TV Review: ‘The Newsroom,’ The Final Season
Posted on by Brian Lowry - 3 comments
“The Newsroom” didn’t really cry out for a third and final season — even a truncated six-episode one — but Aaron Sorkin’s creation remains as fascinating as it is frustrating, affording the writer extraordinaire a platform to vent about media excesses in a manner that’s off-putting and sanctimonious enough to dilute its many legitimate beefs and criticisms. It’s a shame, since Sorkin has always presented the news business with inordinate insight and smarts, but his clear disappointment in modern journalism’s failings has to be reciprocated toward an entertainment whose flawed structural conceit and too-cute office politics consistently undermine its authority.
Although “The Newsroom’s” easily riled anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) and his principled producer Mackenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) finally re-declared their love for each other at the end of the previous season, wedding plans have merely given them something new about which to squabble. Besides, there’s plenty of complicated romance among others on the staff, including financial anchor Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn) and her producer Don (Thomas Sadoski), although to be fair, having journalists bedding each other represents progress vs. sleeping with sources, which they seem to do in other dramas (“Ray Donovan,” anyone?) with wearisome regularity.