So, tonight marks the return of Aaron Sorkin's much criticized The Newsroom, as many wondered if he would respond to all the complaints and critiques the show received in its first season. Well, I would say based on the first episode, the answer is...maybe. Somewhat, even. But it's more or less the same show.
To me, that's not such a bad thing- I always thought that while some of the criticism was accurate, a lot of it was overblown. Watching an Aaron Sorkin show, you're always going to be subjected to a certain amount of preachiness, smugness, and speechifying that is clearly Sorkin using characters as mouthpieces for the thoughts that he wants projected onto the world, and that's no different from any writer with a very strong and unique voice, like Quentin Tarantino or even Billy Wilder (not to go back too far). And Sorkin is so talented and holds such an ear for snappy, intellectual dialogue that a lot of times I could just listen to it for hours (I'm such a Sorkin-ite I even watched all of Studio 60). On top of that, I'm also a political junkie with a lot of the same opinions as him, so complaints that this show was like a fictional MSNBC station, kinda didn't bother me at all, although I can understand others thinking it was too much. I mostly found it amusing- and I think the real reason for all the annoyance was the decision to base the storylines on actual political events from the recent past, rather than setting it in a fictional universe, ala The West Wing.
The only things that did bother me about the first season, Sorkin seems to have made some attempt to correct, at least in the premiere. Last season there was a tendency to make most of the female characters into bumbling idiots who were bad at their jobs and needed the men to correct them in their foolish ways- and tonight we get to see News Night producer Mackenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) in an extended sequence where she fixes an audio and sound problem on the show at the last minute, and pretty much all on her own too, so good for her! We'll get to see in future episodes how poor Maggie fares on the "stupid" front, seeing how she wasn't spotlighted much tonight and was probably the worst victim of that offense all last year. And the romantic triangle between Don, Jim and Maggie last season was handled very clumsily and dragged on for way too long with nothing much happening at all as far as developing it, and so thank god- tonight it looks like it's finally over, as Don swiftly and efficiently breaks up with Maggie at the end of the episode and they agree to move on.
As for what else went on tonight...well, it looks like we're set in August 2011 at the moment, with the fall of Gaddafi in Libya and the beginnings of the Occupy Wall Street movement the current hot topics being approached for news coverage. Jim starts the episode spurned by Maggie and tells Mackenzie he wants to go cover the Romney campaign in New Hampshire, but the Romney peeps are not happy to see him and won't even let him on the bus when he gets there, due to the uproar that has ensued since the finale of last season when our hero Will McAvoy called the Tea Party the "American Taliban" on the air. This has sparked a major backlash from Republicans in Congress, which has Leona Lansing (Jane Fonda, who IS a kickass woman on the show, but come on, how are you going to have her on and make her weak?) and her son Reese upset and blocked from access to congressional lobbying. So Charlie decides he has to ban Will from the 9/11 anniversary coverage, which a chastened Will agrees to, and then proceeds to make himself look tough on terror by taking the pro-drone strikes position in an on-air debate over the controversial foreign policy, upsetting both Mac and Sloan.
Speaking of Sloan, Olivia Munn was the sole woman in the newsroom last season who was allowed to be savvy and smart at work, so it's a little disconcerting that she now seems to be pining and quivering over Don while in the office, but I'll give it some time before attacking that new aspect of her character. Neal (Dev Patel) is already on the bandwagon with Occupy Wall Street, which Mac doubts is even news yet and sends him to a meeting to find out. This gives Aaron Sorkin a chance to make fun of the Occupiers for their hand signs and lack of leaders, as Neal lectures one of them over everything that's wrong with their movement, conveniently before it ever even starts- the one instance in this episode of the "benefit of hindsight" complaint launched at the show last year for characters knowing all kinds of things about news events the second they happened and sometimes even before, which is obviously impossible, and yet for me it was another thing that was kind of just amusing to watch, knowing how ridiculous it was.
The episode starts and ends with what looks to be the framing device of the season- a deposition all of the News Night employees are involved in, where lawyer Marcia Gay Harden is questioning everyone about their coverage of "Operation Genoa," which we don't know much about yet, but is apparently a black ops scandal that has them in trouble with the Department of Defense. And here is where the show would REALLY benefit from being set in a fictional universe. Whatever this scandal is, obviously it's made up- but the show revolves around news stories that actually did take place, so it's going to keep hitting that disconnect, no matter how interesting or intriguing this story may turn out. In fact, a fictional universe with parallel topical plots would fix an awful lot of the criticisms, but that ship has sailed, which is why The Newsroom remains more or less, the same show as last season. But for me, Aaron Sorkin dialogue combined with good actors and politics talk of any kind hits my sweet spot, so even if it's a bit of a guilty pleasure (it's no West Wing) I'm with this thing all the way. Until next week, everyone!
