Kelly Bedard

“Bullies” was the darkest Newsroom episode yet as Sorkin used an insomnia-prompted therapy session to explore a bit more of the darkness in his principal “hero”. The format is a winner, as we’d already learned from a pretty good Sports Night episode and a spectacular West Wing episode (season two’s “Noel”- one of television’s greatest […]

  Kelly Bedard

This week’s installment of The Newsroom was my favourite since the pilot. With a news story big enough to force intensity, Will and Mack set aside their monumental issues at least a little bit. They seem to have reached a point of understanding (punctuated by Mack’s episode-ending gesture and the warm hug Will wrapped her […]

  Kelly Bedard

This was a frustrating episode that I was prepared to mostly slam, but it ended with a beautiful sequence set to Coldplay’s ever-emotional “Fix You” that was everything the show is meant to be and I ended the hour bouncing with potential (mostly because of Don, but we’ll get to that). Let’s take this thread […]

The Newsroom: “The 112th Congress”
  Kelly Bedard

The third episode of The Newsroom is essentially a six-month montage detailing how Will, Mackenzie and Co. covered the events leading up to the November 2010 mid-term elections (they downplayed the Times Square bomb, shouted down anti-gay arguments, and went after the Tea Party). That’s all juxtaposed with the introduction of Jane Fonda as the […]

  Kelly Bedard

Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom is not exactly popular with people who talk about television- most are bugged by the hyperstylized idealism, the show’s nostalgic insistence, and Sorkin’s own contentious personality. But among the honest-to-god Sorkin fans who populate my life, This was more the feeling after the pilot episode last week (and I quote): “I think […]

  Kelly Bedard

My expectations could not have been higher for The Newsroom. From A Few Good Men to Sports Night, The West Wing, The Social Network, all the way to The Farnsworth Invention, Aaron Sorkin has written almost everything I love. There is literally no writer like him in the history of English-language art (I mean it, […]

  Kelly Bedard

In the “About You” section of my facebook page, under “Religion” it says “Aaron Sorkin”. See, when I first discovered Sports Night (Sorkin’s first TV series) I found, for the first time in my life, characters who spoke my language. They’re quick, silly, intense and self-awarely cheesy and it was Aaron Sorkin who created them. […]