HBO takes on contemporary journalism
and politics in its new drama series The Newsroom.
The Aaron Sorkin-produced series stars Jeff Daniels
as Will McAvoy, as a longtime journalist and anchor of
primetime talk show/newscast News Night on fictional
cable news network ACN. Once a hard-nosed, takeno-
prisoners journalist,
McAvoy has over the
years become a more
middle-of-the-road anchor,
afraid to jeopardize
ratings by asking
tough questions of his
guests.
His attitude begins
to change when he believes he sees an old flame,
MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer), while participating
at a college debate with two politically partisan
speakers. Urged on by his vision of McHale, he sheds
his trite, vanilla answers to students’ questions and
— in one of the best scenes in the pilot — delivers a
sobering yet rousing answer to whether America is still
the greatest country in the world.
The negative reverberations from his response,
however, earn him a three-week hiatus from the show.
Upon his return, he discovers that much of his staff,
led by his executive producer Don Keefer (Thomas
Sadoski), have jumped ship to work with another news
show on the network. Daniels’ boss, Charlie Skinner
(Sam Waterston), then enlists, behind McAvoy’s back,
the talents of McHale — fresh off an exhausting stint
covering the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — to serve as
News Night’s new executive producer.
As McAvoy and McHale battle over the changes,
McHale’s senior producer, Jim Harper (John Gallagher
Jr.) catches wind of a breaking news story.
After learning the details of the story, McAvoy has
to choose between continuing to deliver his risk-free
version of the news or putting his trust in McHale
and delivering good, truthful investigative journalism .
The ensemble cast also includes smart-but-green
intern Margaret Jordan (Alison Pill) who gets promoted
to a senior staff position on the show, but whose
name McAvoy can’t remember.
Fans of Sorkin’s other projects, including The West
Wing, will enjoy the quick pace of the series as well as
the producer’s signature strong, quick-witted dialogue
and thorough character development.
The pilot episode of The Newsroom doesn’t include
a lot of racy language, nudity or violence. Sans the occasional
F-bomb, this series could easily be mistaken
for a broadcast or basic-cable show.
