There is probably no show that engendered as much hate-watching last year as Aaron Sorkin‘s “The Newsroom.” The highly anticipated show had so much to like about it including a great lead turn from Jeff Daniels, and an all around excellent cast (Emily Mortimer, Alison Pill, Dev Patel, John Gallagher Jr., Jane Fonda, Chris Messina, Terry Crews, Olivia Munn etc). But damn if Sorkin couldn’t get out of his own way, with the show seemingly unable to go two minutes without speech-ifying, not to mention two separate and equally tedious romantic subplots that made adults act like junior high teenagers. Can Sorkin right the ship in season two?
Um, maybe, but it looks like much more of the same. The Jim/Maggie/Don thing still seems cribbed from “The Office,” with Jim even pulling a Halpert, and getting assigned to New Hampshire to get away from Maggie. As for Sorkin and his on-the-nose politics, it looks like Occupy Wall Street is the big story of this season, which surely means that the storytelling will be subtle and nuanced…right? But of course, we’ll be watching this and hoping things are better this time around.
“The Newsroom” arrives on July 14th.