Guest Review by A.Snow
When I first heard the news that Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom was going to be ending this season, I was quite saddened. My feelings only strengthened after watching the most spectacular episode of the show since its infamous pilot episode.
Sorkin’s drama about the behind-the-scenes workings of a news show premiered in 2012, and had a wonderful first season run. In fact, the pilot’s opening three minutes (which you watch on YouTube) immediately went viral. Unfortunately, the show struggled quite a bit in its second year. And now we’ve finally reached season three, which will be the final season and the shortest yet.
Sorkin wastes no time dropping us in the middle of the action. Boston starts with a conversation between Will and Mac regarding their wedding, until the latter notices something odd on the TV screens in the station’s main floor and Sorkin takes us back to the Boston Marathon and the tragic bombing that occurred on April 15, 2013. This is reminiscent of season one, which mostly focused on real events and how our fictional characters dealt with them. The show’s fast pace has returned and I for one was beyond happy that it did.
Since this episode was divided into five days, Sorkin didn’t just focus on the Boston Marathon but also on the beginnings of wikileaks, as well as ACN’s potential hostile take over. All these events came to a crashing climax at the end of the episode, and Sorkin literally sets up the season’s remaining episodes.
Another fantastic thing about this premiere was seeing all of our beloved characters evolve. They are certainly different people now as we are no longer seeing an evolution, but the aftermath of that evolution. Maggie is one of those characters; she started off as a very shy character, but is now full of confidence. It was refreshing to see her not whine and be an introvert, but rather assume charge and take over for Elliot after his allergic reaction to walnuts prevented him from going on the air.
Newsworthy Moments
– Any scene with Charlie Skinner flipping out is brilliant to me. He is such a likable character.
– Maggie’s evolution to on-air reporter was such a great scene.
– The final scene with Neal coming clean about his involvement with the hacker and the government classified documents was Aaron Sorkin at his best.
– Will’s final speech definitely brought back memories of his opening monologue from the pilot.
Soundbytes
Jim: Crowd sourcing law enforcement. That went off without a hitch in Salem.
Will: This isn’t going to be a reality show. We don’t do good TV. We do the news.
Mac: We’re not going based on tweets from witnesses we can’t talk to. What credible news agency would do that?
Will:You know who did great this week? The police, the FBI, DOJ, Homeland Security. In less than a hundred hours they found two needles in a haystack the size of the world. You know who sucked. Everybody else.
Conclusion
Although I am pretty sad to see this show end, I am extremely excited to see it go out with a bang. Boston was an excellent season premiere.
A. Snow Rating
A-
For some reason, I always thought this show was set int he 40s or something (Mad Men style). Now that I read this review and know it's set in modern times, I'm actually much more intrigued to give it a shot. I have a feeling I'll love it!
Never seen this show either. Also, for some reason I thought it was similar to Mad Men time-wise, but that YouTube video to those “honest” 3 minutes FASCINATED ME. Might give this a shot too 😛
Glad to find another fan of this show out there; agreed on every point. It's off to an awesome start, but it's a shame we'll only get 6 episodes before we have to say goodbye.
So happy this blog is covering The Newsroom, and I completely agree that the season premiere was fantastic!!
I feel that many potential viewers are sidelined by its political nature, but it's one of my all time favorites.. It's sad to see it cancelled. 🙁