The Newsroom's first season was a mess. Aaron Sorkin returned to TV after The Social Network and Moneyball, his already-healthy ego bolstered by cinematic success. Rather than learn from his previous flop, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Sorkin embraced that show's faults: pompous sanctimony, tedious subplots, recycled jokes, an author avatar protagonist who's an insufferable prick. The resulting show never lived up to its potential: despite an excellent cast, the plots grew murky, the characters became shrill and obnoxious, and the whole conceit (replaying recent news stories as they "should have been covered") is smug backseat driving. Frankly, it played as a bad self-parody of Sorkin's worst tendencies.
(Since some Sorkin fans insist all criticism comes from those too dumb to appreciate him, I own the first four seasons of The West Wing on DVD, along with Sports Night, Charlie Wilson's War and The Social Network. I just went through The West Wing's third season last month, in fact, so I'm interested in learning how my intelligence deteriorated so quickly. Defensiveness over.)
For those who missed Season One: the show depicts News Night, a cable news program on the fictional ACN channel. It's anchored by Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), a Republican speechwriter-turned-newsman eager to shed his bland image and become a combative pundit. He's joined by producer/ex-lover Mackenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer); producer Jim Harper (John Gallagher) and quirky assistant Maggie Jordan (Alison Pill); late show producer Don (Thomas Sadoski), Maggie's boyfriend; web designer Neal (Dev Patel); economist Sloan Sabbath (Olivia Munn); and big boss Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston).
If that dynamic sounds familiar, well, it's basically Sports Night set in a faux-CNN. Only with the wit, charm and well-drawn characters replaced with stentorian pomposity, intolerable smugness and screeching caricatures. But don't take my word for it: take theirs and theirs and theirs.
Tonight kicked off Season Two with "The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers." (Nothing reels in viewers like an allusion to Shakespeare's worst play!) And I remain underwhelmed. Aside from a slick new title sequence, emphasizing the show's office focus rather than, I dunno, its earth-shattering brilliance, there's nothing fresh here. Sorkin kicks off several new plot threads but they're too ephemeral to make any impact.
The episode starts with Will and Mackenzie being deposed by a high-powered lawyer (guest star Marcia Gay Harden) over a declassified military program. Flashback an undefined number of months. Will's on the hot seat for calling the Tea Party the American Taliban, leading Charlie to yank him from the network's 9/11 10th anniversary coverage. Jim goes to New Hampshire to cover Mitt Romney's primary campaign, while Don and Maggie's relationship grows more strained. Jim's smarmy replacement (Hamish Linklater) gets an earth-shattering tip from a right-wing pundit (Benjamin Koldyke). And Neal tries to sell Mackenzie on a budding protest movement called Occupy Wall Street.
The Newsroom starts on shaky ground. The flashback wraparound structure got beaten to death in Season One, and doesn't do much for "Lawyers." Sorkin's clearly setting the stage for ongoing stories, so everything remains painfully vague, with only a vague hook about something called "Operation Genoa." Seeing Maggie in a red-dye pixie cut is the only shocking thing here. At least Will's therapist is absent.
Indeed, "Lawyers" spends too much time setting up story lines. Charlie gets to endure CEO Leona Lansing's (Jane Fonda) threats once more. That Will's rank insubordination merits only a slap-on-the-wrist by proxy undermines her credibility, I'd say. Jim gets one (1) scene dealing with hostile Romneyites. Neal talks with a chatty Occupy leader (Aya Cash) who distills that movement into a two minute monologue. Everything's so facile it doesn't really work. Hopefully this throat-clearing will pay off eventually, but right now it's a damp squib. Where's the Sorkin who gave us dynamic premieres like "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen" or "20 Hours in America"?
Sorkin continues two risible trends. Again, ACN manages to be on the ground floor of both Gaddafi's downfall and Occupy Wall Street. Of course they are! And of course they're reporting both ten times smarter than those idiots at CNN or Fox News. And while early episodes of The Newsroom harp on making news more complex than sound bites, that's what we get: semi-factual zingers delivered without context or rebuttal. Talk about having your cake and eating it.
Seemingly every Newsroom reviewer hates the Jim-Don-Maggie love triangle, which naturally gets a lot of focus here. Don confronts Maggie with Youtube video of her season finale freakout, providing a catalyst for Don walking out on her. Here's hoping this irritating subplot gets resolved soon. That leaves poor Sloan Sabbath nursing unrequited feelings for Don. Olivia Munn's transition from G4 nerd goddess to serious actress was one of The Newsroom's best surprises. Here's hoping she gets more scenes like last season's face-off with Sam Waterston and less moping.
Anything positive? Well, I like that Will and Mackenzie interact without screeching about who broke up with whom, and Don Quixote isn't mentioned once. Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer invest these scenes with gravitas deserving a better show. But this episode's remarkably leaden for Sorkin, with little wit or humor; the only notable laugh comes with Will singing Rebecca Black during a lull in his show. It's pretty sad when a writer who's been unironically compared to Noel Coward and William Goldman mines internet memes for jokes.
As a Sorkin fan, I'd love to be optimistic about The Newsroom - that somewhere down the line, everything will come together. That's why I'm still watching. But Season One came and went without significant payoff, the threatened confrontation with Jane Fonda's bigwig muted and other plot threads terminated or botched. If "The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers" is any indication, Season Two will be even rougher sledding. At some point, Sorkin must deliver on his promises.
Rating: C-
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