| Long ago, in the decade called the ’70s, there was this sitcom on television called The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It featured a TV news anchorman named Ted Baxter. Egocentric and more than a little dim, Baxter was not nearly as confident as he would have had people believe.
Spring ahead to today and we mark the return of Jim Walcott, an egocentric and more-than-a-little-dim TV news anchorman who first graced our televisions in 1996 on the CBC comedy series The Newsroom. Displaying a fragility masked by a false exterior of confidence more multilayered than Baxter’s, Walcott is the pathetic fictional news guy for our modern times. See that for yourself as The Newsroom returns with a string of 13 new episodes beginning on Monday, January 12.
Early in the first of them, entitled "America, America," Jim Walcott, masterfully played by Peter Keleghan, gets plucked from his Toronto news desk by a U.S. network morning show. Wanting to win over south-of-the-border viewers, Walcott becomes an instant proponent of the American war on terrorism. During an on-air cooking segment he offers this inspirational message: "Maybe we can send this recipe to our guys overseas. Slaughter a goat, add some of this marinade, cook it up and maybe the terrorists over there might smell it and see what they’re missing by trying to destroy the greatest country on the planet!"
This, of course, draws a rousing round of applause from the studio spectators. Unfortunately for Walcott, all the audience adulation in the world can’t stave off the numbing loneliness that grips the insecure newsman as he pines away in a Big Apple hotel suite.
Right from the first days of The Newsroom, the Jim Walcott character has always been a hilariously tangled mess whose professional aspirations far exceed his knowledge and talent. Whether insulting notable authors in TV studio hallways or engaging in sexual indiscretions with 16-year-old prostitutes, Walcott seems oblivious to the peril in which he places his career and personal life.
He, like all the characters and situations in The Newsroom, is a creation of Ken Finkleman, the show’s originator, writer and director. On screen, Finkleman also plays the centre of the show’s bleakly jaded universe, a contemptible, self-serving news director named George Findlay. In describing Findlay, Newsroom producer Jan Peter Meyboom says, "George is a cockroach who somehow manages to survive the nuclear storm of the day. He has no redeeming qualities." And therein lies the great failure in the design of this series.
By primarily focusing on a complete lout incapable of selfless acts, an air of predictability develops. Once you become familiar with the show, you know that George will always learn nothing from his romantic entanglements, fail to support his staff when they need him most and scurry away from responsibility when things go wrong. For example, in the "America, America" episode, as soon as George’s new girlfriend rightfully accuses him of disconnecting emotionally he quickly labels her as needy and unstable.
The whole man-behaving-badly thing would be more amusing if we could be fooled into believing that Findlay has the potential to do the right thing in a given situation. With that possibility absent, tedium ensues in watching his dubious actions from episode to episode.
Much more compelling are the on-screen trials and tribulations of flimsy news anchor Walcott. He, too, is self-absorbed but, unlike Findlay, aspires to be something greater than he is. With his journeys and their subsequent failures there is always more to savour.
There’s no denying that there are fine moments of satire and social commentary in the new incarnation of The Newsroom. It can also be commended for a stripped-down look and feel unlike anything else on television. But as long as Finkleman insists on keeping the show focused on his tired, loathsome news director persona, the series will reek with an aroma of self-indulgence.
The Newsroom returns to CBC on Monday, January 12 at 8:30 p.m. Rebroadcasts of the initial 1996 - 1997 season can currently be seen on The Comedy Network. |
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