Aaron Sorkin's NEWSROOM: 3 and Done

HBO has finally given its verdict on The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin's drama about the goings-on behind the scenes at a cable news network. Sorkin & Co. -- which includes lead actor Jeff Daniels and co-stars John Gallagher, Emily Mortimer, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel, Alison Pill and Sam Waterston -- made it through a bumpy first season and a more interesting second season that still didn't set the ratings on fire. When Season 2 closed out last September, there was talk that The Newsroom had been renewed for a third year, but it wasn't confirmed. That finale episode seemed to tie up all the ends pretty neatly, plus Sorkin's schedule was busy and complicated, and the show has a pretty large ensemble cast of in-demand actors. So negotiations continued...

Well, now the official announcement has been made. Yes, there will be a Season 3. But this will be its last go.

I had my problems with The Newsroom and how Sorkin put together his storylines, even though his cast is first-rate and I enjoy seeing actors like Daniels, Gallagher, Patel and Waterston -- and Hamish Linklater and Chris Messina, who also appeared to good effect as the episodes wore on -- put together characters through the vehicle of Sorkin's trademark snappy dialogue and erudite speeches. Note that those are all males. That's the biggest problem for me with Sorkin's work. His female characters are generally emotional disaster zones who just don't make sense, even when played by otherwise good actresses like Mortimer and Pill. And Hope Davis and Kelen Coleman. Jane Fonda, Mamie Gummer and Constance Zimmer fared better in the second season, but really had very little to do when all was said and done. Plus Sorkin kept centering the attention on Mortimer's erratic MacKenzie McHale (even the name is ridiculous) and Pill's listless, wounded Maggie Jordan in ways that simply didn't work and dragged the proceedings back down to the soggy swamp of crazy ladies and the men who inexplicably yearn for them. Jeff Daniels and his character Will McAvoy had more spark with Hope Davis's ethically challenged reporter than with klutzy, up-and-down Mac, and neither John Gallagher or Thomas Sadoski showed even a flicker of chemistry with Alison Pill, even though they came to life just fine with Mamie Gummer and Olivia Munn respectively. In fact, Sadoski's snaky Don Keefer became one of my favorite characters when paired with Munn's Sloan Sabbith, unexpectedly redeeming both of them.

So, yes, I had my issues with the show. Given how much the last episode felt like a series finale, it will still be interesting to see where we go next, however. Will Sorkin pull another Operation Genoa (inspired by the real Tailhook fiasco at CNN) as a framing device for the whole season? I think he will. Where will he pick up the various romances, since nobody got fired except the evil Jerry Dantana, Will and Mac got engaged at the 11th hour (just so she can become MacKenzie McHale McAvoy, don't you think?) to the sappy sounds of "Let My Love Open the Door," Don and Sloan got closer, and Gallagher's good-guy Jim Harper created a rapprochement between estranged roommates Maggie and Lisa without indicating he was romantically interested in either of them but instead keeping the thing he has going with the more emotionally balanced girlfriend played by Gummer.

So I'd imagine Sorkin will find some way to bust up Will and Mac temporarily, keep playing footsie with Don and Sloan, and push Jim back together with Maggie, which certainly seems like his endgame, even if I find it less than intriguing. Real stories that cropped up in the right period include the government shut-down, Manti Te'o and his fake girlfriend, Anthony Weiner, Paula Deen, Rob Ford, Duck Dynasty, Bridgegate and Chris Christie, and a whole lot of talk about the NSA and its eavesdropping on everybody and everything. I can't imagine Aaron Sorkin could resist that last one.

We will see, when The Newsroom returns to HBO sometime this fall.

Aaron Sorkin's NEWSROOM Is Back for Season 2

After hitting it big on film with screenplays for Moneyball and The Social Network, West Wing writer/producer Aaron Sorkin returned to television last season with a show on HBO called The Newsroom. With all the trademark Sorkin bits and pieces (amazing cast involved in pediconferences, pontification, references to musical comedy, insults directed at bloggers or internet users, smart, snappy, rapid-fire dialogue, brilliant men who know everything, mostly stupid women who make a mess of their lives... The Huffington Post's Maureen Ryan has a whole bingo card full of 'em), The Newsroom took on the world of TV news, including an anchor, producers, reporters, interns and the brass at a mythical network called Atlantis Cable News, or ACN. Its episodes go back in time, to show us how ACN covers stories we already know about, like the night Osama Bin Laden was killed, or the Gulf of Mexico oil spill from British Petroleum.

Jeff Daniels leads the cast as Will McAvoy, ACN anchor and rock star, who screwed up when he refused to say (during a filmed moment) that America is the greatest country in the world or to fall in line with knee-jerk patriotism/jingoistic games. The show got mediocre reviews and mediocre ratings, although it was good enough for HBO to bring back. And back it is.

This season, McAvoy is once again in trouble, but it has to do with a story his crew went after, a story about secret US military actions abroad and something called Operation Genoa. Not Geneva, Genoa. That's important. The season premiere, called "First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers," taken from a Shakespeare quote I happen to love, opens when new cast member Marcia Gay Harden, who starred opposite Daniels on Broadway in God of Carnage, comes aboard as -- you guessed it -- a lawyer hired to pull ACN's fat out of the fire over the way they handled -- or mishandled -- this incendiary Genoa story. Daniels and Harden are perfect examples of the kind of fabulous actors Sorkin casts, projecting intelligence and tossing around zippy verbiage like nobody's business. Others of note in the cast last season included Sam Waterston, John Gallagher, Jr., Allison Pill and Thomas Sadowski, all of whom have impressive stage resumes, with Jane Fonda as the CEO of the network's parent company and Hope Davis, another God of Carnage veteran, as a tabloid reporter. Aside from Harden, Grace Gummer, who happens to be Meryl Streep's daughter and a fine actress on her own, and another film and stage actor, Hamish Linklater, have been added for Season 2.

So the good news is that ratings are up slightly and reviews are a bit improved, as well, at least according to HuffPo. Other positives: I love Marcia Gay Harden and her character actually has a brain, the Genoa thing is fairly interesting and it doesn't involve McAvoy being too much of a dick, we got to see Jane Fonda and Sam Waterston right off the top, Dev Patel ha a story of his own, and the romantic hijinks weren't too cloying, with Sadowski's Don Keefer and Pill's Maggie Jordan splitting during this episode, while Gallagher's Jim, who is carrying a torch for Maggie, took an assignment out of town following Mitt Romney's presidential campaign so he could get away from the Maggie-and-Don schmoopfest.

On the negative side: The jumps in time were both confusing and dull as presented, interrupting the flow of the story and meaning I zoned out a few times and had to watch the show twice to figure out what was happening, Allison Pill's new hairdo is disturbing and we don't know if Jim even knows Maggie and Don broke up or about the YouTube video that broke them up, and Olivia Munn's supposedly bright Sloan Sabbith is still incredibly annoying, but not as annoying as poor Emily Mortimer's McKenzie McHale, who has been seriously wimpy, clumsy and unappealing since the get-go. It's the whole woman thing. Their characters are paper-thin, with quirks that come off messy and sad instead of adorable, which is what I think Sorkin intended.

Oh well. I like the pace of the dialogue and the skill of the performers enough to keep tuning in, at least for now. Let's hope Marcia Gay Harden's character elevates the whole thing, okay?

Tonight -- Aaron Sorkin's New "Newsroom" on HBO

"The Newsroom" premieres tonight on HBO. No, it's not another 24-hour news show. It's fiction, written and created by Aaron Sorkin, the mind behind "The West Wing" on TV, "The Social Network" and "Moneyball" on the big screen, and "A Few Good Men" and "The Farnsworth Invention" on stage. 

Sorkin has taken on politics, the internet, the military, baseball, sportscasting and the history of television in those projects, so perhaps the nightly news is a natural as his new forum to dissect, analyze and pontificate on issues, ethics and Why Things Are the Way They Are.

Although Sorkin has had some missteps (getting busted for drugs, high-profile relationships that became tabloid fodder, high-profile TV projects like "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Sports Night" that were canceled quickly), he has also won an Oscar, six Emmys, awards from the Producers Guild and Writers Guild, and numerous other prizes and citations. And he is responsible for the pedi-conference style of rapid-fire dialogue while walking that has become a TV staple.

There is currently a lot of buzz about "The Newsroom" and its prospects. Is it "full of yelling and self-righteousness"? "Atonal and farcical"? Or maybe "the most important drama to make it to television in years"?

It certainly has a top-notch cast, with Jeff Daniels as a long-time news anchor who has an on-air meltdown, Emily Mortimer as his ex who is hired to produce (and save) his show, Sam Waterston as his boss and Jane Fonda as his boss, and Broadway actors Alison Pill, John Gallagher Jr. and Thomas Sadoski, plus Oscar-nominated Dev Patel and the very pretty Olivia Munn, presumably to attract some younger male viewers. She's playing a brilliant economist, a role that seems to pop up a lot in Sorkin projects, and while I suppose it's reasonable to think Munn has a brain, she's also traded on her sexpot status so much as an actress and comedian that I find it hard to believe she'll fit in amongst the likes of Daniels and Waterston.

But the big question is whether viewers will take to Sorkin's talky, high-flying, sometimes pretentious, sometimes inspiring style one more time. The presidency is a suitable subject to attack the big issues of our time, while a late-night comedy show was clearly not. What about the news biz?

Watch and see tonight on HBO at 9 pm Central time.