In an effort to be a bigger part of the discussion this week news anchor Will McAvoy reminds the world what the news was meant to be. As he says, the stations were allows 23 hours of the day to draw a profit from soap operas and mindless dross in exchange for one hour every evening dedicated to informing the people as to what is going on in the world. This comes off as a heartfelt apology but honestly is disguised as a complete critique of the industry itself.
We spend the following hour being rushed through the first six months of News Night as Will and MacKenzie do what they sought out to do, report the news and report it well. There was finally a complete separation of content and ratings in the world of News Night as Will and MacKenzie were allowed to create a program around informing the electorate even though a lot of what they did seemingly spat in the faces of the people who managed their own parent company.
We see this not only through the narrated montage of us catching up on all the highlights of the six months but also the reactions of all the members of this seemingly very important meeting that Charlie Skinner is in with the CEO of AWN (Parent Co. of ACN), Leona Lansing, and President of ACN, Reese Lansing.
From the beginning of this show three weeks ago we knew that this project was going to be an uphill battle. We knew that the world, as it was, wasn’t quite used to being fed information like this, or so Sorkin says.
This show, is without a doubt one of the most condescendingly rhetorical pieces of TV you will ever endure, and if you’re not willing to do that for one reason or another then you’re in for a world of pain. For those of you who are able to look past that, either for the fact that you agree with Sorkin or find him as affable as McAvoy himself, then you can end up enjoying a weekly hour long drama that I actually view more as a comedy that reminds me of His Girl Friday every minute of dialogue being strung along.
I still find it immensely satisfying watching Will rail on these nonsensical politicians all trying to fool the world into thinking their saints. However, I think the biggest joke of the show comes in the board room (or whatever you want to call it) as we see the narrator of this montage of six months analogizing what’s been happening with the plot of Rocky II. Now let me not sound rusty on Stallone classics, but this seemed a bit over the top, even for me.
We a get a little more insight into Will and MacKenzie as it relates to romance as we see Will, as we can only assume being aggravatingly arrogant by, parading model after cheerleader night after night infront of MacKenzie and then suddenly months later we see a man – who we only
imagine must be a semi-serious mate – appear to be by MacKenzie’s side one evening in such a respectful manner. It proves that while professionalism has been established between the two there is still some squawking to be had as they fight over who gets to the biggest winner of their personal war, in a sense.
Jim, Don, Maggie and Neal each show themselves to be stressed and capable all throughout the show. Maggie has an eventual breakdown and Jim seems even more interested in her as he wanted to believe he ever would be at the beginning of the show. The Don and Maggie relationship shows its weaknesses and at the same time the reason why it will never end, and that is Maggie. She’s so dependent on everything in her life that the idea of not having someone like Don, not necessarily Don, that she always ends up going back and apologizing so everything will be okay. We even see a moment where it’s obvious that she sees Jim as a potential person of interest, but she suffers for a reliance on Don that will be hard for her to break from.
