TV Review: The Newsroom 1.4 - "I'll Try to Fix You"

rating: 3.5

WARNING: Significant spoilers follow! January 8, 2011, was a very bad, bad day here in Arizona. It€™s the day the Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was attacked and shot in the head by an extremely unbalanced man. This came in the wake of a whole series of discussions in the media about guns an some ill-advised political rhetoric that used gun imagery. Giffords survived, though a bunch of other people, including a little girl, did not. It was, as I said, a very bad day in Arizona. I mention this because the media event that€™s used for this week€™s episode of HBO€™s series is, as you may have guessed, the shooting. Its use turned what was otherwise a rather boring, unexceptional episode into something interesting. I€™m not sure if that€™s good or not. As we begin this episode, Will (Jeff Daniels) is hanging out in his office wearing a rather stylish tux. Turns out that it€™s New Year€™s Eve and there€™s a big party in the office. McKenzie (Emily Mortimer) brings in her boyfriend, a federal prosecutor, to talk with Will (who, the episode reminds us about twenty times, is a Republican), about Congress gutting his office€™s budget so that he can€™t prosecute the big banks. This was rather an interesting thing, but sadly the episode then goes to Will hitting on a gossip columnist. She€™s preparing a €œtakedown€ piece on one of the Real Housewives of Whocaresburg. Will is appalled by this, saying:

€œI€™m not putting you down, I€™m saying that what you do is a form of pollution that makes us dumber and meaner and is bringing down civilization, and I would have more respect for you if you were a heroin dealer.€

Well, there€™s no way that can lead to anything bad. Soon he€™s dating his usual series of women and there€™s a whole lot of coverage in various tabloids talking about his personal life. It gets so bad that he eventually ends up as the cover story in a celebrity €œnews€ rag owned by the same parent company that owns ACN. It seems that Jane Fonda€™s character is living up to her threats from last week. Now this I liked. I liked it a lot. I liked Will€™s comment on the way that celebrity €œnews€ is generally covered. I liked that we saw what a coordinated media takedown can be like. I also really liked that they highlighted the incestuous relationship the various media branches have. Had this been the only plot to this episode, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. Sadly, this episode also continued to chronicle the €œrelationship€ between Jim (John Gallagher, Jr), and Maggie (Allison Pill), while also showing her actual relationship with Don (Thomas Sadowski). I continue to not even remotely care about this and all the little bits of jealousy and misunderstanding and everything else continue to come off as poorly written as, say, a junior high school play on the same topic. This episode also did nothing for the character of Neal (Dev Patel). I like Dev Patel. I€™ve liked him ever since I first saw him in Skins. His character in this show is supposed to be a blogger and all-around tech geek, which is fine, but in this episode he€™s shown being bizarrely obsessed with Bigfoot, even to the point of calling everyone in for a meeting on a Saturday (a power I€™m surprised he has). This really just makes him look like a clueless idiot. I hope there are plans for his character down the line, because so far he just doesn€™t work. I continue to have great hopes for this show overall, but I believe strongly that it€™s at its best when it focuses on the sausage-making process of the news, and at its weakest when it focuses on personal relationships. Sorkin just can€™t write those, and yet he seems unwisely interested in them. It is, at least at this point, an interest that is dragging down the show.