The Newsroom’s second season is more of the same

The first season of Aaron Sorkin’s latest show The Newsroom saw quite a bit of criticism. Critics called it smug and self-serving, pointing to the characterization of females, cherry-picking real news from the recent past and Sorkin’s tendency to preach to the audience as some of the many problems they had with the show. Despite the criticism, HBO picked up the series for a second season that premiered this week.

Audiences expecting massive changes in the second season of The Newsroom are going to be more than a little disappointed. If you shared the same concerns that other learned critics had with the show last year, then you’ll find this year just as grating as last. But for those – like myself – who were fans of the first go-round, then you are going to enjoy the second season.

The show largely – though not completely – dispatches with last season’s main arc and embraces one that is even larger in scope — and political implications. We learn in the first episode that News Night reported a story implicating elements of the United States military with the use of chemical weapons against civilians during a black-op codenamed Genoa. The whole season is framed, with the bulk of the story told as a flashback while including AWM’s attorney, played by Marcia Gay Harden, deposing members of the News Night staff about the story, which apparently will be revealed to have been false.

As much as I liked the first season, it wasn’t without flaws. The Newsroom definitely excels when the romantic entanglements of the cast take a backseat to everything else. Unfortunately, the story is still mired down with the Jim and Maggie relationship. As much as I like both Alison Pill and John Gallagher Jr., the two characters don’t have a great deal of chemistry (Unlike Sloan and Don; but more on that later). And while Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer do have great chemistry, it works better in the context of their professional relationship rather than their personal one.

I really enjoyed Olivia Munn’s Sloan Sabbith in the first season. More than anyone in the cast, Munn found her voice in Sorkin’s fast-paced writing style. Sloan continues to come into her own in the second season; she’s given more responsibility, including co-anchoring the 10^th Anniversary of 9/11 coverage. And her potential relationship with Don, hinted at towards the end of last a season, still bubbles in the background. It’s the only relationship I’d actually like to see explored on the show.

But, again, the problems that many had with the show last season are still there. Will McAvoy is still an insufferable jerk — though nobody ever seems to complain when Don Draper acts similarly. The news is still — for the most part, Genoa being the exception — cherry-picked from the recent past. Sorkin is still too preachy (the much-publicized addition of conservative political advisors to the writer’s room had no real impact to the show’s tone). I’m nowhere near qualified to weigh in on the perception of the poorly written women, but I’ve always held that all of the characters on The Newsroom are extremely flawed: I remember Will rolling on the floor trying to pull on his pants last season, and Don has a moment in the first four episodes involving an office chair where he comes across just as silly.

The Newsroom is far from a perfect show. It is not Sports Night and it is certainly no West Wing. But it is much better than it is has been given credit for. In a world where audiences aren’t smart enough to find the brilliance in ABC Family’s Bunheads, at least HBO was willing to take a chance on another season of a show for fans of the fast-talking, quick-witted, smarter-than-they-should-be heroes.