TV REVIEW: THE NEWSROOM

Let's be honest. We live in an era where it seems a majority of hour-long drama is actually adverts / commercials telling you what they think you need, surrounded by moments of melodrama that ask you not to think at all. Laugh as this guy falls over (again), cry as this woman finds out she's being cheated upon (again), wince as a reality star murderises the language in a single sound-byte (again)... then buy something. Buy two somethings. Postage included if you purchase now. If television was ever meant to be a tool of education, it's now more of an infommercial for brain-pacifiers. The fact that the word 'infommercial' even exists proves it.  


What is scarier is that such apathy and opportunism has also infected the news services, or more accurately  the attention-spans of their viewers. The explosion of 'Breaking News' (tm) has become a comma not an exclamation mark, a hum not a fanfare, available in any hue you prefer and played on a repeat cycle of  it's-not-important and we're-all-going-to-die. 

So in many ways, a contemporary drama about the presentation of news was inevitable. It was also somewhat inevitable that the man behind it would be Aaron Sorkin.

Despite the fact that we've seen variations on the theme  before, in projects  from Network, Drop the Dead Donkey, Broadcast News to period dramas like The Hour etc, there's been much anticipation of The Newsroom, if mostly because it's the latest ensemble drama to come from the creator of The West Wing. You didn't have to align yourself with the Bartlett administration's politics to recognise that Sorkin's walky-talky award-winner was the way that politics should be practiced, even though they rarely are. The same mentality now comes to the realm of news-presentation.

Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) is a news-anchor who has become the broadcast equivalent of a comfortable pair of shoes. He deflects personal questions, avoids partisan comments and deliberately walks a line that offends nobody but excites no-one. Back in the day he was respected as cutting-edge, but now he's merely treading water. However, during a university panel session he loses his cool. In front of an audience equipped with smart-phones and access to YouTube he points out to the other smug panelists and complacent audience that America isn't the 'best country in the world' it's just one of them - and goes on to list the things that people have let slide over a generation of neglect and apathy. It could be the greatest, he argues, but currently it's failing.  The comments go viral.


When he returns to his offices after a three-week enforced break, he finds his job on the line, his staff poached and old flame Mackenzie MacHale (Emily Mortimer) as his new Executive Producer. Mackenzie thinks Will just needs to be as regularly engaged and in-your-face as he was at the panel. He needs to care again. Will just wants to keep his job and - when he can remember their names - yell at his staff.  In the midst of an argument about both their imminent futures and an under-staffed news-room, a report comes in that an oil-rig in the gulf  has blown up... they are about to have a re-baptism of ire.

"After the empowering speech at the start, the climax is not quite as big an achievement and moral victory as it's made out to be... however it's a start..." 


The Newsroom isn't (yet) on a par with The West Wing, a show that came storming out of the gate and changed the US national zeitgeist overnight. Instead, it's got more in common with another of Sorkin's outings, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which managed only one season in 2006. That show was set behind the scenes of a comedy show akin to Saturday Night Live and though great fun, always felt like something of an awkward fit, rarely straying into what went on in front of that fictional show's cameras. In the ratings it got pounded by the all-out comedy of 30-Rock. Ultimately, The Newsroom is the love-child of Sorkin's previous forays. It's the politics of The West Wing and the showbiz side of Studio 60. It's fertile ground and Sorkin should be the guy best suited to farm it.

The pilot highlights Sorkin's strengths and weaknesses. There's no doubt the dialogue is snappy and quick-fire, the earnest, essentially decent characters coming out with the retorts and responses of the kind that we mere mortals only think of too late - and then kick ourselves for missing.  But, yes, The Newsroom pilot perhaps feels just that  little TOO polished, to the degree that the characters and their foibles seem like archetypes in a drama about journalists rather than actual journalists. Daniels does tired and irritable well, making McAvoy a grump that we want to like more than we do, but that's something to build on. We may admire her spunk as much as Will hates it, but Mortimer's Mackenzie is just TOO much vintage His Girl Friday, more Lois Lane than C J Cregg. In fact, all the women on show seem to get lip-service empowerment rather than the real thing. Equally that eponymous news-room is way too clean and quiet - even on a quiet day it should be buzzing like its life depended on it, which it often does.  In a drama that centrally complains (quite rightly and topically) that we've become a world where we demand the news reinforces our existing beliefs and prejudices rather than informs and educates us, the show initially seems more about the characters' interplay than the situation they have to handle. The West Wingers were confident, even when annoying, the Newsroomers are somewhat smug, even when interesting.


Sorkin's whole point - in a pilot that's even neatly entitled 'We Just Decided To...'  - is that ALL that journalists and news services need to do to provide a better service is to actively WANT their service to be important rather than self-serving and spoon-feeding. Perhaps Sorkin is right, but the pilot doesn't really make it difficult for our new ensemble to rise to that occasion. A big news story breaks, two high-placed sources leak information, the cast get on the internet and voila, Mackenize goads Will  into pummeling a couple of insipid PR guys rather than letting them off-the-hook. After the empowering speech at the start, the climax is not quite as big an achievement and moral victory as it's made out to be. However, it's a start. 


This IS a pilot, tasked with introducing us to our new media heroes and so one has to cut it some slack. And, truth be told, even less-than-perfect, slightly coasting Sorkin is still miles ahead of most of the other dramas out there. The West Wing  was a pace-setter, demanding (and believing) its audience could keep up. Until its last act, The Newsroom's pilot lacks some of that innate raw urgency, especially on a show that's on a US network (HBO) that isn't afraid to take risks and cater for adults. This time, audiences will walk through it rather than need to run.  But they'll enjoy the experience.


The Newsroom is no Network, but it has pedigree, potential and purpose.  With a US debut of a healthy 2.1 million viewers but mixed reviews, Sorkin must cut down some of the obvious testifying and meet us halfway with the manic urgency the room requires. If so,  he should have another hit on his hands. 


4/5


The series is now showing on HBO in the US and begins its UK broadcast on Sky Atlantic on July 10th