The Newsroom: Is Aaron Sorkin's Drama Making Headlines?

Aaron Sorkin's new HBO drama The Newsroom has debuted on US TV and it's proving to be quite a talking point, even if some of the critics haven't quite taken to the new series wholeheartedly. Starring Hollywood stalwart Jeff Daniels as news anchor Will MCAvoy and Emily Mortimer as MACkenzie MCHale, the New York Post have characterised the series as an "earnest, if idealized, look at a nightly news show."

They go on to surmise that Sorkin's new drama is "both entertaining and irritating. The info is important and good, but the quipping banter with which it's delivered, isn't." USA Today take a wistful look back at some of Sorkin's past work, such as the hugely popular The West Wing and struggle to pitch The Newsroom against it as an equal. The Newsroom plays on Sorkin's strengths and weakness: "It's wonderful to have a series that discusses current affairs and the way they're covered, even if Newsroom can be a bit self-righteous about it, and Sorkin does have a gift for amusing chatter, even if he does overindulge it. Talkiness is not Newsroom's only flaw. The secondary characters need to be better developed and MACKenzie, who morphs from a strong woman tonight into a ditzy klutz, needs to get back to strength."

At the negative end of the review spectrum, The Huffington Post, The New Yorker and Time Magazine all struggled to see the positives in Aaron Sorkin's latest creation. Huffington Post are particularly scathing, saying that it's "a dramatically inert, infuriating mess, one that wastes a fine cast to no demonstrable purpose".