Aaron Sorkin is on a mission.  Armed with the near-limitless creative freedom of HBO,  he’s set out to inform the electorate, to tell the raw truth as he sees it, whether we like it or not.

His vehicle is The Newsroom, an HBO series set in a fictional cable news network called ACN.  Think The West Wing meets Broadcast News with a smattering of Network, all done up in Sorkin style -  extended, parabolic monologues, snappy laugh-out-loud lines of dialog, and the signature walk-and-talk.

The ten-part first season opens with a Howard Beale-ish outburst/epiphany.  Jaded, unpleasant news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) rants about the ugly truth of American greatness to an auditorium full of Northwestern University students.  McAvoy’s tirade is one of the finest you’ll ever witness on television.

When McAvoy returns from vacation, and to his senses, he finds his staff has deserted him and his boss, Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston), has hired a new Lara Logan-like executive producer - his old flame Mackenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer).

Sorkin’s fantasy newsroom is a recreation of how Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite or the Huntley-Brinkley team might report today’s stories - if there was a living anchor with that kind of courage, with that gravitas and dignity, if news anchors these days didn’t fancy themselves as part-time comedians moonlighting on 30 Rock, or were reduced to crushing soda cans on air for laughs.

The Newsroom is going to make a lot of people really, really angry.  Provocative is an understatement.  Targets for disdain include the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, and the Koch brothers who, according to the CEO of ACN’s parent company Leona Lansing (Jane Fonda), “drop Brink’s trucks on people they disagree with.”

The far-right blogosphere will probably explode.  For Sorkin, that might be the point.  Truth is a recurring theme for him.  “You can’t handle the truth!” from A Few Good Men is one of his most famous lines.

There are love triangles thrown into The Newsroom mix for some old-fashioned rom-com fun, but Sorkin mostly wants us to remember some recent history that has already faded from view:

– how lack of government oversight contributed to the Deepwater Horizon disaster;

– how the wild falsehoods about the cost of an Obama trade mission to India originated;

– how the news orgs ran with a premature announcement of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords’ death which was first reported by NPR and subsequently disseminated without a proper fact check by several cable news nets. It all turned out to be embarrassingly incorrect.

As he reports these stories, Jeff Daniels sounds eerily like Walter Cronkite at times.  But the real scene stealer is Sam Waterston as Skinner, a hard liquor drinking curmudgeon reminiscent of Andy Rooney.  He’s the head of the news division coping with corporate overlords - which appears to be CBS/Viacom.  Waterston’s magnificent outbursts are a wonder to behold.  He’s brilliant and his rage attacks are laugh-out-loud funny.  During the pilot, watch for the one in the hallway, when Skinner tags along with McAvoy as he confronts the staffers who’ve abandoned him for the greener pastures of the 10p slot.

Jeff Daniels and Sam Waterston make quite a pair and some of the series best moments take place during their scenes together.

A Sam Waterston Emmy nom for best supporting actor seems assured.

What’s glorious and great and wonderful about The Newsroom is this:  Sorkin assumes his audience is smart, that they’re capable and they want to understand.  At one point, McAvoy (a Republican) complains that the GOP has been “hijacked” and he compares the radical right to the radical left, the Tea Party and Students for A Democratic Society (SDS) respectively, with a reference to Bernardine Dohrn thrown in for good measure.  Older viewers may recognize the references; others will likely scramble for their laptops, to check Wikipedia.

But I love this about Sorkin.  I love that he assumes we know, or if we don’t, we’ll look it up - because it’s interesting, because we want to understand what he’s trying to say.  Because we want to think.

This isn’t to say there aren’t weaknesses in The Newsroom.  There are lots of them.  While entertaining at times, the portrayal of the earnest Gen-Y staffers doesn’t ring true.  I’m not sure that Sorkin is capturing 20-something sensibilities and concerns.

And the love triangles - the blatant UST (unresolved sexual tension) - is a distraction, a stale network cliche that feels out of place on HBO.

Yet, this is  HBO, where the greatest strength can sometimes be the greatest weakness.  The network is infamous for allowing their creatives to do pretty much whatever the hell they want, occasionally with disastrous results (John from Cincinnati, anyone?).  And this is Aaron Sorkin, unleashed.  He’s so unrestrained that sometimes you think, well, someone really ought to rein him in -  four consecutive Emmy Awards for The West Wing and an Oscar for The Social Network (etc. etc. etc.) notwithstanding.

Sometimes, The Newsroom is a train wreck, episode two especially.  Here’s what @televisionary tweeted and he was right:

“It’s histrionic, chaotic, and cartoonish. So much yelling, so little believability. Least credible email gaffe ever. ‪#Newsroom‬ ‪#ep2‬”

But it’s still a beautiful train wreck, gilded cars flying off track into mid-air, a splendid, artistic slow motion disaster.

Even at its worst, The Newsroom is still cracktastic.  A beautiful failure at times.

However, by episode four, I was addicted.  With the exposition out of the way, the series was starting to hum along - the characters were deepening; the plot thickening.

So, don’t be discouraged by episode two. Enjoy the finer moments; it gets better.

The Newsroom premieres this Sunday, June 24, at 10p ET/PT.

Beverly Hills CA — Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour 2012

The Palins can’t seem to get enough of Hollywood and they’ve been a presence at Television Critics Association Summer 2012 press tour.

Todd, cast on NBC’s new reality series Stars Earn Stripes, appeared in person along with his fellow castmates.   A fit and trimmed down Bristol, in house for ABC Network, also fielded questions from the critics.  She’s slated to participate in ABC’s latest iteration of DWTS - Dancing with the Stars: All-Stars.

Mom Sarah created a stir when she showed up at the NBC cocktail party, held poolside at the Beverly Hilton.   The spray-tanned Sarah was outfitted in a tight, low-cut wrap-around dress, and strappy five-inch black leather wedge platforms, her bright red-painted toenails peeking out the tips - - shoes that might be worn by a dominatrix.  The ensemble was completed by a hand-beaded (she said) red, white and blue bracelet.

Yesterday, a long haired Russell Brand -  at TCA to promote BrandX,  his live audience show currently airing on FX Network  - walked on stage barefoot, jeans torn at the knees, with long beaded necklaces dangling from his neck like a throwback to San Francisco’s Summer of Love.

So, with Palins still on the brain, it was irresistible.  One critic asked Russell Brand,  if he had the opportunity, what question would he put to Sarah Palin.

Brand tends to focus intently on the questions, almost eerily so, unblinking.

His response was instantaneous.

“I think we all know that I’ll go straight to the subtext,” said Brand, “because I think the reason that Sarah Palin has been so long tolerated is because of that latent inquisition around the vagina. Ha-ha-ha-ha. People want to f*ck her, don’t they?

When the laughter died down, Brand continued: “That’s why you tolerate the other stuff.  You think, okay, that is a mad thing to say about seeing Russia out your window, but the dick don’t lie.”

Earlier, the subject of the Palin’s presence at TCA also came up, when a critic provoked Brand by asking for his opinion on the TCA “Palin-palooza,” and Todd and Sarah’s highly publicized thumbs up photo-op at Chick-Fil-A.

“…didn’t Chick fil A say that they’re racist now?” Brand responded, “Oh, no, homophobic. I get mixed up with the prejudices. I forget who we’re supposed to hate.”

“So I don’t care,” he continued. “I don’t agree with eating the chicken anyway. I think that’s an unkind thing to do to a chicken. Just let it carry on doing what it’s doing. I don’t agree with homophobia, so I don’t see there’s any reason. I don’t know much about what happens when Palin does a baby, then it grows up to live its own life. But if it’s anything like the originator of that thing, then I think that, yeah, Dancing with the Stars is the right place for it.”

The second season of Showtime’s Episodes - a send-up of the television industry starring Matt LeBlanc as his fictional self -  debuts tomorrow night (July 1) at 10:30p.

Episodes has been called Entourage-lite.  It’s true.  Episodes can be a little slow and a little dry, but it’s still a lot of fun to watch.

The premise:  the writing duo of Beverly and Sean Lincoln (Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan) are lured to Hollywood to recreate their acclaimed British comedy.  Naturally, the concept is mangled by TPTB (the powers that be) and the series morphs into Puck, a sitcom about a high school hockey team starring LeBlanc as the coach.  (Think hints of Coupling, the popular British series that sank after crossing the pond.)

Last season, in a drunken stupor, Beverly slept with LeBlanc.   As season two opens, Beverly and Sean are separated and coping with the emotional aftermath while Puck gets a series pick up.  LeBlanc, ever the charming narcissist, struggles to restore his broken bromance with Sean.

There are  laugh-out-loud moments in Episodes.  To highlight just a few:  the women chatting about relationships over white wine, a joint, and a single bowl of edamame; a sexposition scene where network head Merc Lapidus (John Pankow) and his second-in-command Carol Rance (Kathleen Rose Perkins) boink on his desk while discussing the hot premiere ratings.  In another, Lapidus’ elegant wife Jamie (Genevieve O’Reilly) explains her involvement in the “Save The Honeybee” campaign.

The fictional LeBlanc clearly loves to be liked and he’s rather desperate to worm his way back into the hearts of the Lincolns.  He buys them both a sporty, tricked-out Infiniti.  Unfortunately, the storyline comes to a screeching, smoking halt due to what appears to be a product placement deal with Nissan.  Ep two is an extended advert for the car, with LeBlanc saddled with the task of delivering a two minute recitation on all the cool features.  LeBlanc just stands next to the car and gives the sales spiel.

We learn all sorts of stuff we really don’t need to know, for example: this Infiniti has “3.7 liter V6 with traction control and an electronic stability control program” and a “sound system with 13 speakers.”

Awwwkwaaaaard!

At least a BMW makes a cameo appearance.

Side note: some of the fashion is awesome and I spotted a pink hoodie I’d really like to have.

The season two premiere is somewhat tedious at times.   LeBlanc was often flat and the writers seemed off their game.

I’m glad I didn’t let the weaknesses of the season opener deter me.   In spite of the (apparent) product placement, by the end of the second episode, LeBlanc seemed to have found his comic footing and he’s hilarious in the scene in which he finally convinces Sean to accept the Infiniti.  To be honest, the writers finally gave LeBlanc some material he could work with.

By the end of ep two, I was hooked on the show.  Episodes is no Entourage but that doesn’t mean the series isn’t worth watching.

I’m just linking y’all through to this one - 2012 presidential candidates as characters from Game of Thrones.  Ron Paul as the elder Greyjoy and Romney as Stannis Baratheon especially made me laugh-out-loud.

Reporting from Pasadena CA — The wildfire rumor circulating in the halls of the Langham here in Pasadena: Univision might be banned from future Television Critics Association press tours after this morning’s disastrous session with Jennifer Lopex and estranged husband Marc Anthony.  The pair appeared to promoted their new Univision talent contest O’Viva! The Chosen.

Just to be clear: TCA, as an organization, has no official comment on the matter.  But the critics themselves are buzzing.  Univision organized the session as a talk show format hosted by Lourdes Estafan.  She was assigned to ask Lopez and Anthony the questions.  The answers, presumably, were rehearsed.

TCA is traditionally formatted to allow the critics to do the asking and, to their credit, they sat patiently through the Univision presentation until the last seven minutes or so of the session, when a protest erupted.

http://www.tvmediainsights.com/2012/01/univision-bombs-at-the-winter-pre...

thesurfreport Surf Report Di

823am: the room turns ugly as one critic demands the host turn the questioning over to critics as on 7 mins are left in session.

At one point, a univision performance blocked the exits.