In the “About You” section of my facebook page, under “Religion” it says “Aaron Sorkin”. See, when I first discovered Sports Night (Sorkin’s first TV series) I found, for the first time in my life, characters who spoke my language. They’re quick, silly, intense and self-awarely cheesy and it was Aaron Sorkin who created them. I love him. I love him because he writes the sort of dialogue that drives me to Final Draft and the words “Fade In” and because he writes what he loves, and the kind of people he loves and isn’t afraid to have opinions and preferences and hangups. Aaron Sorkin writes the sort of TV that rouses you to be better and coming in June is his return to the medium he’s best in- TV, with its long-form narratives and continued characters.
The first preview for The Newsroom is out (and posted below), and it looks incredible. I’m a little worried about its HBO-ness, since the intense channel doesn’t have any of the mainstream regulation that’s led to some of Sorkin’s greatest creativity (to get around the FCC while Bartlett was cursing God in The West Wing‘s “Two Cathedrals“, he had him do it in Latin) and sometimes comedy can fall by the wayside (when it’s crucial to Sorkin’s tone). But I’m just glad to have Aaron back after he left TV to do the fantastic Broadway play The Farnsworth Invention and the incomparable films The Social Network and Moneyball. He’s my hero, and he’s hitting the airwaves again this June.