TV Review: The Newsroom (1996-1997, 2003-2005)

By ScottDS
While HBO is getting ready to premiere Aaron Sorkin’s new TV series, titled The Newsroom, I thought now might be a good time to take a look back at another TV series with the same name. This series is a Canadian production that aired on the CBC. Originally intended as a one-season show, the network eventually brought it back as a TV movie and later produced two more seasons. While it would be considered a dark comedy, many of the episodes take a turn for the surreal.

Series creator/writer/director Ken Finkleman plays George Findlay, the news director at an unnamed TV news station. Finkleman had toiled in Hollywood on such unremarkable films as Grease II and Head Office before returning to his native Canada where he found success producing multiple TV shows featuring Findlay as a linking character. Findlay is egotistical, vain, petty, and his sole concern seems to be his place within the network bureaucracy. He’s afraid of his mother, might be constipated (early episodes feature bran muffins as a running gag), and compares the employees at his BMW dealer to Nazis. He refuses to hire a black anchor (for arbitrary economic reasons), he asks a Middle Eastern intern if he’s a terrorist (after going through his web browser history), and is constantly trying to hit on female guests and other network employees. Findlay/Finkleman has been compared to Larry David on more than one occasion.

The two constant supporting characters are news anchor Jim Walcott (Peter Keleghan) and segment producer Karen Mitchell (Karen Hines). Walcott is an idiot and has been accused of sexual harassment multiple times. He refuses to read or watch the news and admits he might’ve been the last person to know about 9/11. In one episode, he’s reporting in the Middle East, gets kidnapped, and annoys his captors so much that they lower the ransom demand from two million US$ to 1700 C$. Karen is a hard-working intellectual who refuses to dumb herself down for her co-workers. She appears to be the only one to take the news seriously and Findlay believes she’s a lesbian.

I know this is common today but one element of the show I don’t like is the lack of formal character introductions. People show up for a few episodes, then leave. Rarely is this ever pointed out. I don’t even know all of the characters’ last names. Findlay has a couple of interns throughout the show – the most interesting being Audrey, played by Tanya Allen – as well as a handful of yes-men segment producers. Some of them get good moments while others are complete non-entities. Early episodes feature an insecure weatherman (Bruce, played by David Hubband) while we also meet a few of Findlay’s superiors at the network – all strong, intimidating women. The show also features many guest appearances by public figures, though I only recognized David Cronenberg.

I mentioned above that the show takes a turn for the surreal. While many episodes feature your standard workplace sitcom tropes (budget problems, romantic mix-ups, etc.), other episodes do the complete opposite, specifically the three season finales. Personally, I find these episodes rather pretentious, the same way I find Woody Allen’s melodramas somewhat pretentious, though I can’t fault a guy for trying to branch out and do something different. The season 1 finale is a three-part episode about a potential nuclear disaster. Findlay doesn’t think it’s a big enough story and instead goes about casting actresses who look like Jane Fonda so he can present it just like The China Syndrome. (A highlight is Findlay coming up with an animated intro for the story.) Several characters tell Findlay that he’s afraid of confronting his own mortality and the third episode finds him dressed in black just like Marcello Mastroianni in 8 ½ as he encounters all the women from his past who tell him what they really think of him.

The season 2 finale features segment producer Alex, played by Jody Racicot, feeling suicidal after being dumped by a woman (George’s reply: “You sure this can't wait until tomorrow?”). He fabricates a news story and George tries to make a book deal about the entire incident. Meanwhile, a crowd has gathered at a Taco Bell where they believe they see the image of the Virgin Mary on a wall. At one point, George is smoking pot and an angel (or the Virgin Mary?) appears to tell him his liberal politics are all wrong. At the episode’s end, Findlay is convinced his politics are correct but that network news might be the most destructive thing of all. The season 3 finale is even weirder: an animated tale narrated by Findlay about a movie director who encounters a mysterious woman who can fly. I still don’t completely understand this one, though it is pretty to look at.

The second season features a death in almost every episode. One thing I like about the show is that they don’t worry about the execution of certain gags. For example, in the span of one scene, we’ll cut from “So here’s what’s happening tonight...” to “So, about last night…” with nothing in between. We hear ridiculous events described only in dialogue and our imaginations fill in the rest. There’s also a bizarre sense of self-awareness on display. The best example would be the episode “One Dumb Idea” where they do a news story on the obscene amounts of money made by TV producers so Findlay and his yes-men decide to create a TV show – all they need is one dumb idea. One producer suggests a TV series about a group of newsmen who try coming up with an idea for a TV show, only to see it fail as everyone tries to claim credit. By episode’s end, this is exactly what happens. Another episode leaves a subplot hanging and we see backstage as Finkleman and his producers wonder what to do next.

While I believe the show is ahead of its time (it predates both Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office), it’s not for everyone. The politics might be a little off-putting (they are in Canada, after all) but they usually take a backseat to the neuroses and insecurities that are simply part and parcel of the newsroom. Some characters are more likeable than others and even Findlay is interesting in his own way. I have no interest in watching Sorkin’s show but I get the feeling he’ll portray network news as a noble enterprise (“We’re the truth tellers,” etc.) whereas Finkleman’s show is more like Network in that regard, portraying the news as a corrupt operation populated with egotistical fools who are only looking out for themselves. As for Finkleman, I guess I’m a fan though I wonder about the thought process that led to him inserting himself into his TV shows, as the same character no less. Is this an artist who’s interested in exploring the human condition in a seriocomic way, or a hack using the medium of TV as his own therapy session?

As of 2012, George Findlay has returned, this time as the news director at a conservative network. The title is, appropriately, Good God.