Studio 60: Dreaming of a white Christmas while live-blogging on the Sunset Strip

Live-blogging will begin at 9:55 PM Eastern.  But somebody goofed and turned on his spotlight and his microphone too early, so Mannion's already out front, delivering what he thinks is a funny opening monologue.  Feel free to ignore him and scroll down.

Hello, out there!

Wow!

What an echo.

Good evening, folks and folksettes.  Lance Mannion here, blogging to you from the ballroom at the Camp Ho-ki-po-ki Restaurant high atop Mount Killimontarack in the beautiful Catskill Mountain Resort Region.  Behind me, Steve Kuusisto and his All-Girl All-Kazoo band are playing the haunting and enchanting overture to Lucia di Lammamoor, so that's that godawful squawking you hear in the background and you don't need to adjust your radio sets.  When they're done the girls will go table to table asking you to donate as generously as you can so that they can put some gas in their bus and get the hell out of this one-horse town and on to their next gig in Merrillville, Indiana. That's where they make the big bucks.

I'm your host tonight.  No guest blogger.  Just me to take you through tonight's very special holiday episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.  Emmy-award winner Ken Levine will tell you how much television writers look forward to writing very special holiday episodes.

The nice thing about being the sole host is that I don't have to appear here in italics.  You can't rent a good italics like you can a tux---and, by the way, what do you think of mine?  I like the line here, but I'm not crazy about the velvet lapels.  At any rate, appearing in italics is tiring.  You have to spend the whole night leaning thirty degrees to stage right like a novice mime practicing the walking in a windstorm routine.  You probably didn't notice, but the last couple of times I leaned too far and lost my balance and fell over on top of a busboy.  Same busboy both times.  Both times he was carrying a full tray of china.  Amazing how fate likes a joke like that.  That ironic part is that both times I was aiming at the cigarette girl.

So tonight I get to stand up straight while live-blogging, although if the cigarette girl passes within range during a commercial don't be surprised if italicize myself all over the place.

Quick rundown of some good stuff from last week's episode.

1.  There was a story.

2.  The subplots had something to do with developing the characters and didn't bother with trying to teach us the economics of running a network or the history of television.

3.  I got a good joke I can tell at parties.  Jewish guy calls up his mother, says How ya been, ma?  His mother says, Not so good, sonny, I haven't eaten in 38 days.  Guy says, 38 days?  Ma, why haven't you eaten in 38 days?  His mother says, I didn't want to have to talk with my mouth full in case you called.

Harriet told it better.

4.  Aaron Sorkin finally realized Jordan is not serious about doing her job and wrote her part accordingly.  The scene where she self-destructs in an interview with a reporter for TIME was clunky, a bit too obviously staged---the reporter seemed to have come into the room expecting exactly what he got and sat there waiting for it to happen, very much as if he was in an audience watching a play he had seen before and he made no attempt to actually conduct his interview; he just fed her questions that were designed to help Jordan get from Point A.)  Pretending to take the interview seriously to Point B.) Aware that she's gone too far.  At some points along the way, the reporter seemed to be coaching her on how to go from bad to worse, but he didn't come across as manipulative, just as scripted.---but the follow-up scene with Danny in which she realizes what a gigantic mistake she made was good, right up to the point where she faints and reveals she's pregnant, as if we didn't see that one coming.

Sorkin, though, did a nice job of setting up that moment while keeping in mind that the moment was not going to be a big surprise.

5.  I say Sorkin did a nice job and Sorkin realized Jordan's a twit, but Sorkin had a co-writer on the episode and as I said last week one of the things I think Sorkin needs to do is call in outside help to write the show.  So the co-writer is a promising development.

The meta-scripting is still at work though in that last week's episode written with the help of a co-writer was about Matt Albie bringing in a co-writer to help him write...that week's episode.

6.  The two young writers, Darius and the girl from the British version of The Office got more screen time.  Unfortunately for them, most of their screen time was spent playing straight man and straight woman to the hired gun Matt and Danny's brought in to teach them how to write.  Fortunately for us, the hired gun is a compelling character, although with Darius and now this guy Aaron Sorkin has created a writing staff for his fictional show that includes two comedy writers who have no sense of humor.

Maybe three.

Brit Girl's sense of humor has yet to be demonstrated.

Apparently their ability to write killer comedy is akin to an infant prodigy's ability to write a symphony without being able to read a note of music.  Some part of their brains that they cannot connect to except while writing is tuned into the quantum humor of the universe.

7.  Harriet and Matt played several scenes together as if they actually liked each other.  The problem is that that's exactly as it came across---they like each other.  A couple of pals who haven't spent a lot of time together lately.

Previews suggest that Matt and Harriet smooch under the mistletoe tonight.  Let's hope the previews are misleading.  As many of you know, I hate mush.   The sight of the two of them swooning into each other's arms will just boil my brisket.

Unless I manage to fall on the cigarette girl.

Then I'll feel more kindly towards all young lovers.

It's 8:31 by my watch.  I'll just stand here and practice leaning until she wanders by or the show starts.

9:52.  Heroes is looking less interesting.  "We're going to take you apart, Gabriel.  Just like one of your little watches.  Sorry.  Timepieces.  We're going to take you apart and find out exactly what...makes...you..."  Tick!  Dammit!  The word you're working towards is Tick! "Tick."  Phew.

9:54.  "Tell me, Claire.  Can you keep a secret?"   Melodrama.  I think I like this show better when I watch it with the sound turned down.

9:57.  I also like it better when they get all surreal and don't have any dialogue.  What's the bike wheel spinning symbolize?

Here come all the heroes!

Oh oh! It's true.  A hero will be lost!

10.01.  Macao again!  Why does Sorkin think we care?  Maybe he just likes having Ed Asner say Macao.

10:02.  I knew the father would turn out to be nobody interesting.  I'm glad.

10:03.  Roz Russell and Cary Grant, I'm telling you.

What was the beer Danny was asking if she and the boyfriend got drunk on and forgot there are like 500 types of birth control of which I can think of only 4 off the top of my head?

I think it was gentlemanly of Danny not to ask her why she didn't have an abortion.  Or do we know because of the 12 years of Catholic school Jordan suffered...went through?

10:08  Charlie Brown joke coming in the door with Matt.

10:08:10. LINUS?????

Good grief.

Linus did not pick out the tree!

Aaron Sorkin, you blockhead!

10:10  First walk and talk.

I should move to LA.

But I love Christmas.

I can't live in LA if I love Christmas.

10:12.  By the way, Sorkin wrote this episode alone.  Explains Steven Weber's totally unrealistic swearing just now.

This is why they need to be able to say fuck on network television.  Because that's what Jack would be saying.

10:15.  Ad for Blood Diamond.  What accent does Leonardo di Caprio think he's doing?

10:16.  By the way, Matt's being Jewish and loving Christmas reminds me of the novelist Fred Busch.  Fred was Jewish and he loved Christmas.  Loved it.  He wrote a preface to the Signet Classics edition of A Christmas Carol.

10:19.  Jesus looks like one of the Bee Gees in the paintings.  Good line.  But is Simon going to be nothing in this show but Tom's sidekick?  Isn't that a complete inversion of the talent ratio?

10:23.  We're getting humor out of opening a coconut.  About as easy as actually opening a coconut.

Matt and Danny.  Boy, they're good together.

I'm not hip enough.  I don't know.  Would Harriet be right for this part?  Sarah Paulson?

10:27.  Is Danny going to say it or punch her desk?

They've got chemistry.  They may even have body heat.  But I still hate mush.

I'm in terrifc shape too.  I'm a nut about exercise as well.  I'd walk across the street to talk to Amanda Peet and wouldn't have to stop to rest once.

I probably haven't mentioned it, but my high school girlfriend looked just like Amanda Peet only prettier.

Ok, the drill press to open the coconuts?  Cute visual bit.  But is there really only one place in southern California where all the TV shows and movie theaters get their fake snow?

I knew that about Luke and the shepherds and Jesus being born in the spring.   I learned it in Catholic grade school.  I won a bar bet on that once.  I think that one of Aaron Sorkin's objectives with Studio 60 is helping all of us win lots of bar bets.

The unsmiling writer was more fun last week.

10:41.  I thought they fired the Mac guy.

Is it me or is Will Smith looking more and more like Jesse Jackson?

I have to tell you, folks.  I've been watching more of this show than usual.  I'm attributing it to Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford because that's all that's going on.

10:45.  "Why is it that young people have no sense of the past?"  Yes, everybody needs to know when Caruso died relative to the birth of a fictional character played by Ed Asner.

Besides winning us bar bets, Sorkin wants us to have a sense of the past.  Generous guy.  What middle school does he teach at again?

10:49.  THE KISS!!!!!!!!!!!

And no mistletoe.

10:50.  If Steven Weber leaves the show this will be the last live blog.

Hooray!  Ed Anser's a hero!

Jack's a hero!

He meets the grandkids.

Can't Aaron Sorkin just let the musicians play?????

Jordan's eating a sandwich sloppily.  Amanda Peet has no vanity.  Good quality in a comedienne.

The full cheek is a nice, cute touch too.

10:56  Show would have been pretty good if Sorkin had just let the musicians play.  The slideshow overwhelms them.  The moment should have been about the music.  Instead it was about how Aaron Sorkin's heart is in the right place.

11:02.  Time to call it a night, gang.  Steve Kuusisto and his All Girl All Kazoo band snuck out during the first commercial break without paying their bar tab.  The cigarette girl went home with the busboy I fell on.  Matt has kissed Harriet, Danny's SAID IT!  They're making pina coladas with the burnt coconut shavings.  It's Christmastime in LA and did I mention how the novelist Cynthia Ozick, who is Jewish, used to call Fred Busch up at Christmastime and ask him if he had a Christmas tree and when he said he did she'd yell at him for being a bad Jew?

It's not just Aaron Sorkin who can teach you things.

Clear the room, people.  We've got another party coming in from the West Coast.  What they're going to dance to now that there are no kazoos, I have no idea.  Art the Bartender can play Lady of Spain on wine glasses.   Art?  You want to get out the crystal?

I'm done, folks.  Wrap up in the morning.

Goodnight!

Comments

[Jim Tourtelott]

The Asner speech is William S. Paley circa 1973. Of course, circa 1981 CBS fired Ed Asner.

[Domoni]

That should have been

Oh, don't cut to the adoring family, friends, and lovers.

[Jim Tourtelott]

But see, if they hadn't cut to the adoring family, friends, and lovers, how would you have known what a swell idea this was?

One of Sorkin's most grating traits is his unwillingness to trust his audience's response.

[Trevor Austin]

"You'd better get a head start, because I'm coming for you" ruined the otherwise charming mouth-full-of-sandwich sight gag because it was such a creepy thing to say.

Best punchline: "dot org"

[velvet goldmine]

Well, I usually lurk because I have virtually no complaints with the show, and what fun is that?

But did I miss what should have been comedy gold: the dawning realization that, aside from Cal's demonstration of how hard coconuts are to open, it would take a factory full of people working 'round the clock to grate enough of the damn things in order to get the masses of "snow" Matt envisioned?

Not to mention the awkwardness of constantly talking about "snow" in the presence of well-known cokehead Danny? That would be like trading mushroom recipes in front of...Aaron Sorkin.

[Pooh]

I like what S60 has done tonight with the musicians.
It feels kinda like a West Wing moment...

Because it was...the Xmas episode (3rd or 4th season) where Toby's dad (the ex-gangstah) showed up, and they had the Whiffenpoofs (sp?) singing the same song. Not complaining at all, as it got a little dusty during that scene.

Except for having the Danny and Jordan thing. Why is Brad Whitford always talking over the sweet music? (Yo-yo Ma on the Wing, when he was going nuts during the, you guessed it, Christmas episode, 2nd Season.

(back to lurkdom)

[Ed D.]

I thought the show hit its stride. My wife and I were both laughing - and we've been fighting a lot lately, so thanks for that.

The bit about Mr. Rogers was funnyfunnyfunny. I met him once in an off handed way. I was jumping off the Delta Queen as it landed in Pittsburgh, to secure the head line. It was quite a jump. As I stood up there he was, just two feet away, smiling and telling me, "nice jump." He had a sense of humor in the next few minutes as we talked, that wasn't part of the show. What a guy. I can imagine him saying f*** if an RPG round exploded closeby. Funny.

[Pooh]

Oops, forgot to add that the Santa "To Catch a Predator" was one of their better sketch efforts.

[Victoria]

Three things.

(1) Let's hear it for our host! He out did himself tonight! That's Entertainment, kids.

(2) I need to look at the show a second time to confirm this but I suspect the crabbing about letting the NOLA musicians play was probably out of proportion. It seemed to me they got a remarkable amount of air time and quite decent framing.

(3) Here's the real Christmas miracle: Matt found a place where people weren't walking to lay that kiss on Harriet.

[john]

For the first time I enjoyed the show more than the blogging. Nothing against the blogging. The show was just good. Dateline Santa was funny. Josh, I mean Danny, in love was funny. The continuing love story between Danny and Matt was sweet. Jordan stuffing her cheeks in every shot was funny. I liked the character based on Kristen Chenoweth more than I had before. Not funny: the 2 actors hitting on the Brit chick, and the bit about Caruso -- preternatural erudition was an attractive fantasy for West Wing; for Hollywood it's just annoying, a writer's tic. But aside from that, nice show.

I don't know if I'd've made it with the show this far if it weren't for the blogging. Thanks, Lance.

[charlie]

sad, really, watching the show on Tivo isn't quite the same.

Not bad. Not bad. Merry Christmas.

[Domoni]

Victoria: "(2) I need to look at the show a second time to confirm this but I suspect the crabbing about letting the NOLA musicians play was probably out of proportion. It seemed to me they got a remarkable amount of air time and quite decent framing."

OK, I'm fueled with beer and Mint Oreo cookies. The following has not been checked with the aid of a Timex watch.

Danny said he wanted four minutes. Intro to first shot of adoring cast: 60 secs. -- Music to shot of pensive Danny: 20 secs -- Danny stands and shot of Matt: 4 secs -- Music to shot of pensive Harriet: 10 secs -- Harriet eyes to Matt: 3 secs -- Matt eyes to Harriet: 5 secs -- Cut to the Lou Grant family: 6 secs -- Pan to Jordan eating: 2 secs -- Danny opens door: "Can I talk to you a second?": 8 secs -- Camera outside door to over Danny's shoulder and Danny's speech: 18 secs -- Jordan's chewing: 4 secs -- Band playing in front of slide "All I want for Christmas is my city back": 6 secs -- Matt and Danny's "Went to a place called Say It Say IT" love scene: 28 secs -- Pan over the audience: 4 secs -- Back to band: 13 secs -- Audience ovation/band playing: 7 secs

Let's see. 16 mini-scenes. Five of the band. 11 of the cast. 60 seconds before we leave the band for the first time. 127 total seconds of the band. 121 seconds of the cast. (Yeah, that doesn't add to what I have above. Slip seconds in for moving from scene to scene. But the song was 4:08.)

Yeah, they moved the story along. But I still would have liked seeing that band play and the slides for the whole song.