The Newsroom.

So what did we all make of Aaron Sorkin's new show Newsroom? Well, it moved at a decent pace and I, sort of, kind of, got to know the characters, well a bit but The West Wing casts a large shadow over proceedings. OK Mr. Sorkin did that other thing, a while back with Matthew Perry, 60 Sun Bingo or something but no one saw it, so I think we can skip it, don't you? 

Set in the newsroom (hence the title I suppose) of Atlantis Cable News, Jeff Daniels plays Will McAvoy the main anchor who has had a melt down and is generally a grumpy old man, like Harrison Ford in Morning Glory. Sadly Mr. Daniels doesn't get his tongue  stuck on a frozen pole, or have an uncomfortable time on the toilet, but he does rant and spout a lot of Sorkinese and there is a lot of Sorkinese in this show, but I think we all forget there was a lot in The West Wing. Will's old team have deserted him after his breakdown but he gets a whole new mob, led by ex girlfriend McKenzie (a very English, mainly because she is English, Emily Mortimer). She's been to all the trouble spots and war zones of the world and is 'physically and mentally exhausted' or she might have been in Cancun with the Geordie Shore crew, it's one or the other. McKenzie is one of those deeply impassioned people you only get on shows like this.

    

There's an awful lot of running around in The Newsroom, it's a bit like a busy lunchtime in McDonald's but it seems worth it as they smugly congratulate themselves on a job well done. In the pilot this newly cobbled together team break the Deepwater Horizon oil spill story in record time, with a professionalism that was only rivalled by the Bartlett White House staff. Way to go guys. On the upside the dialogue, when it wasn't getting a little preachy, was as sharp as you would expect from Aaron Sorkin and the whole thing was well acted. Also Dev Patel is in it, so we can now stop asking ourselves the question: 'whatever happened to that dude that was in Slumdog Millionaire?'

Over