The Newsroom (2012)

Sorkin on HBO, with cable news as the cause. Jeff Daniels plays anchor Will McAvoy, the role that won him the 2013 Emmy for lead actor in a drama, and the first season builds each episode around a real news event from the recent past, so you watch the staff get right what you already know happened. That hindsight is the show's trick and its weakness. The speeches can tip into lectures, a common complaint in the mixed reviews of the first season; critics were kinder to the second. Emily Mortimer and Sam Waterston give the newsroom its warmth. At 25 episodes across three seasons, the uneven stretches never last long.