Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Anna Torv, Sam Reid, William McInnes, Marg Downey, Stephen Peacocke, Michelle Lim Davidson, Chum Ehelepola, Chai Hansen, Philippa Northeast, Daniel Henshall, Jackson Tozer, Rhys Mitchell, Andrew McFarlane, Gillian Cosgriff, Dan Spielman, Caroline Lee, Maria Angelico, Nick Simoson-Deeks, Maude Davey, Queenie van de Zandt, Tom Wilson, Maria Theodorakis, Grant Piro, Robin McLeavy, Meewon Yang, Joe Cho, Yuchen Wang.
The third and final series of The Newsreader sees the 80s come to end in a blaze of information and memories of a decade that saw revolution and government clampdown, it saw tyranny displaced and certain acts of love attributed to disease, racial tensions flare, and for the personal lives of Helen Norville and Dale Jennings, two of the most successful newsreaders of their era, become headlines and parodies, distorted critics of their own making.
The Newsreader has been an illuminating series, a viewpoint of how a team tasked with reporting the events effectively, the pressing, powerful stories of the day which could have repercussions further down the line, can often be the catalyst to disfunction and disinformation; a drama of politics in house and in the studio that is belligerent, dramatic, and alluding to a cover up of the personality and the truth of reveal in a three minute segment of scripted delivery.
The danger, as the series has made great pains to emphasise, is one where the person delivering the broadcasted updates and in depth reports becomes a celebrity in their own right, that the news is relegated in the mind of the viewer as they hang on the emotional appeal of the reporter and associate the story with how it is presented.
Kicking off the third series with the Lockerbie disaster as seen through the eyes of Helen Norville and ending with a special report from Germany as the fall of The Berlin Wall as Dale Jennings attempts to resurrect his career after a spectacular on air verbal diatribe, almost reminiscent of the psychiatric breakdown suffered by Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network, The Newsreader trades on the understanding that without knowing we placed trust on those who we seek to give us the truth as we wish it be, never a warts and all, a keenly balanced and objective view, but one of decisions about presentation and scripted opinions.
The third series sees William McInness’ character of Lindsay Cunningham, the editor and unceremoniously bigoted and head of the station overshadow the news, it is an exaggeration for sure of how such people become entrenched in such positions of power, but it is one steeped in certain accuracy and one to which the actor deserves absolute applause.
A decent and perceptive conclusion to the three series offering, one which underlines the nature of the beast of journalism when left unchecked and solicited.
Ian D. Hall