The Newsroom - The Complete Third Season

The final season of The Newsroom may not be as good as the show's First Season but it is better (taken as a whole) than the show's inconsistent sophomore outing. Nearly the entire cast returns for a final six episodes centered around an Edward Snowden-like figure whose leaking of classified documents to News Night gets Will (Jeff Daniels) in trouble with the United States Government and forces Neal Sampat (Dev Patel) to flee the country before being charged with espionage and treason. An examination of Snowden's actions would likely have played better than the fictionalized account that, like Season Two, has several ups and downs.

There's also a wedding, a romantic turn for Sloan (Olivia Munn) and Don (Thomas Sadoski), relationship drama, Maggie (Alison Pill) and Jim (John Gallagher Jr.) continue their dysfunctional dance, a hostile takeover of the cable news network's parent company, and the news team mourns the death a major supporting character.

Some might argue that the show was all down hill from The Newsroom's opening scene. I wouldn't go that far. While I believe Season One to be the strongest of the show's three seasons there are episodes in each that stand-out. The truncated final season does wrap-up several ongoing storylines a little too neatly for my tastes, and it ends too soon for a finale to have the impact it should, but the Third Season does work as a farewell to these characters leaving each of them changed from the versions we met when the show began.

Available in both Blu-ray and DVD includes audio commentary for the show's finale and short featurettes on each episode. The Blu-ray also includes digital copies of each episode.

[HBO, Blu-ray $49.99 / DVD $39.98]