The Newsroom

Series two, episode one
That’s more like it. From the revivified opening titles onwards, Aaron Sorkin’s wordy but rapidfire cable-news drama seems to have found a new lease of life for its second season. Gone – so far, at least – are the endless speechifying, sappy romances and awkward insertion of real events. In their place: genuine conversations, (marginally) more believable relationships and the likes of drone strikes, Occupy Wall Street and the Libyan revolution taking place in the background while a fictional storyline about the US military using nerve gas takes root.

It’s not perfect: the nerve gas story, combined with anchorman Will’s (Jeff Daniels) dismissal of the Tea Party as ‘the American Taliban’, see a tepid rewarming of the flashback-heavy legal investigation first used in ‘The West Wing’. But it’s sharper, more urgent and noticeably less self-righteous. Between this and his film work, Sorkin seems to be rediscovering his mojo after falling badly behind the curve. Season two of Don Cheadle’s patchy corporate-com, ‘House of Lies’, follows at 10.15pm.