a great line that was sort of ruined by who said it. It wasn't that McHale wasn't well-developed or that Mortimer's acting wasn't good enough — it was just that the line felt like something the character would never say. Not only was it delivered nonchalantly, but earlier in the show, she's depicted as not being into sports. So, the line almost felt like something Sorkin and the writers slipped in there for the sole purpose of being funny.

It was funny and it would have worked if placed better.

That being said, my thinking is that if there was a place where people talked as perfectly as they do in The Newsroom, it would probably be a place like ACN. And, at the end of the day, the show is supremely entertaining, so I let it slide overall. Ultimately, we watch TV shows to be entertained, and The Newsroom does that and then some. There's even a black guy named Gary Cooper. Really.

For me, again mostly because of my journalistic background, the coolest part about the show is that almost all of the stories depicted actually happened. Not only is it cool to revisit major national events like the 2012 presidential campaign and the Casey Anthony trial, but it really put things into perspective.

I certainly remember the BP oil spill and how big of a story it was, but as a younger kid, I didn't really come to terms with just how big of a story it actually was. Especially as a reporter, The Newsroom is often gripping and totally fascinating. It's crazy to think that as these massive stories break (very recently the shooting in Orlando) there are hundreds of newsrooms around the country scrambling to find information and relay it the public. Whether it be newspapers, TV stations or websites, The Newsroom gave me a much better look at what it actually means to "do the news" — a phrase often used on the show.

But, whether you're into journalism or not, I really recommend The Newsroom. On par with the stories they cover on the show, the internal stories are great ones. The acting is stellar, particularly Daniels, Mortimer, Thomas Sadoski and Sam Waterston, and it's often emotionally engaging.

So much so, that I had a major case of "post-TV show depression" after finishing it. I've had mild cases after completing shows like Sherlock and The Sopranos, but not quite like this. It's been almost a month since I completed The Newsroom, and I'm really just now feeling like I can move on to another show. Like my above "I'm sorry, what?" dream, I think it's telling of, along with me being peculiar, the show's quality.

The Newsroom cast

Lastly, The Newsroom is also a very relevant take on media culture and where it's progressing. In the third season, Sorkin veers off the road a bit and starts delving into the quickly-changing news industry. McAvoy and the staffers have to deal with new ownership in the company and fairly drastic ideas for change. 

Scrolling Twitter feeds on the screen and start-to-finish coverage of a polarized criminal trial to boost ratings are only a couple of the real-life deviations that a TV newsroom may have already adjusted to in the past few years. It can be quite alarming to look into just how rapidly the news industry is changing (not just for the journalists involved) and along with wrapping up a great TV show, I think Sorkin begs a lot of questions in the final season. 

Some critics have claimed that The Newsroom took a quality dive in the third season, but for me, it wasn't more than a little bit noticeable. And, since it's only a couple years old, it was even more current.

To end where I began — watch The Newsroom.

— EE

As of June 26, 2016, The Newsroom is available on Amazon Instant Video with a Prime Membership. Here's the famous opening scene of the pilot that's bound to get you hooked: