Newsroom, The – Season 1
Take for instance, how in the third episode The 112th Congress Will attacks the Tea Party live on air about their funding and tactics. This all happens around the same time that he is rejected by multiple women, rightfully so as he takes every minute of every date to insult them for watching reality television and not being as intelligent as he is.
There are four other male characters in the main cast. Charlie (Sam Waterson) spends a lot of time yelling, leaving me to wonder whether he may suffer a stroke sometime soon. Don (Thomas Sadoski), who couldn’t be more of an asshole if he tried, is so unmemorable that I spent half of the season referring to him as what’s-his-name. Dev Patel is a huge nerd rambling about Bigfoot and trolls all the time, while John Gallagher, Jr. spouts some lines that I’d expect from a bigoted, homophobic state senator, not a Tony award winner.
The characters in The Newsroom exist in an alternate reality where everything is more or less the same, except having two doctorates means nothing if you’re a woman. Olivia Munn stepped up to the plate to deliver the only performance that isn’t painfully over the top as Sloan Sabbith, or as we like to call her, Dr. Dr. Sloan. She remains the only character who actually reacts to the blatant misogyny that every episode forces onto audiences. In episode six, Bullies, Dr. Dr. Sloan yells at Charlie after being chastised and suspended without pay for something that any man could have gotten away with (something that the immaculate Will McAvoy actually convinced her to do):
“I DON’T WANT THE GODDAMN PAY.”
“DON’T FRONT OFF WITH ME, GIRL.”
“DON’T CALL ME GIRL, SIR.”
If the show could get away with firing Aaron Sorkin and letting Sloan burn down NewsNight — did I mention she set US Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner on fire in 5/1 — and run off with Tess, a background character with hilarious one-liners, I’d be pleased. Then again, the chances of both events happening are greater than our chances of seeing another woman on the show behave normally.
Here’s to the girls who play smart, aren’t they a gas? Maggie (Alison Pill) is so much of a joke that she is constantly referred to as a Muppet by friends of mine, but somehow both Jim and Don are in love with her and I cry out, “This is so not life at all!” Then there’s Emily Mortimer, who breaks my heart on a weekly basis in her role as MacKenzie, the painfully incompetent executive producer of News Night who will surely make you wonder whether she’s even remotely qualified for this job.
There’s so much more I could tell you about The Newsroom — from racial profiling and homophobia to the best Twitter account ever (@HBONewsroom) — but I’d honestly drag on for ages. If you care to learn more, you can feel free to check out this snarky but informative AllTheTv podcast that I guest starred on.
Episodes to Watch: We Just Decided To & everyone’s favorite seven-minute Coldplay montage episode I Will Try to Fix You
Rating: 
