Media Trip Report – THE NEWSROOM

(Originally published on facebook, November 22, 2022)

TL:DR; yes please.

Tonight I watched the first three episodes of Aaron Sorkin’s finest work.

There are 138 entries in his filmography, titles you’ve seen and know by heart. Jed Bartlet may be his best character, but was nearly an afterthought in the first season. Daniel Kaffee may want the truth, but we all know he can’t handle it.

Will McAvoy is news anchor at the top of his game, a bastard who remembers being a better man. He yearns for it, and hopes that someday he can be the person he pretends to be.

Jeff Daniels steps into his skin, but it’s Sorkin’s words we hear, and I can’t look away from this marvelously subversive roast of the 24 hour news cycle.

This is it. This is the piece that should make you a fan, if you weren’t already. Sorkin pulls no punches in this made-for-cable masterpiece, and no matter what you may think of the man himself, the critical lens he holds up to news television is every bit as entertaining as his political stuff, and maybe a little bit more.

I’m hoping that three short, succinct, profanity-laced seasons are enough to scratch this itch I didn’t know I had.

I’m hoping I can avoid binging it all this week, but at the same time, I’m willing to risk it.

Two opposable digits pointing skyward.