TV The Newsroom

I still can't believe High Maintenance (or any of these shows, really) were cancelled by HBO.

Want more political drama (and comedy) after plowing through the Showtime miniseries?

When it comes to the creative minds kicking around in Hollywood, few produce product as instantly recognizable as Aaron Sorkin. And one would think that a 22-year stint in the industry would guarantee never having to worry about how much money is in the bank, but the information-hemorrhaging Sony leak has clued us in on Sorkin’s possible money problems.

HBO’s The Newsroom is premiering its third and final season tonight, and for fans of prolific writer Aaron Sorkin, the episode may be a little bittersweet. The West Wing and Sports Night writer is now saying that when The Newsroom ends, he will be done with television for good.

Maybe it’s because HBO strives for a platform that is higher quality than a lot of the network’s out there. Or maybe the network is just really good at marketing. Whatever the reason, HBO announced premiere dates for returning drama The Newsroom, as well as comedies The Comeback and Getting On this morning, and I got a little giddy inside.

The third season of HBO’s The Newsroom will be its last. The network announced today that production is slated to begin on Season 3 of The Newsroom, and the premium cable channel also made mention that this would be the final season of the series. The Newsroom’s third and final season will air in the Fall. HBO also announced that Paul Lieberstein — known for his work both on and off screen on The Office — has joined the series as an executive producer.

Somewhere between the end we wanted and the end we deserved lies this episode. Aaron Sorkin has raised our hopes with sterling writing this season, only to occasionally dash those same hopes as he reverts to type with formulaic and sometimes silly/lazy writing. We got a little of both last night, wrapped up in a curious set of plots without loose ends, as if Sorkin himself doesn't want a third season, despite all the tweeting and unofficial announcing his cast has been doing about just that happening as a done deal.

Aaron Sorkin's world is all about conversation and the sparkling nature of words above plot. This can lead to some truly awesome moments, but it can also be frustrating when we've seen him meld plotting with his gifts (as in the past few weeks). Sometimes, it all just falls apart, and the very pretty words and strings of thought are just placeholders that get us from scene to scene.

As long as there's news, a drama series like The Newsroom should have no shortage of material from which to be inspired. And that's a good thing as The Newsroom is sticking around. Series star Jeff Daniels spread the news this week that The Newsroom will be back for another season.

Here is where it all hits the fan, folks. The weeks of teasing flashbacks and flashforwards give way to exactly what went wrong with the Genoa story: Jerry does indeed get fired for his editing of footage and then sues ACN with a claim of wrongful termination. And then, we find out, almost comically, what terrible journalists the ACN team is, one by one. It's really sad, and scary, and almost makes it impossible to respect these folks. But somehow, we're still supposed to see them as the good guys.

There were a number of places we could've gone after the soaring highs of last week's episode, which was a real-time searing journey into the darker parts of this show that was both unapologetic and perhaps the series' finest hour. Where we've ended up, it seems, is back on the death-march to the Genoa explosion and perhaps business-as-usual for the writing of The Newsroom.

Every one of Sorkin's previous shows have attempted a near-real-time, in-depth look at a featured character. Sometimes it works (The West Wing) and sometimes it really falls flat (the Matthew Perry drug awareness episode of Studio 60. Last night it was The Newsroom's turn, and for the most part, it succeeded admirably.

Well I was a little more invested in this episode, even though we sort of knew what was going to happen, right from the get-go. Which is sort of the problem with this season's big narrative device--we know where we end up, in the big picture, so where's the suspense?

Well, we're about 1.5 out of 3, friends. This week's episode wasn't quite the sexist, self-indulgent mess of last week's spectacular misfire, but it still has a ways to go to avoid its status as a collection of Sorkin's bad habits.

Well, we learn a lot more about "Genoa," a black op that was supposed to be a clean extraction mission but ended up in a sarin gas attack on civilians in Pakistan. Mac shows some serious steel in pursuing the lead--a soldier who was part of the op--instead of the flighty and occasionally daft characteristics that became her benchmark last season. I find it interesting that the one fictional news story this show has created is suddenly its most interesting part

My fellow journalists often have a bone to pick with this show; sometimes, I do, too. The Newsroom is an idealistic fantasy, set three clicks to the left of the world in which we live; I'm pretty sure The West Wing would get some of the same criticism levied its way, as well, were it airing in first run today instead of over a decade ago.

Following up on another teaser for The Newsroom is a trailer that actually reveals footage from the upcoming second season of the HBO drama series. The new trailer teases both professional and personal conflict at the fictional cable news network, and also a couple not-so-current events, which will be explored in Season 2 - the Romney presidential campaign and the Occupy movement.

We're still more than a month out from the return of The Newsroom, which could mean we're in for more teasers like the one above, which don't actually show us any footage from the approaching second season, but offer vague and symbolic reminders of the kind of drama that awaits. In the case of the latest teaser, which plays more like a music video, the newsroom is gone and the desert has taken its place. And with the workplace stripped away, Will McAvoy has no choice but to see what's right in front of him.

The Newsroom’s newest trailer is a slow motion affair, giving us some behind-the-scenes looks at shooting the drama, which is amusing, as the video shows shots of the crew shooting a crew of actors who are shooting the news. i>The Newsroom stars Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, Alison Pill, John Gallagher Jr., Olivia Munn, Dev Patel, Sam Waterston, and Jane Fonda. Season 2 will premiere on HBO on July 14 at 10 p.m. ET.

One of the great things about The Newsroom in its first season was the way it used real-life news stories in its plot - which centers on the inner workings of a cable news station - and still managed to maintain some level of suspense, in spite of the fact that we often knew where the news story was headed even before the characters did. In some cases, that pre-knowledge even worked in the show's favor, allowing us to remain focused on the characters rather than the developing story they're working on.