The Newsroom returns to HBO July 14, and before then you can binge on the first season of Aaron Sorkin’s sometimes comic drama about the backstage goings on at a cable news show hosted by a truth-telling independent. Sorkin, who created The West Wing and wrote The Social Network, has a practically patented style of speedy dialogue, hyper intellectual references and wonderfully smug politics. Where the progressive idealism of The West Wing was a fantasy for liberals under Bush II, The Newsroom is a fantasy for those of us who wish TV journalists still had ethics and intelligence.
The main characters – from Jeff Daniels as anchor Will McAvoy, Emily Mortimer as his producer and Sam Waterston as their boss – are the people we wish ran the news business, when we really have Diane Sawyer, Wolf Blitzer and Bill O’Reilly. The show is funny, smart, and impeccably acted, and the soap opera subplots are as well-handled as political superplots.
