The Newsroom | ★★★★☆
I’m in love with The Newsroom. Probably not as much as Girls, but HBO has come out with two quality shows this year. Both of which were renewed after the airings of their first or second episodes.
Acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is back in television after the success of The West Wing and the bomb of Sunset Strip and others shows.
I first saw The Newsroom when I was vacationing in America at the end of June, not having heard of this series, but I was sleepy but saw enough of the first 10 minutes to become a die hard fan.
The series starts in 2009 covering stories that we’ve seen, and that’s what makes it that more interesting. Real life stories. Not fictionalized. But so much drama, tension, excitement, unfortunately, real Newsrooms aren’t like this.
Unfortunately, when you get to the fourth and fifth episodes, you begin to think of the following:
1. Sorkin and society hate women. Sorkin’s women are sexual objects (as executive Producer MacKenzie (Emily Mortimer) points out that Sloan (Olivia Munn) has legs for television) and somewhat less intelligent (MacKenzie always counting with her fingers)
2. From such a great first episode, the show has become ‘boring,’ in comparison. But it’s still good and still captivating.
But I soon ate my words because by episode six, you’ll be ululating and Sorkin will reaffirm why he is such a great writer.
The cast is rounded off with Jeff Daniels in the lead role, famed Law & Order DA, Jack McCoy, I mean Sam Waterson (the role of Charlie Skinner suits him just as well), Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel and some other unknown actors (according to me) - if you really want to know who they are, click here.
The show is not for everyone, but I think it’ll have a good following in SA.
The Newsroom starts on Monday 6 August at 8:30PM on MNet.
