Entertainment Extra - Your source for on screen entertainment from the Logansport Pharos-Tribune
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2 TV ENCORE By Cassie Dresch TV Media W ill McAvoy is about to sign off for the last time. The quick-witted, brazen managing editor and news anchor of "News Night" at the fictitious Atlantis Cable News channel will see the lights dim in his studio, and fans of HBO's "The Newsroom" will have to bid him a fond farewell. The third and final season of the topical Aaron Sorkin political drama kicks off with its premiere episode Sunday, Nov. 9, on HBO. There will only be six episodes to conclude this popular series, but Sorkin ("The West Wing," "The Social Network," 2010), the show's creator and principal writer, told "Entertainment Weekly" back in September that he's excited with how this last season finishes. "I'm really excited. I do feel it's a really solid season," he said. "I think we're wrapping up a lot of stories in a nice way." The show definitely had a whole host of stories to follow last year. The main arc focused on Operation Genoa, a falsified report about the United States Marine Corps using sarin gas on civilians in Pakistan. (While many aspects of Operation Genoa are fictitious, the plot line is based on an actual scan- dal from 1998 involving CNN and "Time" magazine.) Other stories — of a less newsy nature — that came to light included Will (Jeff Daniels, "Dumb & Dumber," 1994) and MacKenzie's (Emily Mortimer, Graybeals Carpet 2 x 3" Pear Tree Gallery 3 x 2" Harrison- Metzger 2 x 2" On the Cover "Shutter Island," 2010) engage- ment; Maggie's (Alison Pill, "Milk," 2008) recovery after her traumatic experience in Uganda; Jim (John Gallagher Jr., "Olive Kitteridge") and Hallie's (Grace Gummer, "Extant") slowly strain- ing relationship; and Don (Thomas Sadoski, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit") and Sloan's (Olivia Munn, "Perfect Couples") budding romance. Whew! It's a lot to chew on. Of course, the spotlight won't solely be on the personal stories of the characters. Like both pre- vious seasons — and since it's expected from a show titled "The Newsroom" — the "News Night" crew will tackle some real-life news stories. One of the major story arcs for season 3 will be the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and there will also be a plot following a government whistle-blower, a la Edward Snowden. While "The Newsroom" has received generally favorable reviews for its first two sea- sons, Sorkin faced a bit of criti- cism from quite a few journal- ists who chastised him for his portrayal of reports, anchors and practically every television broadcaster in North America. "Dramatic tension in 'The Newsroom': missed cue, buggy soundboard, graphics not full screen. Edge of seat. I hope no one's BlackBerry crashes," tweeted Heidi Moore, "The Guardian's" U.S. finance and economics editor, after the season 2 premiere. "OK, I've never retracked a spot through speakerphone 90 secs b4 air. Anybody done that? #Newsroom," Emmy-winning journalist Luke Russert also tweeted, referring to a speaker- phone gaffe MacKenzie made in the episode. Sorkin took some time to address these criticisms at the Tribeca Film Festival back in April, explaining that he's still learning how to write "The Newsroom" from a media viewpoint and even going so far as apologizing for his work. "I think that there's been a terrible misunderstanding," he told the crowd. "I did not set the show in the recent past in order to show the pros how it should have been done. ... I wasn't try- ing to, and I'm not capable of, teaching a professional journalist a lesson. That wasn't my intent and it's never my intent to teach you a lesson or try to persuade you or anything. "I like writing romantically and idealistically," Sorkin added. "I try to balance that with just enough realism so that it feels like whatever romantic ideal is in there is somewhat attainable." Sorkin has been around the block a few times, and his knack HBO's 'The Newsroom' gets set to sign off for the final time for creating and writing good stories has served him well. The 53-year-old New Yorker has taken home six Primetime Emmy Awards for another political drama of his, "The West Wing," as well as a Golden Globe and an Oscar for his 2010 movie "The Social Network." He also created and wrote the Emmy- winning shows "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Sports Night" and penned the scripts for the Oscar-nominated movies "A Few Good Men" (1992) and "Moneyball" (2011). Ultimately, it was Daniels who took home that Emmy and challenged for another in 2014. With season 3 ready to get underway, he could quite possi- bly be in the mix again next year. First and foremost, they have to power through the last six episodes. As Will says in a trailer for the upcoming season, "We don't do good TV. We do the news." Thankfully, "The Newsroom" is good TV on the news. 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