Yay It's The Newsroom Trailer! (Also, Fuck The Newsroom)
I watch and love HBO’s The Newsroom, while knowing full well that in almost every capacity, The Newsroom fucking sucks.
I have happily shelved those complicated feelings for the past 13 months of its hiatus, but the first trailer for the final season just dropped and said feelings all came rushing back. For the first half, you’re reminded of the awesomeness that The Newsroom, in theory, evokes: an idealistic view of the way journalism should go down, the way politics should be reported, subscribing to the tenet that newspeople act as a de facto fourth party in the government’s system of checks and balances. “Americans are serious people,” says Will, “and we can reflect that back in the worst of times.”
But then halfway through the trailer, we are reminded that Aaron Sorkin’s idealism rides a very thin line and more often than not veers into dicky self-righteousness, and we are reminded that all of these characters are basically stand-ins for Aaron Sorkin’s psyche, and also we are reminded that Will and MacKenzie fucking got engaged which like, what the fuck though.
As the print teasers have alluded to, this season is going to tackle an Edward Snowden/Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks-type situation, with leaked documents and the process—and consequences—of following the stories they tell. It will also show News Night‘s take on the Boston Marathon bombing, and of course the important vagaries of Don and Sloan’s fucking stupid fucking relationship, what the fucking fuck. There are only six more episodes left, which I shall watch eagerly and reluctantly at the same time, and once the show has concluded I am certain the only thing I will miss about it is seeing Dev Patel wax about social media on a regular basis. But at least it’s not Homeland. Ugh GOD HBO what is your DEAL?