Tonight's episode of The Newsroom was my favorite to date. What put this hour over the top for me was that I found the synthesis of reality and fantasy to be the most satisfying of any episode so far.I wrote of the premiere episode of the show that it seemed Aaron Sorkin was setting out to do for journalism what he did for the White House in The West Wing -- to offer an unreal paradise. Just as we wished a real life president would act with the nobility, wisdom, and courage of Josiah Bartlett, Sorkin was setting out to create a paragon of journalism in Will McAvoy, the anchor we'd all wish actually existed in real life.
What made this episode so compelling for me was that it focused on reality crashing in. It was an examination of why that lofty fantasy can't actually exist in reality. Oh, not the part about a corporate head using her own tabloid organization to put pressure on the news department, but rather the sad and simple reality of the ratings. The scathing examination of not just why the Nancy Graces of the world do what they do, but how they do it so effectively, was a truly intelligent and revealing commentary on Why We Can't Have Nice Things.
At the same time, the fantasy was still very much in play. The hour was seeded with something nefarious, in the wiretapping being performed by the network's tabloid arm. Though ripped from the real world headlines (which were even mentioned within the episode), this element seems to offer the lifeline by which Our Heroes will triumph over the forces trying to control them in the second part of the episode. Assuming it all plays out that way, the fantasy of the Perfect News Show will be restored next week in showy fashion for our viewing enjoyment.
But a continued black mark on the series is Sorkin's treatment of the female characters. Mackenzie was at her strongest ever this week, as she fought most passionately against bowing to ratings considerations -- and she was at her most likeable ever as a character while doing it. But taking up her wishy-washy slack this week was Sloane. One moment, she's articulately and powerfully warning about the crisis of not raising the debt ceiling... but the next moment she's made weak and flighty by her crazed overreaction to Neal. And then there's Maggie, passionately and articulately standing up for her religion against Michelle Bachmann, only to later be used as the butt of a joke when she's shown to be lower even than interns on the totem pole, despite having worked at her job for more than a year. Sure, they were both funny moments, but they seemed to compromise those characters in a way that, by contrast, Charlie's moment of mistaken identity in the library didn't.
Still, the arc of the season has been climbing. Sorkin's writing of the plots has certainly improved. And with a second season already ordered by HBO, perhaps next year we can look forward to the arc of how he writes his female characters to improve too.
In the meantime, I'll hope for a good conclusion next week to this two-part episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment