Coming off his Academy Award for writing The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin is returning to television – and this time, he’s heading to cable.

HBO has decided to give the green light to a Sorkin series set at a cable news channel – both its title and its premiere date are yet to be decided. Jeff Daniels, who has never done a series before, will star. Others in the cast include Emily Mortimer, Dev Patel, Alison Pill, Sam Waterston, and (!) Olivia Munn. Sorkin will executive produce and presumably write almost everything, as he is famously hands-on.

The series will be Sorkin’s first for cable, although the limits of network television have never been much of a barrier for him thus far. Even his less successful efforts for the tube were invariably well-written, and a news network sounds like the perfect setting for Sorkin’s always eloquent (if sometimes preachy) characters to address topical issues – although he might hit a little close to home, as HBO and CNN are both under the Time Warner umbrella.

Sorkin’s previous experience in television has been hit-or-miss. His first series, Sports Night, was a critical success, but it was a bit ahead of its time stylistically, and viewers never really responded. The West Wing was one of the most honored series of the last decade, but Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was a disaster on every level, and symbolized the many recent problems of NBC.

Tags: aaron sorkin, hbo, jeff daniels