‘The Newsroom: The Complete Series’ Blu-ray (review)

Warner Bros.

First, I have to say that I consider Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom to be the single best television series of the 21^st century so far.

Second, I have to say that I really wish I could avoid politics in this review but The Newsroom is all about politics, albeit from what now feels like an alternate universe.

As you might expect, The Newsroom is set in and around a news program airing on the fictional ACN, the Atlantis Cable News network. Like Sorkin’s The West Wing series, The Newsroom highlights a fairly large ensemble cast and, also like The West Wing, between office politics, feuds, and romances, there’s a bit of a soap opera feel to everyone’s interactions.

Those interactions, though, are all built around the reason they’re all there in the first place—a news program.

One of the true joys of this series is in watching Jeff Daniels, playing the network’s volatile anchorman, Will McAvoy, be revealed as one of the great actors of our time. Luckily, he never got typecast after pictures like Dumb and Dumber.

As we meet him, Will is starting to go through some changes on just about every level, changes which, in the long run, will make him a very different man. The best fiction starts with an imperfect lead and transforms them over the course of the story, not into something perfect, but into something different and maybe just a little bit better. That’s what happens over the course of this three-season series.

Matching him note for note right from the beginning is the always-brilliant Sam Waterston. Waterston is the veteran ACN president who, we find out later, manipulates some of Will’s changes in an effort to get him back to being the solid newsman he once was, rather than just a talking head unwilling to upset anyone.

McAvoy is a Republican, although he has always prided himself on trying to be completely neutral. The most famous scene from this series is McAvoy’s speech about making America great again—not in a MAGA way but in a logical, sensible way. Although overshadowed by the right-wing noise of recent years, that speech of his—written by Sorkin— has nonetheless gone viral and can easily be found online. It works even better in context of the series.

“My party’s being hijacked,” Will says in one episode, “and it’s happening in real time.”

This was in 2012. Sadly, despite the fact that this series from not that long ago is more relevant than ever in so many ways, so many concepts and political realities of the time now just sound like fiction.

Many of the episodes tie in with real-world incidents that were happening at the time, from bombings and oil spills to coups and political races. We see everyone scrambling to try to scoop the other networks but holding out for confirmations, rather than just aiming to be first. As the series goes on for its three seasons, the episode plots sometimes get convoluted and it’s tricky at times to keep track of what’s fiction and what are then-recent real-world events.

All of the actors in the newsroom are perfectly cast, headed up by British actress Emily Mortimer as new producer Mackenzie McHale, who just happens to be Will’s ex-girlfriend. Dev Patel calmly steals many scenes, as does Olivia Munn. John Gallagher, Jr. Alison Pill, and Thomas Sadoski end up in a love triangle almost from the beginning, but all three are written and acted so well, you really feel their frustrations.

Jane Fonda—of all people—plays the station owner, a brilliant but unsympathetic businesswoman who spends most of her scenes arguing with Waterston, her future co-star in a couple of other projects! Fonda’s ex-husband, Ted Turner, was the founder and first president of CNN.

I had forgotten that David Harbour, now a big star from Stranger Things, Thunderbolts, etc, was in The Newsroom. One of my favorites of the modern actors, Hamish Linklater, turns up in numerous episodes, as well.

As things wind down for the series, there’s a strong effort at tying up all the show’s loose ends. We see a death, imprisonment, marriage, pregnancy, and end on hope for the future of journalism and the future of America.

Yes, in the end, the 25 episodes of The Newsroom are another Aaron Sorkin soapbox, but they generally are not overly preachy and remind the viewer of a genuine positive outlook on journalistic integrity and the world that soon enough became harder and harder to see, and that these days is almost impossible to find.

I genuinely liked most of these characters, and just like when the series originally ended, I already miss spending time with them. I can only imagine how they would handle politics in the world of 2025.

Extras include multiple audio commentaries, deleted scenes, and featurettes.

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