‘The Newsroom’ Pilot Review: Come for the News, Stay for the Sorkinism

The Newsroom Created by Aaron Sorkin | Drama | TV-MA | 1h 10m

By John Liu

Nov 16, 2018

Created by celebrated screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, The Newsroom comes with everything one might expect from a Sorkin production: raging politics; behind-the-scenes relationships; scatterbrained women; failing men; witty banter; walking and talking; well-written, drawn-out sermons; and idealistic exhortations about American potential. The show follows a well-acted news staff in a dramatization of a cable news network. And above all, it signaled Sorkin’s attempted reclaim to screenwriting stardom.

The one undeniable strong point in the show is its dialogue. With Sorkin’s gift for rhetoric, it offers us what conversations could be. Combined with fluid pacing, the fast-paced exchanges do a commendable job of keeping us captivated and translating the dynamic atmosphere of a newsroom in tumult. Amid the excess of television shows that treat audiences like cattle in a stockyard, The Newsroom stands out as beacon of light. The script respects the audience enough to expect them to be fully engaged.

But alas, I was not. Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue and extended monologues worked for a dramatic film like The Social Network, for which he was the screenwriter, but for a show like The Newsroom that marketed itself as an accurate portrayal of a cable news network, Sorkinism doesn’t cut it. With The West Wing, Sorkin had embraced the nonlinear capabilities of television, and his comfort with nonlinear storytelling transferred over to The Social Network. But with The Newsroom, he returns to the linear structure of his earliest works. In turn, the dialogue of the show—while still brisk and at times even witty—lacks the subtle exposition and clever misdirection of some of his previous works and instead places all his rhetorical and stylistic flairs on centerfold.

In this way, Sorkin’s self-righteousness seeps into the script. We are supposed to be impressed with every other minute of preachy conversation. Every “profound” piece of dialogue, every fragment of Sorkin’s thesis, is prefaced by a gradual zoom shot and an overly sentimental soundtrack. But in the case that these melodramatic, self-satisfied moments don’t land with the force that Sorkin intended (since most of them feel underdeveloped anyway), we are expected to overlook them and move on. At times, it seems as though Sorkin wrote the screenplay hoping we would excuse these moments of clumsiness whenever they emerged.

The show’s questionable camerawork is another area where it falls flat. The dizzying camera movement and the abundance of off-kilter shots often make it unclear what we are supposed to be focusing on. How do the jumpy zoom shots contribute to the story? Why are they used for every sequence when they are clearly not supposed to be there? There is one impressive variety of camerawork: a gorgeous wide shot of Will McAvoy as we see him reporting for the first time, making his reclaim to glory. Still, that shot is an outlier amid the sea of haphazardly edited sequences we are just supposed to condone.

The Newsroom is also inexcusably lacking on the character front. And it makes sense: Every character is either a mouthpiece for Sorkin’s lofty sentiments or a throwaway backdrop. Allison Pill’s character is unduly relationship-driven for most of her on-screen time, as is Emily Mortimer’s, with their male counterparts receiving far more work-related dialogue than either of them. (It’s worth noting that the pilot fails the Bechdel Test for its first hour.) Of course, elements of budding romance are inevitable, but there are other ways to establish and develop the dynamics between male and female characters. What is more, Will McAvoy is initially written to be an unlikeable character, yet we are suddenly supposed to empathize with him as the pilot draws to a close. Sorkin expects all the characters to be redeemed in our eyes, and conflicts are abruptly resolved, leaving little reason for us to continue watching.

At the end of the day, the show is uplifting and offers an important message about the polarization and dumbing down of American cable news. If not for Aaron Sorkin’s signature dialogue, then watch the show for Aaron Sorkin’s rose-tinted optimism. After all, The Newsroom has always been one man’s idealized vision of American potential. And, oh, the show had so, so much potential.

Image credits to HBO