Will McAvoy

Will McAvoy anchors a top-rated cable news show by being carefully, profitably inoffensive — a genial, non-committal presence nicknamed the Jay Leno of news. Then a college panel question about America's greatness cracks him open, and he answers with a furious, unscripted honesty that costs him the persona he'd built his career on.

Sorkin gives him monologues built to be delivered at speed, and Jeff Daniels finds the wounded, self-loathing perfectionist underneath the bluster — a man who knows exactly how compromised he's been and is disgusted by it. The rant that opens the show is a gift, but Daniels earns the quieter scenes after it too.