Olivia Munn hammers out a broadcast news strategy with Emily Mortimer on the second episode of The Newsroom (via HBO)

Though the sophomore episode of "The Newsroom" was set only days after the original, the two broadcasts diverged radically in terms of theme and characterization.

Sorkin’s scope is tighter this time around, dwelling less on big-picture issues like those brought up in Will McAvoy’s introductory rant, favoring instead interoffice conflict staged in detail.

The program opens on McAvoy at home, surrounded by the sleek trappings of the mythical northeastern media mogul. He is rattled, first by the architecture wrenching antics of his upstairs neighbors, later the emotional echoes of a relationship broken-off. Little time is wasted before the story delves into the cloudy relationship of McAvoy and Mackenzie MacHale. Slowly, details are leaked. He wants to keep their past behind-the-scenes, while she voices an interest in sharing facts with the staff.

MacHale then adds to the pot her new vision for the fictional program. Dubbed “News Night 2.0,” her pitch at the staff meeting calls for rigorous pursuit of journalistic excellence, and is received to the tune of much eye rolling among the room full of young reporters. Her spiel lacks the ironically over-wrought complexity of her verbal treatise on the importance of their newscast in American society from last week, sounding more like a floundering would-be-visionary trying to get her new project afloat. Her clumsiness is symbolized by an inability to properly manipulate the inter-office email system, a bit that surfaces throughout the episode. Meanwhile, McAvoy takes begrudging baby steps towards bonding with his coworkers.

One-on-one powwows make up the next portion of the show: Charlie Skinner gets down to brass tacks with newcomer Martin Stallworth, a marketing numbers wizards acted by Thomas Matthews. McAvoy’s market share has mushroomed, a fact Skinner thinks can do nothing but harm to the anchor’s performance. After friction has built up between the show’s wizened keeper (presented conspicuously without the tumbler of dark-amber booze that never left his side in The Newsroom’s previous installment) and this hype-hunting suit, the show’s tightly focused eye shifts back to MacHale.

She’s taken note of Olivia Munn’s character, a sultry economics wonk by the name of Sloan.  The outcome of their exchange can be seen coming from light-years away: Sloan is slotted on the show to turn heads while talking dollars and cents. Yet for fleeting moments between some of Sorkin’s tackiest lines (“You want me to do pole dancing while explaining subprime mortgages?” is spat out like a true clunker), Munn displays a capacity for realistic interaction that hasn’t been evident in her previous years languishing as a piece of meat on-camera.

The character Maggie Vaughn offers viewers more surprises. The sad sack of a twenty-something introduced in the pilot has vanished. Vaughn now takes to the staff meeting with her saucer-faced head full of steam. She vouches for her abilities with unprovoked ferocity when discussing an interview with Jim Harper, an interaction that culminates with her begging the question: “Why am I being mean to you?”

“I don’t know,” Harper responds. Clearly, Vaughn stands to be a more dynamic character than her introductory performance suggested.

Then comes a walk-and-talk featuring McAvoy and Stallworth, pacing down a crowded sidewalk talking ratings in a scene that’s as New York as Midnight Cowboy and Mayor Bloomberg’s smirk. Data indicates the anchor’s gruff remarks have earned him some credence among conservative viewers, a trend Stallworth suggests amplifying by quietly backing up a downtrodden Sarah Palin.

Back at the office, Vaughn is beside herself after managing to bungle a key interview. In a most improbable twist, a hook-up gone horribly awry has come back to haunt her, when the press agent for a key source turns out to be a soured beau. The staff scrambles to find a replacement, someone to speak out in favor of Arizona’s controversial new immigration policy. The only choices are knuckleheads, racist or both, catching producers of the newscast with a bellyful of problems and the day’s deadline fast approaching.

At this time MacHale decides to nip her office’s romantic gossip in the bud, accidently emailing the entire corporate structure notice that she had cheated on McAvoy during their courtship, not vice versa.

In a tidy antithesis to the previous episode’s glowing conclusion, this night’s program is thus doomed from the outset. The guests are turkeys, and even McAvoy’s off-the-cuff banter is bogged down and fuzzy. His cheap attempt to vouch for Palin comes off half-cocked, and the show’s entire crew slinks out of the office for a night of heavy drinking. Vaughn makes an effort to kill her relationship with Don, then drunkenly airs the woes of her heavy conscience to Harper. Their chemistry makes little sense in terms of representing any kind of realistic workplace dynamic, but their throwdown packs a curious dramatic punch, as all relevant parties shoulder the shame of producing tepid programming.

McAvoy comes back in with a little warmth just in time for the closing credits, patching things up between himself and MacHale and taking a step to humanize their coverage of immigration policy. A final man-to-man between himself and Skinner hangs in the show’s ambience like the last notes of a single-malt — not substantially nourishing, but as Skinner describes, it “makes you feel better.”

Any ongoing narrative requires change to stay interesting, and this episode offers no dearth of possibilities for plot developments down the road. Real-world tidbits, like strategies and tactics employed by The Newsroom staff to keep their junket afloat and the pragmatic complexities of covering this era’s most dramatic political events, are promising points Sorkin’s scripts may jump off from in the future. And if the show’s romantic players continue to evolve at this velocity, the series may wind up being more When Harry Met Sally than Meet the Press.

Contact Graham Clark here, follow him  @hello_thankyou