HBO Picks Up Aaron Sorkin’s New Untitled Pilot To Series

Aaron Sorkin back on TV? Hell yes. While Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip was a… misfire, Sorkin is one of the all-time great TV talents, and I’m excited to see him back. Yes, I love his movies - The Social Network is going down in history as a classic - but his TV shows, when they work, are unmatched.

Sorkin’s latest TV foray “centers on a cable news anchor (Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), his newsroom staff (Alison Pill, John Gallagher Jr, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel, Thomas Sadoski), and their boss (Sam Waterston). Together they set out on a patriotic and quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal entanglements.” So basically it’s Sports Night meets The West Wing, which is what all Sorkin stuff should be.

Greg Mottola shot the pilot, and I had a chance to talk to him about it a couple of months ago. While HBO has recently been upping the sex and nudity (hello, Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire with your weekly gratuitous nude shots!), Mottola told me this show is steadfastly PG-13. As a pottymouthed person I appreciate that; while a well-placed ‘fuck’ is nice, Sorkin is better when he’s using three lines of text to say ‘fuck.’

The show remains untitled, and the season length is unknown, though Deadline speculates 10 episodes. Hopefully this will start up sometime in early 2012.