Newsroom (HBO)

The last time I regularly watched the news was quite a long time ago. It was probably more than a decade ago, when I had cable and a TV. I haven’t had either for a long time. I had also gotten tired of watching biased and partisan American news, from the big networks including CNN. I never was a fan of FOX news. Most of the time, I watched the BBC World News, which I found less biased and it had better coverage of world events.

Aarone Sorkin is best known for his TV series The West Wing, which I stopped watching a couple of seasons in. It’s immediately apparent that Newsroom is a Sorkin production. The writing and the commentary are ludicrous at times, especially when it comes time to examine why America is no longer the world’s greatest country.

Within the first few minutes, I was rolling my eyes and groaning, not sure that I’d finish watching the pilot episode. Don’t get me wrong, patriotism has its place, but when it comes from the mouth of a Brit, when it concerns America, even if her background somehow seeks to justify this, doesn’t make much sense.

With this big caveat, the rest of the show wasn’t that bad. Sure, there are a few nauseating bits about how everything goes just right every single time, but I was reminded of the BBC show The Hour.

I liked how Jeff Daniels’ character Will McAvoy wings it during his news hour. It was like the news was delivered before, without the use of a TelePrompTer.

I’d like this show to shed its West Wing feel and find its own groove. Hopefully that will happen in the next few episodes. HBO picked up the show for 10 episodes.