But even if you aren’t a fan of Sorkin’s dialogue or even his archetypes (brilliant yet loathsome men nursing a hidden wound; practical no-nonsense women nursing a hidden crush), it’s the relationships between the archetypes that animate the show. After McAvoy goes renegade, it falls on his executive producer (and old flame) MacKenzie McHale, played by the wonderfully wee sleekit beastie Emily Mortimer, to rein in his more self-destructive tendencies. Though wee, Mortimer isn’t tim’rous. When McAvoy yells a lot, McHale yells back. When he throws a Blackberry, she stomps on one. They’re both driven by morally righteous ambition. “My character is very concerned with just putting on the best news program possible and doing it with grace and integrity,” explains Mortimer during a break in filming. This is hard since the network craves ratings, and ratings come more quickly to programs with neither integrity nor grace (at least in the Sorkinian universe). “You have to be entertaining on some level to be on television,” admits Mortimer, “unless you’re PBS.”