After an extremely successful film awards season – he won the Oscar for writing “Social Network” and co-wrote another kudo contender, “Moneyball”– Aaron Sorkin back on television, this time on HBO.
No stranger to shows set in the world of television itself (“Sports Night,” “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”) Sorkin’s newest world revolves around “The Newsroom,” set in and around a fictional cable news network, ACN, based in New York City.
The series premiered Sunday night and the pay cabler is offering a free look at the series (on HBO.com, YouTube and tv.com) which centers around news anchor Will McAvoy, adroitly played by Jeff Daniels and not based on Keith Olbermann, according to Sorkin. Think of a CNN-type national anchor who doesn’t have the prominence of a Brian Williams or Scott Pelley, but who has some gravitas, and the infamous Sorkin dialogue as a script.
Daniels told us at the premiere party last week that he did not base his portrayal on any specific television news anchor, and that he did not hang out in any TV newsrooms to do research.
The story finds him in a safe niche with bankable ratings on his 8 p.m. flagship newscast, “News Night.” Numbed by success, McAvoy has become stoic, complacent, cynical –until he goes off during a panel discussion at a prestigious college in which he says that “America is not the greatest country in the world” in answer to a student’s question.
As you might imagine, that dis on patriotism catapults him from apathy to a new sense of engagement as he navigates the fallout from his unplanned tirade. Returning to work in the newsroom, is very clear that his cutting sarcasm and general unpleasantness have long been a sore spot with his news team, most of whom seem to be defecting to another newscast.
McAvoy’s biggest fan is his boss, Charlie Skinner, played by the wonderful Sam Waterston, the decidedly old-school president of ACN’s news division, one who still tries to uphold the standards set by news legends like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
To that end, he decides to bring in a new executive producer who just happens to be McAvoy’s former girlfriend MacKenzie McHale, (Emily Mortimer), who is just back from 26 months embedded inIraq and Afghanistan and ready to call the “safe” confines of a newsroom home.
That decision–made behind his back while he was on vacation just prior to his meltdown– does not go down well with McAvoy, and the two former lovers engage in a new battle that ultimately involves much of the newsroom staff.
The idealistic MacKenzie seems dead set on restoring Will to the sense of integrity he feels has been lost in the news business. At the same time, their romantic tension adds even further drama as breaking news—the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico—unites the staff as they scramble to cover one of the biggest stories of the last decade. It will be interesting to see how the series incorporates other real-life news events into its fabric.
The British Mortimer, who gets to keep her accent as part of her role, told us she did research by spending time in a television newsroom, as did several other key cast members, who include “Slumdog Milionaire’s” Dev Patel, Thomas Sadoski, John Gallagher, Jr., Olivia Munn and Alison Pill.
Sadoski plays an executive producer and the suitor of an intern/assistant played by Pill, until Gallagher’s character becomes a major rival on both fronts. Patel is a hotshot young staffer who also happens to write McAvoy’s blog, which he proclaims, several times, that he’s surprised he has.
Munn’s character, the network’s financial reporter was not in the pilot episode, nor was Jane Fonda, who plays the head of the cable network, a la her ex-husband, Ted Turner. That should be a hoot.
HBO’s attention to detail is always evident at the premiere parties for its programs, and this one was no exception.
The décor at Blvd. 3 nightclub, where screening guests were shuttled after seeing the show, was a global theme in keeping with “The Newsroom.” Globes of various sizes were floated on pedestals in the reflecting pool, as well as on all the tables inside the club, which were covered with map-themed tablecloths.
Matching throw pillows of various sizes adorned the banquets and chairs, where guests including Fonda, Munn, Sorkin, Mortimer, Sadoski, Gallagher and Patel mixed and mingled as the bash wore on late into the evening.
A DJ booth was branded with the fictional ACN logo, and the beats kept things lively.
Patel was spotted leaving with a globe in each hand, and by the end of the evening, many of the guests had also taken one as a party favor, the type that will keep on spinning.
(Watch the first episode free on HBO.com and other digital outlets until July 23.)
