Aaron Sorkin seems to be going from strength to strength. Already greatly esteemed from his massively impressive and hugely influential writing work on The West Wing, he has since gone on to win an Oscar for The Social Network and further TV and film projects as varied as Studio 60, Charlie Wilson’s War and Moneyball. His cameo in Tina Fey’s excellent 30 Rock played on the “walk and talk” style he so deftly established for The West Wing and with all of this under his belt he is now working on a new series for HBO, recently re-titled “Newsroom”, from the earlier but slightly unwieldly working title “More As This Story Develops”.
Newsroom will see Jeff Daniels (Dumb and Dummer) as show host Will McCallister and Sam Waterston (Law and Order) as network President Charlie Skinner alongside Emily Mortimer and Olivia Munn, with Sorkin’s now distinctive intelligent dialogue no doubt running swiftly between all concerned.
Here is (apparently) a very brief snippet of Sorkin’s dialogue from the show:-
Will: Charlie, I can’t go after Halliburton and miss.
Charlie: Oh report the goddam news, Will.
Will: You remember a guy named Dan Rather?
Charlie: Dan got it right.
Will: He’s no longer on television.
It is hard to imagine Sorkin putting a foot wrong, though Studio 60 did not last long. Perhaps with his reputation even higher now than it was after The West Wing, his latest project will have better legs.
Reviewed by Dave Roper on Dec 7
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