Studio 60: We can do better

And so, "Studio 60" comes to an end. Really brief spoilers to follow, as I long ago exhausted everything original I had to say about this show...

So Sorkin correctly read the tea leaves and went with the Everybody Gets a Happy Ending approach, with Jordan waking up (looking like a million bucks and losing whatever shred of dignity she had left by claiming she wanted Danny to marry her from the moment they met), Matt and Harriet getting back together (whatever), and, in the episode's one really nice moment, Tom finding out that his brother and his comrades were rescued. (Who woulda guessed that the two best dramatic actors on this show would be Steven Weber and Corddry the younger?) For the people who liked the show -- which has to be the majority of the audience that stuck it through the ending -- I suppose it wasn't a bad way to go out. For people like me who kept watching out of morbid fascination, it largely confirmed all the reasons I disliked it.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: The neverending story

Spoilers for the next-to-last episode of "Studio 60" coming up just as soon as I find a comfy t-shirt to sleep in...

I didn't review the last two episodes, in part because it felt like piling on, in part because I was busy and figured it would be easier to just write about all three parts of "K&R" at the end. So, of course, "K&R" winds up not being an actual three-parter, but a five-parter in disguise. (You have to count not only next week's show, but the show from a month ago where we found out that Tom's brother had been kidnapped.)

And unfortunately, there isn't five episodes worth of story here, not even with Jordan (off-screen) suffering every pregnancy-related mishap imaginable, not even with the flashbacks to how Matt and Danny lost their jobs (which, unless someone utters the phrase "Crazy Christians" next week, doesn't seem to jibe with what we were told in the pilot). Basically, Sorkin's padding things out by having Character A find out a piece of information, then tell Character B, who tells Character C, who tells Character D, etc. David Milch used to do this sometimes on "NYPD Blue" or "Deadwood," so I have to assume this is some kind of last refuge of the past-deadline showrunner, but it's not remotely interesting enough to justify stretching out these two stories over this length. (Neither was Harriet's awards dinner, though at least that one only dragged over three episodes instead of five.)

The last few weeks, I felt like Aaron had just given up on writing a show about a sketch comedy show and was instead retreating to his "West Wing" comfort zone. (And given a choice between a hostage crisis in Afghanistan or Danny's pursuit of Jordan, I'll take the former.) This one felt more on topic, not just with the flashbacks -- which Matt over at Throwing Things suggests are Sorkin apologizing for "Isaac and Ishmael" -- but the present-day parallel subplot with Jack and Simon. Steven Weber remains this show's best asset, and Jack remains the only character written in three dimensions, and if there's a reason to be sad about the cancellation, it's losing this performance.

I also liked, surprisingly, the scene where Harriet "teaches" Danny how to pray. I mean, Harriet is still obnoxious and pushy and a caricature of a genuine believer, but Danny's rationale for not wanting to pray ("I got what I got because I took action") was far more mature and convincingly argued than anything Matt has ever said on the subject. Maybe if Aaron had swapped around the two central couples, the show would have been less irritating.

One more episode to go -- titled, in Sorkin tradition, "What Kind of Day Has It Been" -- and I may actually do some praying of my own in the hope that one or both of these storylines gets wrapped up.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: The bitter aftertaste

Spoilers for the latest "Studio 60" coming up just as soon as I figure out how Sorkin and company could have possibly squandered Jenna Fischer's presence by failing to put her in a scene, even for five seconds, opposite Lucy Davis...

Last week's show was a budget-saver, minus the three leads and so self-contained that it could be aired at any point in the season (according to the production number, it was shot near the end of the season). So this episode was the real continuation of where we left off back in February, and even though I disliked almost all of it, I'm having a problem working up the passion to bash it. At this point -- especially when you have episodes like this that were clearly written after the real "Studio 60" ratings went into freefall and all the critics turned on Sorkin -- it'd be like kicking a dead horse, beating a sick puppy, or whatever cliche you want to choose.

That said, while the problems are the same as usual -- Danny is a smug, obnoxious hypocrite; the sketches are terrible; Mary the lawyer has even less chemistry with Matt than Harriet does (though I'm glad Sorkin can write irrational female stalkers as well as he does irrational male ones), etc. -- what's interesting (if predictable) was the part that worked: the last three or four minutes with Tom and his brother, which was so dramatically effective I almost resisted the urge to make a joke about how he was captured while STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF AFGHANISTAN!

Almost everything was just right -- Nate Corddry's performance, the editing, the use of silence and point of view shots, etc. -- except the show they were being used on. Simply put, this storyline feels like it has no place on a show set backstage at a latenight sketch comedy series, even if it's supposed to be a dramatic treatment of that world. This felt like Sorkin, under siege from the network, the critics and the fans, retreating back to familiar territory, even if it doesn't fit at all with what he's been trying to do.

The ratings actually took a minute uptick from last week's showing (from horrific to just putrid), so maybe the final episodes will all see the light of day -- especially if Ben Silverman is too busy making big-picture changes to care about the summer schedule. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: Addition by subtraction

Ahhh, Summer Burn-Off Theatre, the lifeblood of a TV blogger in that otherwise deathly period between the end of the network season and the premieres of all the summer cable shows. "Studio 60" spoilers coming up just as soon as I locate my blood squibs...

I wrestled with whether to write anything about the burn-off run of "Studio 60." I was such an early and fervent basher of the show that it led me to have words with Aaron Sorkin, and the idea of continuing to trash the show after it's already been canceled feels like overkill.

And yet I felt the need to tune in tonight for the same reason I kept watching all fall, well after I had realized how much I disliked the show, when readers of this blog and my column know how quick I am to give up on series that just aren't doing it for me. "Studio 60" was awful, but it was compellingly awful. Maybe, I thought, the final episodes would continue to provide object lessons in how not to do a weekly drama series.

Instead, oddly, the first post-cancellation episode turned out to be kinda decent -- not least because Matt, Danny and Jordan were absent from the entire hour. (At least from final cut, anyway; all four episode-specific photos on NBC's media site feature Whitford and/or Perry, suggesting they were in the episode at an early stage and got cut at the end.) I know I wrote often that Matthew Perry was the best thing about the show (or maybe second best, after Steven Weber), but the Matt character was insufferable most of the time, and the Danny/Jordan relationship was the second-biggest miscalculation of the entire series -- after only Sorkin's belief that anyone would like or be interested in the Matt/Harriet relationship.

So keeping the three alleged stars out of the picture all night allowed the show to breathe instead of drowning in the usual fumbled attempts at romantic comedy involving actors and characters with zero on-screen chemistry. Instead, Sorkin got to focus on something he does well: farce. This was no "Thespis," but it was light, it moved, and it put most of the load on three actors with excellent comedy chops: Tim Busfield, Weber (amusingly drunk for the whole show), and Allison Janney. I suppose it should be confusing that Janney was playing herself as an ex-"West Wing" star and sharing scenes with the actor who had played her love interest on that show but was playing a different character here, but the two played so well off each other -- just as Busfield and Weber did -- that I didn't much care.

The hour still had some of the usual "Studio 60" problems. After being briefly appealing in the early going (especially when she was imitating Janney's spaz-out during the gangster sketch), Harriet went right back to being insufferable and pathetic as she once again let the rest of the world lecture her on what to do with her romantic life. When Dylan said, "I'm not sure why the two of you aren't just together," I wanted to scream, "BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO CHEMISTRY AND ARE EMOTIONALLY ABUSIVE TO EACH OTHER AT EVERY TURN!" (I didn't, but only because that would have woken up my daughter, who needs her sleep to beat the flu.) And Simon's two-dates-for-one-trip subplot was, like Jordan and Danny getting locked on the roof, another example of Sorkin ripping off the kind of incredibly low-brow TV he tries to act above. (And with the roof story, at least he had the semi-decency to have Danny complain about what a hackneyed situation it was, where nobody bothered to comment on how Simon had suddenly turned into Jack Tripper or Peter Brady.)

Overall, though, I didn't hate this one. The previews for the next episode prominently feature Perry, Whitford and Peet, so I imagine I'll be writing a screed a week from now. (Assuming, of course, that the ratings aren't so terrible that NBC doesn't just pull the plug on this experiment and go back to "ER" reruns.) But for one night, I'm glad I don't have to kick the sick puppy.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: Apparently, that's all there is

"Studio 60" spoilers coming right up...

So was that the last we'll see of this show on NBC's airwaves? There are still six episodes either in the can or in the process of being made, and a lot of time left in the TV season for some other NBC show to fail and create a hole in the schedule. Hell, "Black Donnellys" could wind up doing an even worse number next week and we'll see "Studio 60" back on Mondays in a month. TV is a wacky, wacky business, though the wackiness Sorkin has generally tried to depict is more of the headless baby doll variety than the capriciousness of both the public and network executives.

The nice people at Throwing Things are doing a post-mortem on where Sorkin went wrong in general, but I feel like I've done that 15 or 16 times already, so I'll just stick to this episode.

Start with Matt's bad crack in the schoolyard hallucinations, which last week were considered a major M. Night Shyamalan-level crisis, and here were quickly turned into a joke about Matt's ultimate sexual fantasy appearing in front of him right before the opening titles began. And, frankly, I think the lawyer (from Sam Seaborn's old firm of Gage Whitney) would have worked better as a figment, because her omniscience about all things Matt got old in a big damn hurry.

Then there was the suggestion that Harriet Hayes -- the beautiful, allegedly talented, allegedly beloved star of a broadcast TV network's flagship series -- can boil her romantic choices in life down to two men: the immature bullying ass, or the immature bullying ass. If I was Harriet, I'd be playing that Anita Pallenberg scene for real. If the kiss at the end was supposed to seem like Harriet following Danny's suggestion and humoring Matt, it worked; if it was supposed to convey any kind of real feeling between the two of them, not so much.

And, of course, the notion that the writers' room thrives on Samuel Taylor Coleridge trivia contests, or that Matt's only problem with a sketch about the Freemasons would be their inability to do research on it. I'm sure the folks in Bristol had some fun pointing out the inaccuracies and dramatic license in "Sports Night," but "Studio 60" must be one non-stop drinking game for the people who work at 30 Rock (either the address or the show).

Finally, there's Jordan buying a robot baby and not even acknowledging the fact that, with her schedule and income, a nanny's going to be doing the bulk of the child-rearing. The bit where Danny left the room and Tom immediately started holding the doll upside down by the ankle was funny, though, as were the eyes bugging out and scaring the bejeesus out of Jordan.

The sexual harassment story, inspired no doubt by a lawsuit from a woman who worked on Matthew Perry's last TV series, at least felt like something relevant to what this show is kinda sorta supposed to be about, as well as something that might turn into an interesting two or three-episode runner if NBC sees fit to bring it back. In particular, I liked Matt's acknowledgment that, while he wouldn't allow that kind of talk in his writers' room, other perfectly funny shows would. If nothing else, maybe Evan Handler and Carlos Jacott will pop up on the inevitable DVD.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Early siesta for 'Studio 60'

NBC just announced that "The Black Donnellys" will premiere a week early, on Feb. 26 instead of March 5. That gives "Studio 60" just one more airing before it goes on hiatus, before it "will return to the schedule later this season on a date to be determined" -- loosely translated, "if Haggis' show does significantly better, get ready for a bunch of unaired episodes on the 'Studio 60' DVD set."
Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: In praise of Matthew Perry

Spoilers for "Studio 60" coming right up...

There's so much to trash about last night's episode, from the usual soul-sucking nature of the Matt/Harriet scenes to the ongoing grossness of Jordan/Danny to the sledgehammer references to 1999 to the even more sledgehammer-y attempt at pulling a "Bruce Willis has been dead since the first scene!" twist that I really hope you all saw coming from 12 miles away.

But either I'm in a charitable mood or I'm getting bored with the weekly negativity, so let's turn the focus for this post on the bright, shining aspect of this show: Matthew Perry.

In my review of last week's "Scrubs," I noted that John C. McGinley probably didn't have to dig too deep to find motivation for a scene about fearing for his unborn baby's health. Similarly, it's not exactly a stretch for Matthew Perry to imagine himself as a pill-popper, anymore than John Spencer knew how to play a drunk or how Sorkin or David Milch know how to write about addictive behavior. But these men in general and Perry in particular bring more than personal knowledge to the table.

Even in the midst of the telegraphed silliness about Matt Albie's imaginary anagramically-named friend Tim Batale (props to the fine people at TWoP for pointing this out, I wouldn't have spelled Batale that way, and am generally not great at word puzzles), I found myself really interested in what Perry was going to do next, how he would deliver a line, or look at a co-star. He's not infallible -- even he can't make me give a toss about the Matt/Harriet relationship or not think that Matt acts like an ass at every turn of that storyline -- but overall it's a revelatory dramatic performance, and one that makes me want to see what he does after this show gets canceled.

A few other thoughts:

• So Luke worked at "Studio 60" too, huh? Between him and Matt and Danny, why does it seem like all the writing alums have, instead of producing broad sitcoms or movies, have all gone the art film route?
• Where were Ricky and/or Ron? During the set visit last month, Sorkin lamented having a tighter budget for the rest of the season, but I can't imagine that either of Evan Handler and Carlos Jacott cost significantly more than Stephen Tobolowsky. Then again, Tobolowsky was there more as a substitute Wes (Ricky and Ron would've been low on the totem pole, assuming they were even with the show at the time), and I'm guessing the "Numb3rs" people are balking at making Judd Hirsch too available.
• Tom and Dylan going in circles on their metric system sketch felt very recycled Sorkin -- the sort of scene that Casey and Danny or Sam and Toby would have been in -- but not in a bad way. I laughed a few times, particularly when McKinney ripped them for their bad Canadian accents.
• Okay, so it's 1999, and Harriet is still working on her Juliette Lewis impression? It would have been dated even back then. And her Julia Roberts sounded exactly like Sarah Paulson's regular speaking voice.
• If I hadn't been watching the episode at the office on NBC.com, where the media player throws a hissy fit anytime you try to fast forward, I would have skipped past every Danny and Jordan scene, and especially any Jordan and Hallie scene. There is no way that, in 2007, any network would try a show like "The Reckoning" -- not because it's in poor taste, but because the mass audience for that sort of thing doesn't exist anymore, and hasn't for five or six years, if ever.
• As I joked last week, Perry in the baseball cap didn't look seven years younger, but at least Schlamme or Sorkin had the good sense not to even attempt to make Brad Whitford look younger, instead hiding his face in his flashback cameo.
• And speaking of Schlamme, and/or the editor, nice work on the cut from flashback Matt bouncing the ball to present day Matt catching it on the rebound.

What did everybody else think?

Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: Wrong is right

Spoilers for "Studio 60" coming up just as soon as I escape this meatlocker I'm trapped in...

Okay, so the new thing that drives me most nuts about this show -- more than the sketches, or the smugness, or the awful writing of women -- is how Sorkin just grossly miscalculates where the audience's sympathy is going to be -- or, at least, how he consistently presents such an awful argument for the side he wants us to be on.

Simon? Condescending, revisionist historian, bullying jackass. He had somewhere between Jack and Squat to do with Darius getting hired, save that Matt was tagging along with him at the time. And even if he was, even if he had discovered Darius entirely on his own, gone and pled his case to Matt, maybe even sacrificed a favor or twelve to get him the job, it still wouldn't give him the right to talk down to him in that way. And yet the way the story and its conclusion are written, we're clearly meant to believe that Simon has been right all along, and that Darius should be grateful for the opportunity to write horribly-dated underwear commercial parodies.

Danny? Arrogant, preening stalker. But it's okay, apparently, because we now know that Jordan wasn't really upset by the inappropriate phone calls, or the refusal to take no for an answer, or the potential public humiliation that could come from the letter-writing campaign. No, Jordan was upset because she didn't think Danny was attracted to her for the right reasons! And now that she knows his motives are pure, all the rest is forgotten! Like the booze ads say, brilliant!

Matt and Harriet? Well, here I'm in a bit of a pickle, as I can no longer tell who I'm supposed to feel sorry for, or care about, or like, or tolerate the presence of in any storyline involving the other person. But every time Matt spoke to Harriet, I felt like he was wrong, and almost every time Harriet spoke, I felt the same thing -- though the latter is largely because Harriet has an uncanny knack for allowing her opinions to be swayed wildly anytime a guy tells her what to think. This whole burning-down-the-house breakup scenario is the kind of thing a show has to earn after multiple seasons, and here we're being asked to invest based on things that happened long before we started watching. (Next week's flashback seems like an attempt to correct that, but putting a backwards baseball cap on Matthew Perry doesn't make him look seven years younger; it makes him look like a suburban dad who has some painfully misguided notion of being the cool father on the block.)

As usual, the best stuff involved Steven Weber, and I will give Sorkin credit for recognizing how good he is in the role and re-calibrating the writing on Jack just enough to make him human without robbing him of his appealingly jerky traits. Don't know that I liked the revelation about Kim's dad speaking English this whole time; either it's such an unguarded secret that it would have come up in any serious kind of due diligence on this mega-billions deal, or he guards it so closely that he would never reveal it to someone like Jack, even under such relatively intimate circumstance. Felt like a forced punchline that didn't fit the previous material.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: I hate snakes

Spoilers for "Studio 60" coming up just as soon as I figure out why NBS would allow its "flagship" show to feature so many plugs for NBC series...

Wait, I'm confused: was it Sorkin's dream to write for "SNL" or to write for "Three's Company"? Because between the Two Dates On One Night and Locked On The Roof, all the episode was lacking was the Misunderstood Overheard Phone Conversation where Matt started to believe that Harriet was pregnant. Doesn't matter if you have Danny comment on the hackiness of the roof situation; it's still hacky, and no amount of highbrow name-dropping can disguise that. Commedia Del'Arte, this ain't.

I'll go with the cell phone issue, as the latest TCA press tour was held at a top LA hotel where you could only get reception in the strangest of places, and being outdoors wasn't always a help. But Tom lying to Lucy about the dinner was the most idiotic of Idiot Plots, a decision made for no reason except that the plot wouldn't work without it.

(Speaking of both TCA and Tom's lie, I don't think I've ever been at a dinner where they had the actors wait tables, but Jimmy Kimmel once cooked burgers for us and I once ordered Martha Stewart to serve us all lunch, so there's at least a little precedent.)

And the fact that Sorkin has stretched Harriet's dinner across three episodes makes all the telegraphing even more painful; any viewer who's intelligent enough, in Sorkin's mind, to watch this show would be intelligent enough to see every single plot development coming at least twenty minutes, if not an entire episode, in advance. The trip to Pahrump didn't need two episodes, and this story sure as hell doesn't need three.

Aside from Snakes On a Soundstage, every storyline was just dragged along from last week, so I don't have much new to say. Of course Jordan is starting to warm towards Danny now that he's backed off even a tiny bit, of course Hallie's awful reality show idea that no one in 2007 would actually want to watch is moving full-steam ahead, and of course Simon is still acting like a complete jackass towards Darius.

And with so much story carryover, I've realized a problem that goes far deeper than the unfunny sketches, or the score-settling writing, or the condescending, factually innacurate vibe: I don't like any of these people. Well, I like Jack sometimes, and Cal is amusing enough in his limited doses, and Matthew Perry has enough personal charm that I can enjoy him sometimes in spite of the negative chemistry levels between Matt and Harriet, but there's no one I care about, no one I feel affection for, nobody who's so compelling that I don't care if he or she makes awful decisions.

Sorkin has said that his backstage world is so much more squeaky-clean than what we know of "SNL" because he likes to write about characters working together to achieve a common goal that the audience can root for. And I don't want to root for these characters.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: Look who's stalking

God bless this series of tubes. I'm still TV-less, but I just got through the latest "Studio 60" episode over on NBC.com. Spoilers coming up just as soon as I pay royalties to the "Veronica Mars" guys for stealing one of their episode titles for my subject line...

I quote my friend Phil: "Boy, when Sorkin says the show's going to lurch into more of a romantic comedy, it really lurches, huh?" If this is a sign of what the new direction is going to be, I don't think I'm in danger of having to write a "Boy, 'Studio 60' has sure gotten better" column anytime soon.

Could Danny possibly be any creepier in his pursuit of Jordan? I know that dogged pursuit in the face of constant rejection is a classic romcom trope, going back to '30s screwball comedies, even back to Shakespeare, but those stories always take place in some elevated plane of reality. This, on the other hand, is a show that tries to trade on taking place in something resembling the real world, and in the real world, Danny's a walking sexual harassment suit. Jordan's already been a tabloid joke for months, and now he's calling around to every celebrity he knows to get them to help him woo his pregnant boss? Is there any way that doesn't wind up on Defamer or Page Six or PerezHilton?

And the thing of it is, the show has Jordan go and make this point, and has Danny play contrite for all of 30 seconds, only to have him insist that he's going to go right on doing it, anyway. If they had chopped off that very last bit, it would have been fine, would have shown that Danny can be arrogant and impetuous and overbearing but is also capable of listening to the woman he's allegedly interested in. That would be a decent jumping-off point for their inevitable coupling. What Sorkin actually did, however, just squicked me out.

Also squicky? Simon acting like Darius has to be his manservant for the next 75 years because he happened to be standing next to Matt when Matt offered him a job.

Just plain boring? Matt and Harriet. No chemistry, nothing interesting about the two of them behaving like five-year-olds, no point except that they're The Couple We've All Been Waiting For or somesuch.

Really frustrating? The FCC subplot, which would actually be really good if Sorkin had bothered to give Jack and Wilson a cause that only a complete imbecile would be on the wrong side of. Have them support the First Amendment by going to bat for some fictionalized version of Howard Stern or Sarah Silverman, and you have a much more complicated, much more interesting, much better storyline.

And continuing with the show's complete disinterest in nuance, we have Jordan's new nemesis from Illiterate Programming. Leaving aside the fact that both Jordan and Sorkin's condemnation of reality TV ignores Sturgeon's Law, why does the new VP have to be such a blatant conniving bitch? Bob Rumson was more sympathetic. And her show idea was just as lame and unlikely to gather a huge audience as "Search and Destroy."

(Oddly enough, the first time I heard of "The 48 Laws of Power" was on "The Contender," where one of the contestants had read it and was using it to manipulate the others.)

But I'll give "Monday" this, and maybe only this: I could see Dylan's chubbby gymnast idea being very funny.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: Getting personal

Today's column is my account of last week's TCA visit to the "Studio 60" set:

Aaron Sorkin isn't happy with me. But then, he also isn't happy with bloggers, comedy writers, the Los Angeles Times and numerous other people and groups who have written unflattering things about "Studio 60."

It's an uncharacteristically chilly SoCal morning, and several dozen TV critics and reporters have gathered to hear Sorkin explain how "Studio 60" began the season with more hype and promise than any show on television and will be lucky to end it with a renewal for next year.

The show, set backstage at a fake version of "Saturday Night Live," has its devoted viewers and critics, but as many or more (including yours truly) have attacked it for, among other reasons, a smug attitude; the unfunny nature of the sketches on the show within the show; the lack of resemblance to what we know about the real "SNL" and its backstage culture; and Sorkin seemingly using the series to settle old scores with former colleagues and girlfriends.

"We get a lot of negative press on this show," he says. "We got it on 'West Wing,' we got it on 'Sports Night,' I got it on the plays I've done, the movies I've done, and public comments that I've made... It's the cost of doing business."

The cost, however, seems higher than it has in the past.

To read the rest, click here. And in reading, you may note that at one point he directly adresses me by name in response to somebody else's question about the autobiographical nature of the show. I'm the only person he did this to (on several occasions over the hour), and it's not because I was the most famous critic in the room, or the best writer, or his friend. It was because he's been reading my stuff and, as the first line of the story says, he's not happy with it or me and wanted to make that clear. As the visit was wrapping up, I made a point of seeking him out to at least discuss things, and he said I had "made it personal" by writing so much about the real-life parallels in general, and his relationship with Kristin in particular.

Now, I resolved a long time ago to make my criticism be about the work and not the person doing that work, so Sorkin saying I had crossed that line struck as big a nerve with me as my writing had with him. I could make an argument that identifying what feels to me to be score-settling in the show is a criticism of the work, but I feel like I've made that point several times over in just a half-season.

So here's the deal: that column and this blog entry are the last time I'm going to write about "Studio 60" and Kristin Chenoweth together. The show's flaws, to me, go beyond that one angle, and going forward I'd rather focus on the other stuff -- both the bad and, hopefully, the good -- than to keep hammering at this one point. Back tonight or tomorrow morning with thoughts on "Monday." Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: Let's get rid of demented Santa Claus!!!!!

Spoilers for "Studio 60" just as soon as I find out why nobody told me it was Opposite Day...

... because that? That did not suck. There were a couple of the requisite cringe-inducing moments, mostly involving the two leading men and their unconvincing romances, and the FCC subplot set up such a strawman villain that I was longing for the subtle nuances or Bob "Crime, boy I don't know" Ritchie, but overall, I didn't hate it. For this show, that's huge progress.

Let's take the good stuff first. I laughed several times, mostly at Cal's antics (see the subject line) and the Christmas debunking going on in the writers' room. (Though even I know that the virgin birth was Mary, not Jesus, and I'm the idiot responsible for the "figgy pudding"/"won't go until we get some" fiasco from the other night.) While the News 60 jokes were as lame and overly-wordy as ever, I at least admired the premise of the "To Catch a Predator" spoof with Santa. (Would have been funnier if Conan hadn't dipped a toe in these waters back at the Emmys, but c'est la vie.) And shameless as the New Orleans thing was, it was still beautiful. Sometimes you've gotta be shameless to provide good schmaltz.

Now, the bad. Matt and Harriet continue to have zero chemistry together, and him planting a kiss on her during a commercial break to mark his territory was a dick move, as both a guy and as a boss. But he's got nothing on Danny, who, aside from looking old enough to be the unborn baby's grandfather, came across like the kind of guy who should be the victim of a "Dateline NBC" sting operation with his obsessive stalking of Jordan. "I'm coming for you" isn't romantic; it's the sort of thing T-Bag from "Prison Break" would say.

Also, there is No. Way. In Hell. that the FCC would issue a $73 million fine in a situation involving live news and an American soldier in the middle of combat. No way. This is totally different from Janet Jackson or even the silly "Saving Private Ryan" thing, and no political administration of either stripe would allow this to happen. If Aaron wants to go after the FCC for the post-Nipplegate atmosphere, go right ahead, but pick a better target.

But, still, didn't hate it. I don't know that this is going to win anybody an Emmy the way the first three "West Wing" Christmas shows did, but it was by far the least objectionable episode of the series in weeks, if not going all the way back to the pilot.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Time travelling

Spoilers for, in order, "How I Met Your Mother," "Heroes" and "Studio 60" just as soon as I have a flashback, a flashforward, an in media res opening and then another flashback...

Fun With Unchronological Storytelling #1: "How I Met Your Mother," which is already one huge flashback, sneaks in a "one year later" coda that, among other things, establishes that Marshall and Lily will be married and Ted and Robin will still be dating a year or so from now. The former's not a shock at all, while the latter is a mild but not unpleasant surprise. Since this season has been consistently funnier than season one, it's fair to say that Ted and Robin as a couple hasn't hurt the show at all, and keeping the focus of Ted's mopey quest for The One leaves more room for Swarley and slap bet-style hijinks.

Overall, this one wasn't as legendary as the last few weeks (after "Slap Bet," I was starting to wonder if it had eclipsed "The Office" as my favorite comedy), but a nice spotlight on Barney that wasn't really awkward even with the NPH's recent uncloseting. Frankly, I was more distracted by flashbacks to Wayne Brady threatening to choke a bitch. "Singles stamina" was another good, observant concept, though I wish Marshall could regain his stamina just long enough to dance again, dammit.

Fun With Unchronological Storytelling #2: When TV shows do flashback episodes to events that happened before the pilot, there's a tendency to cram every significant event in each characters' backstory into the span of a couple of days. ("The Shield" did this a few years ago, and it was one of the few bad "Shield" episodes ever.) "Heroes" was definitely guilty of this, but it was still a very strong episode, arguably better than last week's This Is The One You've Been Waiting For confrontation between Peter and Sylar.

Sylar's origin story (and confirmation that Sylar does, in fact, steal people's powers along with their brains) and Hiro realizing the limits of his powers were obviously the big events, but I feel like we also filled in some good blanks about Nathan (who once upon a time was capable of doing the right thing without too much agonizing, and who flew for the first time as a literal flight-or-fight response that he couldn't control) and Niki, and continued the character rehab Claire started getting last week (showing that she never wanted to be a bitchy cheerleader).

(One completely anal fanboy nitpicky question that nagged at me as I tried to fall asleep: if Hiro teleported back to present-day Tokyo and had to take non-super transportation back to Texas, wouldn't someone in airport security or Customs on either side of Pacific at least raise an eyebrow over him making two Japan-->America trips in a short period without any record of his return to Japan? Again, not a big deal, but it kept me up a few minutes, so I felt I had to share.)

Not So Much Fun With Unchronological Storytelling: "Studio 60," which trotted out one of Sorkin's more tired narrative devices of beginning in media res, then skipping back to show how we arrived at this pivotal moment. John Wells has beat this one into the ground, too, and Sorkin just did it with the first part of "Nevada Day," and unless he finds a way for the flashbacks to completely alter our interpretation of what we saw in the present, I don't want to see him do it again for a long, long time.

On the plus side, it looks like Sorkin finally found a way to use Mark McKinney as something more than a glorified researcher. I liked him as the unfunny comedy guru, though the contrast would have been more effective if the Matt or Lucy or Darius ever seemed remotely funny -- or even just excitable -- most of the time. (Among the many "Studio 60" elements I've grown to hate: the way that characters will read scripts completely stone-faced, then declare, "This is really funny." If you want to demonstrate how funny it is, have you thought of laughing?) The decision to keep working on a hostage-themed sketch even as the Grosse Pointe thing kept going and going and going felt odd -- even if the situation ended without bloodshed, why did the cell phone minutes story have to be done as a hostage situation?

Elsewhere: The Howie Mandel monologue wasn't significantly lamer than your standard "SNL" monologue that has no joke outside of using elements of the host's famous show/movie. Suzanne the PA continues the transition to NewDonna that a lot of the Sorkin-ites assumed when she asked Matt in the pilot if he was here to save them. Sorkin again loses any credibility on his "these characters aren't really based on real people" story by making Jordan the victim of a newsmagazine takedown that sounded an awful lot like Lynn Hirschberg's "Jamie Tarses' Fall, As Scheduled" from the NY Times Magazine.

And we discover that Harriet Hayes, comedy goddess, whose role as co-anchor of "News 60" is entirely dependent on her ability to deliver a basic punchline, cannot, in fact, deliver a basic punchline. Sorkin, he of the plagiarism-is-evil attitude, owes either an apology or some royalties to Dennis Palumbo, Richard Benjamin, Mel Brooks or whoever wrote the scene in "My Favorite Year" where Benjy the Jewish comedy writer tries to teach K.C. the uptight WASP how to tell a joke, including the use of the "the duck says 'Get this guy off my ass'" gag. (And the next time, Sorkin may want to pay closer attention to that scene, as he uses "A man" and "a doctor's office" when Benjy clearly explained that "This guy" and "a psychiatrist's office" are both funnier.)

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Peripheral Vision Man goes to the mall

Spoilers for "HIMYM" and "Studio 60" just as soon as I call all of my Canadian cousins to ask them whether, in fact, 1986 didn't arrive in Canada until 1993...

Vis a vis "How I Met Your Mother," turns out Robin and I share both a Canadian heritage and a refusal to go to the Willowbrook Mall -- though, unlike Robin, I was never a pop star. I just have too many bad memories of what a bad, generic mall Willowbrook was. But it was the nearest mall growing up, dammit.

Another hilarious episode, and one that has me increasingly convinced that this is the show CBS needs to air after the Super Bowl. That timeslot's not the ratings magnet it use to, but it still has the potential to expose the show to 15-20 million people who have never seen it, and if there's a show on CBS that needs non-CBS viewers to know it exists, it's this one.

On any other show, the video no doubt would have been the highlight, but here it had to compete with both of Marshall's slaps of Barney. Is there anyone, anywhere, who doesn't think Barney made the wrong choice with the 5 vs. 10?

And just as it took America's 1987 six years to get across the border, "Studio 60" is showing that it's taking 2001 five years to enter Aaron Sorkin's consciousness. Sure, Fox scheduled "The Tick" in a much different comedy climate, but would any network bother with "Peripheral Vision Man" today, let alone give Beavis and Hackboy the budget to hire the huge, untalented writing staff we've seen in the two or three scenes set in The Room? And Matt's brief attempt to hold the two under contract after humiliating and marginalizing them since his return didn't make him seem noble; it made him seem like a bully.

I suppose this was an improvement over the Pahrump episodes, in that the lecturing about how Hollywood and fundamentalist Christianity relate to each other was limited to one subplot. But when the show's not being simple-minded and preachy and obnoxious, then it's just dull. Maybe if I liked the characters more, I would enjoy a straightforward inside-baseball episode like this, but nine episodes in, the only ones I still have affection for are Jack, Cal and Jeannie, and they exist on the series' fringes (or, in Jack's case, disappear for entire episodes at a time).

As for the Harriet storyline, there were so many things wrong with it that I don't even care about Aaron's ongoing therapy about his break-up with Kristin Chenoweth. First, if this takes place on the same day as the Nevada trip, Harriet got this offer, agreed to it and let the word spread all within a few hours? Woman works fast. Second, she can't possibly be so naive that she doesn't understand either the lad mag's desire to put her in a photo shoot or one of the reasons she's so valuable to "Studio 60." It would be one thing if she felt offended because Tom and Simon were making it sound like that was the only reason they kept her on the show (i.e., belittling her talent), but she reacted like this had never ocurred to her before. Every time Harriet opens her mouth, I like her less.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: The need for speed(ing)

Spoilers for "Studio 60" just as soon as I figure out how long it takes Sorkin to write an episode set in Lake Titikaka...

Congratulations, everyone who had "Tom was speeding to see his little brother before he had to go stand IN THE MIDDLE OF AFGHANISTAN!" as the reason for this entire wheezing mess of a farce. Because there's no way Tom could have been speeding just to be speeding, no way Judge Goodman could have taken these people out of their world of pain without realizing the guy in the Jesus suit had a brother fighting abroad, no way we could have gone for something remotely subtler or more interesting, is there?

Last week's episode felt like it was dragging things out to save all the good stuf for the conclusion. Apparently, "the good stuff" got lost somewhere on the way to and from Pahrump. (See? "Pahrump." It's a funy name. Like "Turd Ferguson." Just keep saying it over and over, and apparently it just gets funnier.) Because after feeling only bored and ambivalent about the show last week, I was back to cringing, "Mommy, please make the bad man stop" with this one.

In particular, that last scene with Matt and Harriet was appalling in a way that I didn't think was possible outside of an Endemol-produced reality show. "Oh God, Matthew. Are you crazy about me or just crazy?" That's an actual line of dialogue? One that Sorkin thought that any actress in the history of space and time could deliver? And all that back and forth about whether gays are the same as blacks and "judge not lest ye be judged" and on and on to the point where I wouldn't want either of these yahoos as the spokesperson for my point of view?

Phil Rosenthal -- "Everybody Loves Raymond" Phil Rosenthal, not my friend Phil Rosenthal -- once told me about how often his wife Monica would watch a "Raymond" episode featuring a story inspired by one of their arguments, and when Ray would give a big speech apologizing to Debra and explaining what he did that was so wrong, Monica would always punch him in the arm and complain, "How come you understand it for television!" Not having been a fly on the wall for any of the Sorkin/Chenoweth relationship, I can't say how much of this series is therapy, how much is apology, how much is Sorkin trying to get the last word, but I think it's safe to say that no matter what it is, Aaron still doesn't understand.

Meanwhile, I remain both impressed and amused by how the cast of the faux-"Studio 60" are the most supportive, least competitive group of comedians of all time. Like the non-Big 3 castmembers wouldn't be clawing and scratching each other for the chance to replace Simon for a night? I know that Harry Shearer couldn't stand to appear on Weekend Update during his first "SNL" stint because Lorne wouldn't let him do it in character, so on that level I can understand Dylan's discomfort. But why weren't the other three all running to Matt to argue their own case? (And who the hell was anchoring the news before Danny put Simon and Harriet on it? Wouldn't there be someone in the cast who A)Has experience behind that desk, and B)Is just a mite resentful at being replaced?)

Sorkin continues to wildly overestimate the interest anyone would have in the love life and personal opinions of a network entertainment president, but God do I love Jack Rudolph. Weber almost makes me wish Sorkin could take his carpet-cleaning idea and really do it, but only bring along Jack, Matt, Tom, Cal and maybe Lucy (and that's only because I like watching Lucy Davis cry). Because I'm all for any excuse to eliminate the deadweight characters, get away from any discussion of The Culture Wars and keep Sorkin from ever having to pretend that he can write sketch comedy.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60 gets the back nine

Here's the release. Given the amount of entertainment I get in picking it apart, I don't mind NBC making the stupid, futile gesture, but only if they do the same for Friday Night Lights. Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: The flabby dog story

Spoilers for "Studio 60" coming up just as soon as I ask my wife why she chose the violin over the viola...

Well, that was less hateable than it was flat and labored. I used to complain about the 30-minute length of "Sports Night," that every time an episode was really building up a head of steam, they had to roll credits. This was the opposite, a thin idea stretched out beyond interest. Maybe as a single episode, it would have worked better, but there isn't remotely two hours worth of story here.

I wasn't wild about "The West Coast Delay," but at least when that one shifted into Murphy's Law farce, it moved like one. "Nevada Day Part I" just limped along, filling in details to explain the in media res opening at a pace suggesting an Abe Simpson story involving an onion on his belt (which, in fairness, was the style at the time). Outside of Tom's reaction to the dog sniffing out the joint, I don't even think I cracked a smile, let alone laughed, at any of this. And what was with Matt's voiceover summarizing everything we just saw at the end of the show? That's the sort of narrative spoonfeeding you save for the beginning of part two, not the end of part one. It was so clumsy and pointless that I would assume it was the result of a network note if I didn't know that Sorkin's deal banned all network notes.

The previews for this episode had me going to the store to stock up on anti-nausea medication to deal with Sorkin using the John Goodman character as a red state punching bag, but I have to admit that the character wasn't nearly as annoying as I had feared. When Sorkin introduced Goodman as Glenallen Walken in his "Screw you, Wells!" farewell to "The West Wing," there was that one bit where Walken broke down the origins of World War I, and I thought, "Huh. That sounded not dissimilar to a lecture Bartlet might have given." Wells quickly turned Walken into a cartoon (also with a dog), but Sorkin seems to understand how to use Goodman to create a non-strawman Republican character.

The wordiness of Sorkin's attempts at sketch comedy make it impossible to tell whether his ideas might work with someone else writing them, but the fact that Danny trashed the Jesus sketch doesn't make up for how long we had to sit through the read through of the thing. The creative process is only interesting viewing if we get to see when, how and why a sketch goes from troubled to funny, and Sorkin has proved himself incapable of getting to Point B on that.

Lots of leftover problems from earlier episodes, whether it's the continued references to "Search and Destroy" as a smash hit in the making to Sorkin's misguided belief that anyone without a Variety subscription would care about Jordan's sex life and Jordan's complete political naivete, which Jack nicely illustrated on the plane with Danny. But the only time I was actually motivated to yell at the TV was the hint that Tom had an important reason for speeding. Maybe Sorkin will prove me wrong with some unexpectedly moving reveal in part two, but what's wrong with the guy just doing some reckless driving?

Meh -- which, for this show, is arguably a step up. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Stadium 60

If Aaron Sorkin wrote a show about baseball, by one of my favorite "Cheers" writers, Ken Levine. Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: Try not to be funny, we're doing a TV show

"Studio 60" spoilers just as soon as I can get Aaron Sorkin to quit clubbing me over the head with the clue-by-four...

Hey, on the plus side, we didn't have to sit through sketches that weren't funny (though, apparently, Matt has now written Commedia Dell'Arte into three of the four episodes since he took over, because that's not remotely hacky at all), and Lauren Graham got fractionally more to do than the week before. (In fairness, she probably just ran over to the "Studio 60" soundstage on lunch breaks, so I doubt they could have given her a major role, but it was a waste.)

On the downside, Simon wasn't the only person who could see every. single. line. coming before it did. As soon as Eli Wallach wandered in, I knew he had worked in the building and waited in increasing frustration for the lightbulb to turn on above Cal's head. As soon as Jordan asked Darren to sign the ball, I knew he wrote his phone number. As soon as Matt and Simon walked out on the first comic, I knew they would wind up discovering another black comedian who was more their speed. (Did you catch the guy making a reference to 19th century madrigals as Matt was trying to shut Simon up? That's only a hop, skip and a jump away from the Commedia Dell'Arte! Kindred spirits, baby!) About the only thing I didn't call in advance was that Tom's brother was fighting in Afghanistan; I assumed it was a "Stand By Me" situation where the favorite son died. Aaron's not the most subtle writer even on his best days, but the entire hour was thuddingly obvious.

And since I didn't have any sketches to drive me up a wall (save the Commedia references at the top), I had to take comfort in the paint-by-numbers characterizations: the Midwestern parents who are such sheltered rubes that they've never even heard of "Who's on First?," or the cheap black comic who tells the kinds of jokes Homer Simpson was laughing at 15 years ago ("We are sooooo lame!") and yet is somehow considered promising enough that Bud Friedman invited Simon to watch him, or Simon revealing himself to be a character from "Boyz N the Hood" or "Juice," or the bimbettes who want to break into the business but don't understand what a writer does. And, of course, Jordan turning into Aaron's classic Seemingly Tough Professional Woman who's really just a big, messy ball of mush. Swell.

There were some promising ideas at work here, but the execution made them all seem like the sort of thing Beavis and Hackboy might dream up. Speaking of which, where are those guys? Or Young Aaron Sorkin, whose "West Wing"-esque "Nations" led to the one genuinely funny scene, with Jack hassling Danny? Will we start getting new Sorkin stand-ins every week until the show becomes, as my friend Phil joked, like that scene in "Being John Malkovich" where Malkovich goes inside his own head? Sorkin. Sorkin. Sorkin? SORKIN!!!!!!!

I could rant more at length, but I have to get back to "Prime Suspect." So what did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Studio 60: Better?

Spoilers for "Studio 60" just as soon as I take off my radio mic...

Wow. An episode where I didn't feel the need to yell at the TV even once -- or, at least, where Sorkin pre-empted my yelling at the last minute. Martha/Maureen delivering another speech about how Important this show is? Deftly undercut by the appearance of Tom in a lobster suit. The "Jenny Doesn't Have a Baby" sketch being the kind of thing "SNL" would dump after the second musical number? Matt admits it's not funny. The Nancy Grace sketch wasn't much better, but even there, Matt damned it with faint praise by referring to it simply as the best thing they had that week.

So with a minimum of Sorkin telling me one thing and showing me something else, I could appreciate the characters more. This was the first week, for instance, that I actually liked Harriet. And while the "Search and Destroy" subplot was another case of Aaron being way behind the curve in the TV business -- reality sleaze lost its mass appeal years ago, and all of the big current hits are about becoming rich, famous or both -- I really liked the scenes where Jordan stood up to Jack and then got Bob Wright (or whatever the character's name is) on her side. (A negative: how in the world does Jordan not know who Bill Parcells is?)

I would have liked more of Lauren Graham -- if ever there was an actress born to deliver Sorkin dialogue, it's her -- but I'm hoping she'll have a larger showcase next week.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post