Studio 60: Saving the cheerleader while live-blogging on the Sunset Strip

For our cetacean viewers, tonight's live-blogging will be simultaneously translated into dolphin.

Welcome back.  Let's get right down to business by asking the question that's on everyone's mind.  Will Aaron Sorkin be able to get Danny and Jordan off the roof in fewer episodes than it takes Jack Bauer to defuse a nuclear bomb?

9:56.  Sulu is guest starring on Heroes.  I've got to start watching this show from beginning to end.

Now there's a blonde trapped inside a mirror while her reflection is taking over her life.  I can't tell you how many fantasies of mine this is playing into.  I've got to start watching this show.

9:59.  Also to be worked out in tonight's episode of Studio 60.  Just how many women will ignore Simon, the man Shakespeare's Sister calls hotter than hot, to throw themselves at the puppy dog-like Tom.

10:02. Harriet lays out the history of their romance in a way that is not the least bit flattering to Matt, who is now reacting in a way that proves her version of events are true.

He is cruel.  I like this as a storyline.  Matt the self-destructive, women-hating asshole.  But does Aaron Sorkin know it's the storyline?  Does he know that Matt's disturbed?

He knows Danny's disturbed but he seems to be treating this as a reason for us to root for him to win Jordan.

10:07.  Lots of throwing in field hockey, I didn't know.

I do like the snake wrangler.

Tom's learned his lesson.  He lied to Lucy and that got him into trouble so he's telling Kim the truth.

I hope Jack at least tries to kill Tom with his thumbs.

10:11.  If I was Aaron Sorkin, I'd want people to forget the baseball bat/stripper's boots episode.  But, nope, we're rehasing it here.

The worst lie Matt's ever told is that he and Harriet would be shopping for pre-schools right now if they hadn't been a rotten couple who fought all the time and couldn't spend five minutes alone without blowing up into a serious argument?

Let me get my head around this.  What is the lie?  That they were a rotten couple or that if they hadn't been a rotten couple they'd have had children together?

10:16.  It's her fault, I knew it!  Women!

Oh yeah.  Natalie Cole's singing.  This is developing into a signature of the show.  Bring on a musical act we all want to listen to and then let the main characters talk over the song.  Edgy.

Name one woman who would have found being stalked charming?

Got one.  Jordan, apparently.

The coyote's afraid of the snake, the ferret's afraid of the coyote, Cal's afraid of the Humane Society.  "Mother Nature's an inscrutable force."  Heh.  Indeed.

"The Animal Kingdom Axis of Evil."  Timothy Busfield sold that line, I think.

10:23.  Jack Rudolph, Action Executive, springs into action.

He's decisive.  He's stupid.  But he's decisive.  They're taking her back to Tom's dressing room?????

"She's Courtney Love, Jack."  Terrific!  A cultural reference that post-dates Hollywood Squares.  Lindsay Lohan might have been better, but at least we're into the 21st century with Love.

Matt blows a joke because he's jealous?

Matt blows a joke because he's jealous?

Matt blows a joke?????

Wouldn't it have been enough if he'd just had a little trouble getting the speech started?  Man's a pro, he has an audience, he has Harriet depending on him, and he can't get his mind off the fact that she's attracted to another man?

Nah.  Complete adolescent behavior is Sorkin's idea of manly charm.

Danny stalks, terrifies, and humiliates Jordan.  He spends the better part of two episodes making a fool of himself up on the roof top.  He insults her with every other line.  And she wants to know if he finds her physically appealing even though she's pregnant.

Matt picks a fight with Harriet in public at a dinner honoring her, makes an idiot of himself in his speech, ruins her entrance, all because she's hurt his feelings by not adoring him for the prick that he is, and we're supposed to root for him to get the girl that none of us even likes to begin with?

Works for me.

10:31.  Simon has the makings of a prairie oyster in his room.  Jack asks, "What are you?  Sinatra?"

I'm serious here.  Sinatra references are always hip.

Calling a Sinatra reference hip is never hip.

10:35.  We're back on the roof with no hope of rescue.

I'm confused.  Wasn't Jordan just flirting with him?

This is going to go on for twenty more episodes.

Who's this brunette?

Wendy.

Oh, it's the girl with the boots.  Sorkin must think he'll get an Emmy for that episode.

10:38.  Ad for Best Buy.  Do I need to upgrade to Vista?

10:41.  We're back with the clinically depressed comedy writers.

You know, it's arguable as to whether or not the show within a show actually needs to be funny for us to accept that it is funny.  Well, I don't think it is arguable.  Some smart people I respect argue that it isn't necessary.  My feeling is that it wouldn't take very much effort to make it funny, but more important to me is that I believe that the writers and the cast are capable of writing and acting funny.

It's not just that I don't believe Darius and Lucy can write a joke.  It's that I don't believe either one of them knows what a joke is.  These two deciding to become comedy writers is about as likely as someone who faints at the sight of blood becoming a surgeon.

How can DL Hughley stand to be the spokesman for Aaron Sorkin's white guilt?

10:44.  "How long you going to keep this up?"

"As long as it's funny!"

Wow.  The irony there is breathtaking!

How can the entire cast stand to be the spokespersons for Sorkin's authorial hubris?  No, Aaron, it's not all about the writing.

Tom is another one who expects that behaving like an asshole should be rewarded with sex.

And in Aaron Sorkin world, he at least has hope.

10:49.  Timothy Busfield and the Snake Wrangler should get their own spin-off.

10:51.  Darn.  They're getting off the roof.  They haven't milked the situation for all it's worth yet.

She was flirting.

See.  This was my mistake when I was dating.  I never got stuck on a roof with a woman I'd been stalking and insulted her all night.

That was about the least sexy kiss in the history of network television, and I'm counting the time Sammy Davis kissed Archie Bunker.

Hah!  Aaron Sorkin isn't the only one who remembers the 70s!

I feel worse for Matt because Wendy's going home to her fiance than because Harriet is going to string him along for a few more episodes before she lets him kiss her again.

10:56.  When you don't know how to close a show, go with a music video.  Hey!  It worked for Homicide all the time.

Next week Harriet and Matt break up again?

Oh.  We're going to see the day they met, so we'll know they were really made for each other.  Most writers would have gone for the obvious and tried to show that through dialog in the first three or four episodes.  Sorkin saves it for halfway through the season and does it in a flashback.  The man just loves to break ground.

11:00.  Wow.  That was amazing.  Last week Sorkin set up three situation comedy gags---Danny and Jordan on the roof, the deadly viper under the floor, and Tom out with the wild girl who wants him naked but whom he can't touch without risking death---gags that real situation comedy writers would have set up, built, and brought to their punchlines in 22 minutes, that is, in about 7 minutes of screen time for each, and Sorkin couldn't finish them off in an hour, he had to continue them for another hour, and he still couldn't give any of them a proper payoff?

There's a discussion in a comment thread on one of Ken Levine's posts---I'll drop in the link later.  (It's later.  Here's the link.)---and somebody there asked the question why so many people who seem to hate Studio 60 keep watching it.

I don't hate the show.  I hated being disappointed week in and week out by the show.  But I always expected that it would get better.  Or if it didn't that it would get worse and then it would be fun to hate.

But it's done neither.  It doesn't get better or worse.  It doesn't do anything.  Sorkin keeps writing the same show over and over and over again.

Nothing has happened to these characters since the second episode.  They are in the exact same place, saying the same things to each other.  It's not just failure we're watching here.  It's willful failure.  Sorkin must see that he's stuck.  Don't you think?  After writing the same script for the third time, didn't it all seem familiar to him?  Why doesn't he do something, anything to get himself out of the loop?  Hand off the show to another writer?  Kill a main character?  Have Matt wake up in bed next to his wife Harriet and say, Honey, I had the weirdest dream.  I dreamed I was a comedy writer and you were a born again Christian starring on the show we both worked on and we were really, really boring together?  And she could say, Not now, honey, I'm late for my first day working at the White House for President Matt Santos?

Then after an episode or two of that, we find out that that's all been a dream, and Matt wakes up in bed next to Jeannie the sexy brunette who inexplicably and inexcusably has disappeared from the show and says, Damn, I'm late for my first day back at work on Studio 60.  But you know what I'm going to do first thing this morning?  Fire Harriet.

Goodnight, folks.  I'm going to bed now.  If I'm lucky I'll wake up tomorrow next to the brunette who plays Wendy and I'll say, I had the weirdest dream.  I dreamed that I was a blogger and I had got myself into the habit of live-blogging every Monday night this really boring TV show about a comedy show that wasn't funny.

And she'll say, Nevermind that now, dear, we've only got an hour to make mad passionate love before you have to rush off for your first day at the White House working for President Matt Santos.

Comments

[Domoni]

His license plate was NCC-1701 :)

[Jim Tourtelott]

Paulson was better in the opeming than she has been in the rest of the series, just as last week Webber ruled in the first two minutes. Is Sorkin going to write nothing but openings? Maybe that would work.

[Domoni]

This snake: ferret: coyote storyline is stupid.

[Ken Houghton]

Did everyone except me know that Ken Levine was a writer on Kristen?

[Domoni]

Ken: No.

Lance: I have to tell you. Pickins' are slim here. A Jim Carrey movie is looking good to me.

[Ken Houghton]

My TiVo is doing one of its random reboots. The only question is whether it will decide to come back before they swallow the horse.

[Jim Tourtelott]

Well, yes, the animals business is dopey. But it beats the shit out of "Ooh, we're stuck on the roof." And Busfield sells it quite well. In fact, Busfield has been uniformly good throughout the series. So why not make the whole show about Webber and Busfield, and openings? Maybe that would work.

[M.A. Peel]

Natalie Cole. Wow.

[Domoni]

Matt will write an opening that will knock her socks off. Natalie Cole? You think "A Little Prayer for You" means anything here? Hmmmmm?

"We've broken up about 18 times." That should tell them the relationship is over.

[marjo]

this show is succeeding in making me care even LESS for the principals. I used to kind of like Matt, not anymore.

[Domoni]

Studio 60: "I'm going to cook them and I'm going to eat them." OK. That I can live with.

[M.A. Peel]

"This lacks of professionalism." Ha Ha

[Domoni]

The commercial earlier said tomorrow everyone in America will be buzzing about Studio 60. No. We were buzzing a few months ago. Tomorrow people will be saying, "What? No, I watched CSI: Miami."

Am I the only one here tonight that can't follow Sorkin into romantic comedy?

[Domoni]

"What are you Sinatra?" OK. Whoever said he should be the star is correct.

[Ken Houghton]

Damn. Amanda Peet finally acts as if she's working in a competitive industry.

[Ken Houghton]

Comment from Shira: "Heroes is easier to follow. As many characters, but the motivations are understandable and the dialog doesn't go ON AND ON AND ON."

[M.A. Peel]

Ray Noble reference on prime-time television.

[M.A. Peel]

There feel like many more commercials this week--maybe NBC trying to make the money they are not going to get out of syndication with the show

[marjo]

am I supposed to be impressed that Sorkin has this conflict between the (only) two black characters? This is supposed to be, I don't know, daring? it's not. boring

[Ken Houghton]

"Long as it's funny." That was quick.

[Domoni]

Simon: It's not funny. Please stop.

[marjo]

"Tom is another one who expects that behaving like an asshole should be rewarded with sex."

apparently this works for Sorkin??

[Domoni]

You had me at "You commie prick."

[marjo]

not romantic.
not comedic.

[Domoni]

She should have stopped at "I'm crazy."

[Ken Houghton]

Natalie Cole to Willie Nelson/Patsy Cline?

[Ken Houghton]

Definite Pretenders, but not Great ones.

[James Wolcott]

Let me see if I grasp this: You call someone a "prick" and he's so impressed by your blunt candor he agrees to go into partnership with your network? I wonder if they teach that at Harvard Business. At least they didn't have the drunken daughter say, "Me love you long time to Tom," an admirable bit of reticence.

I was hoping the ferret would bite somebody. This show really fails in the art of follow-through.

A closing musical montage, which I believe Ken Levine has cursed as TV's latest lousy new cliche.

[Domoni]

Wait! Of course! They're tearing up the stage. They're remaking Studio 60 into a whole new show!

Yeah.

[marjo]

why do they think we care a rat's ass about when Matt met Harriet?

[Ken Houghton]

Cyia, wouldn't wanna be ya?

Oh, sh*t; When Harry Met Shallow-y is next week.

[Domoni]

They're going back in time? Didn't they learn from Heroes? If they do that, Matt will lose his super powers and have to find a magic sword.

[Jim Tourtelott]

Of course Jack Rudolph, Action Executive gets out of his dilemma by calling the Chinese guy a "Commie prick". After all, he got into by calling the white corporate board guy a "moron." So it's, like, symmetrical. Yeah, that's it.

[Jim Tourtelott]

More likely you're going to wake up next to Suzanne Pleshette and tell her you just dreamed you were an inn-keeper in Vermont.

[Dan Coyle]

"Why do you pretend you can't speak English?" "It's fun!"

Jack Rudolph, Action Executitve pulls out another one! And Chinese dude is going to be on the board, so Sorkin's keeping him around.

Hmmm, it appears I've started a bit of a meme with this Jack Rudolph, Action Executive thing.

[Lance]

Dan, your meme and Steven Weber's Emmy may be the only good things to come out of this show.

Jim, waking up next to Suzanne Pleshette has been a long-time dream of mine.

[Dan Coyle]

Hey, I might just buy the DVD for some prime Weber action. All 12:30 PM mornings in college where one of the few cable channels was USA made me a har-core Wings Fan 4 life, yo.

(cough)

[Shakespeare's Sister]

the man Shakespeare's Sister calls hotter than hot

Actually, I called him "Haaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwt!"

See. This was my mistake when I was dating. I never got stuck on a roof with a woman I'd been stalking and insulted her all night.

This is the funniest thing that will ever--ever--be written about Studio 60.

[travy]

ugh, dead on comments re this show going nowhere... sorkin's stuff is always too self aware/important, but it usually takes a couple of succesful seasons before you can get away with the lame situations and jokes he's throwing out on here. i mean you should really have to earn the right to put forth the worn premises of the last two weeks. my low moment was when danny realizes there's a hidden key just after jordan throws it off the roof. oh damn!! and one more: the chinese executive really speaks english? what about the mistranslation bit from a few episodes ago? has the daughter been in on the ruse too? so lame!

[Jim 7]

Maybe when they tear up the floor they'll find find some old comedy bits...

[Jim 7]

Maybe when they tear up the floor they'll find find some old comedy bits...

[joanr16]

George Takei's appearance on Heroes was too short. I believe all his dialogue was in Japanese, which was interesting. Masi Oka (Hiro the hero) is so cute I can hardly stand it... way cuter than Brad Whitford these days (especially with that Hollywood hair).

[Dave MB]

I'm not as negative about this episode as the rest of you, though I hated last week's. This week there were several instances of people actually talking to each other in an interesting way. I think Sorkin's idea was to have these conversations rushed by the plot elements (at some point this seems to have been planned for a three-parter, so perhaps he had more that he cut) to sort of artificially give the episode some flow. I think the Danny-Jordan, Wendy-Matt, and Darius-Simon conversations moved those characters somewhere else, and in great contrast to last week I was interested. I'll keep watching.

Thanks to whomever here named "Jack Rudolph, Action Executive" -- I giggle thinking of that every comes on. And travy, I think there were definite hints in "Nevada Part II" that the Chinese executive was far less monolingual than he claimed, and that his daughter knew that perfectly well. Did you think she had actually mistranslated him there?

Funny bits that worked for me: Tom answering the violist's phone to get her father in Chinese (who did he think it was going to be?), Danny getting whacked on the head by Cal just as he put down the notes, and JRAE's seeing immediately that it would be fun to pretend not to speak English.

[travy]

dave mb- you could be right. this show doesn't exactly sear itself into my memory each week, especially given that i am generally a little foggy by 10pm mondays. but in remembering the nevada episodes, it rings a little false that he spoke english the whole time and his daughter knew about it. to me, it felt like a last minute addition so last night's resolution scene could play better between two people rather than three with an awkward translator.

i'm trying not to pick at continuity too hard these days and just enjoy viewings, but this stuck out for me... perhaps it's just that sneaky sorkin playing tricks on me? :^)

[Molly, NYC]

Have you ever considered ditching S60otSS and liveblogging Heroes instead?

Just saying.

[Elayne Riggs]

"Nothing has happened to these characters since the second episode. They are in the exact same place, saying the same things to each other. It's not just failure we're watching here. It's willful failure."

Well, not really. There is forward movement in Aaron Sorkin World, but ASW is so heavy-handed of late that it's hard to spot it. The Life Lesson Learned these past two weeks is that every time you tell a lie you screw up your life, and every time you decide to be true to yourself things get better. And that's what we have here - Matt and Harriet are still lying to themselves and each other, so as long as they do they'll continue to have tsuris; Danny and Jordan are finally being truthful with themselves and not relying on gimmicks and lines and bad sitcom plots, so they're going to work; Tom and Lucy are going to work because he realized that lying in the first place was dumb; Darius and Simon... well, that's a little more complicated because, as far as I know, there's no romance involved there. :) Plus, although Darius is now being less Obsessed with the White Man and thus presumably truer to himself, Simon is still lying to Darius insisting that he's the one who "discovered" the writer, so I think the road ahead is still bumpy.

Whew.

All that said, it's still bloody heavy-handed, isn't it?

Hey Lance, can I be considered for inclusion on your waiting list of live-bloggers for this?

[Teaflax]

Natalie Cole? I haven't heard much of her before, but that was a terrible performance, wailing the song to death and managing to be sharply off-key during the last close-up. Seriously...how did she ever rise to stardom? Oh, right...

[Dan Coyle]

Maybe Jack Rudolph, Action Executive should join the Heroes team? He can solve problems with some deft speechifying!

[st]

Encapsulating moment for me: In the closing montage, Darius pushes what is presumably the new fruit of the loom script over to Simon, who looks at it for maybe a second and a half, and looks up, giving Darius the "yeah, now you're cooking!" smile and nod. It's lazy shorthand. It just clunks, like so much else on the show. I swear, I can't tell what Sorkin found so intriguing about this concept. There is literally nothing in this show that plays directly off the central premise (with the possible exception of the clock on Matt's wall that seems to exist for the sole purpose of looming in the background during pensive music-filled closeups). I'm not saying that the main idea was bad, I'm saying that Sorkin doesn't seem particularly interested in it. Life's too short.

[Ken Houghton]

I note for the record that my TiVo decided to skip Natalie Cole's appearance entirely, being smarter than I am.