The Newsroom - Season 1 (2012 Aaron Sorkin)

Typical pilot approach - with name director Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland, Paul), photographer Barry Ackroyd and composer Thomas Newman. Absolutely classic Sorkin stuff, starting in mid-crisis, introducing hostile but really nice anchorman Jeff Daniels (Will), his new producer and ex Emily Mortimer (Mac) - the two central characters - and then the sub-set of interweaving and growing stories peopled by her No. 2 John Gallagher Jr (Jim), newcomer Alison Pill (Hail Caesar!, To Rome With Love; Maggie) and her on-off Thomas Sadoski (Don), Dev Patel (Neal), Olivia Munn (Office Christmas Party, I Don't Know How She Does It; Sloan) and Sam Waterstone (Charlie).

Q said 'I'm going to love all these people by the end'.

Very much follows the Sorkin TV blueprint of The West Wing and Studio 60, in particular the former - Americans with intentions to behave with integrity. Thus allows lots of room for political swipes at the Tea Party (neatly skewered as being the equivalent of the Taliban), trash journalism, racism, corporate corruption, as well as keeping all the personal dramas and interplay well to the fore. And that Will is a 'good' Republican also introduces an interesting, balanced weight.

Great episode involving uprising in Egypt, ending with Will paying the ransom fee, getting a Rudy-like pay-off (nope, never heard of it) ; death of Bin-Laden with Will 'baked'; Sloan and Japanese; psychiatrist episode (David Krumholz again!); Charlie wisely hanging fire on premature announcement of congresswoman's death (she's alive); really funny blackout moment when Mac persuades everyone to take the show out into the Plaza - then the power comes back on; satisfying / unsatisfying climax where Jane Fonda's son Chris Messina is outed as a News of the World type surveillance creep, but Jim and Maggie still don't get together.