Sarah Paulson, who plays the born-again and inexplicable audience-favorite Harriet Hayes, the too wholesome Beatrice to Matthew Perry's neurotic Benedick, on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, has taken a lot of flak here, from me and most of my commenters.
It's the general feeling that Paulson's too cool, too self-contained, and too "smart" for the character she plays---you can see the wheels turning behind her eyes, and Harriet's charm has to be that she is spontaneous, even impulsive, and just can't help letting her feelings show. If she's at all calculating, then her faith is just an excuse to scold her castmates and bully the writers and her romantic longing for Perry's Matt Albie comes across as manipulation. Both were the case in the first four episodes.
The report from our roving correspondents is that she was marginally less annoying on last week's episode and even managed to be almost as charming and winsome as her character's intended to be.
Part of Paulson's problem has been the way her character's been written. I'm not as big a fan of Aaron Sorkin's writing as a lot of people are, Sorkin himsef included. But I think he is definitely at his weakest when he is writing for women, a weakness he shares with just about every American male writer.
But, finally, I think she's just miscast. If Studio 60 was an opera, it would be as if Sorkin had given a soprano the alto's part. Harriet simply isn't in her range, and she doesn't seem to have any idea how to approach the part except to try to change the key.
What I'm saying is that Paulson is not a bad actress, so watching her play Harriet isn't embarrassing, just frustrating.
Watching Milena Govich as the new detective on Law and Order is embarrassing.
Govich is bad.
Really bad.
She has no control over her voice, she doesn't know what to do with her body, and she has one facial expression, which is half a scowl, half a smirk.
She's not just stiff in front of the camera. She seems terrified of it. You can almost hear her telling herself, Don't look at it, don't look at the camera, pretend it isn't there...OH NO! I looked! Turn away!
It's a rare actress who knows how to play a cop anyway. Kathryn Erbe, who plays Eames on Law and Order:Criminal Intent, has it nailed. She succeeds mostly by underplaying Eames' toughness and by handling Eames' wisecracks with the deadest of deadpans.
It's as if Eames long ago figured out that the way for her to get by in the boys' club is to call as little attention to herself as possible and focus her male colleagues' attention on the case at hand which also focuses them on her detective work.
Eames is something of a tom-boy, but Erbe's method for playing a tom-boy comes from her understanding the secret of tom-boys, which is that tom-boys are not boys stuck inside girl's bodies; they are girls whose natural exuberance and physicality can't be contained within the bounds of traditional girls' play. They don't dislike playing at tea parties. They just get impatinet sitting still that long. A tom-boy doesn't climb a tree to be like the boys. She climbs it because she wants to. She doesn't play a sport like a boy. She plays it as herself, as well as her talent allows.
Tom-boys are attractive to a lot of guys, but not because a tom-boy can be one of the guys. What's beautiful about them is that they are so much themselves, which because their selves are female, often makes them more feminine at the same time they are acting most "masculine."
Erbe doesn't make Eames one of the guys. She makes her a woman doing her job well.
Erbe also does such a good job of downplaying her looks that it's surprising and disconcerting when in an odd moment when she lets her guard down and smiles broadly or when an accidental camera angle reveals that she is in fact beautiful.
S. Epatha Merkerson's Lt Van Buren is another gem of understatement. Merkerson found the key to Van Buren in the fact that Van Buren's a longtime mother and wife and she infuses her with a motherly practicality---I'll kiss your boo-boo after we stop the bleeding and get a Band-aid on it---and a wife's resigned amusement at the ways grown men can act like little boys.
The rest of her cop persona is simply a steady professionalism.
Govich is making the mistake that most young actresses playing cops or soliders or any part that's usually a tough guy role make. She mimics a male actor playing a tough guy, forgetting that most male actors playing tough guys are mimicking Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry or Yul Brenner in The Magnificent Seven. Basing your perfromance on someone else's pale imitation of a caricature is almost never the best approach to a part. But it's definitely a bad idea to play a caricature in a show that's main virtue over the years has been its realism.
Govich doesn't understand this, but I doubt that even if she did she could play the character another way. To talk tough all she can do is bark, and to look tough she just barks louder.
On Studio 60, Sarah Paulson might very well get better and better because she's a good enough actress that she'll find a handle on the part and because Sorkin and his co-writers are smart and will start writing the part of Harriet so that Paulson can play to her strengths.
Ironically, on Law and Order, Govich might seem to get better as the writing and directing continue to get worse and the show descends to her level.
For years now, since even before Jerry Orbach left, Dick Wolf has been hiring writers and directors who don't seem to know what show they're working on.
More and more Law and Order is beginning to remind me of another NBC hit, and it is not one of the other Law and Order franchises.
It's ER.
To be continued.
Important reminder: Live blogging of Studio 60 Monday night at 9 PM EDT with special guest hostess, Shakespeare's Sister!
Sarah Paulson has an excellent role to her credit as Miss Isringhausen on "Deadwood"; I agree with you that it's the writing, not the actress. Step it up, Aaron!
Posted by: JD | Sunday, October 22, 2006 at 10:55 AM
Ooooooh, ER -- how far that show has fallen. I don't even watch it anymore. I watch CSI and tape Grey's Anatomy, which I then watch on tape at 10:00.
For some reason, I've never caught the L&O bug. I watch maybe two or three episodes of it a year and I'm good.
Posted by: Jaquandor | Sunday, October 22, 2006 at 12:31 PM
I submit Larry McMurtry as one male American writer who can write female characters.
One need look no further than Aurora Greenway and Emma (Greenway) Horton in Terms of Endearment.
Posted by: flem snopes | Sunday, October 22, 2006 at 06:05 PM
Paulson is a fine actress, its just that Harriet is way undercooked as a character. I lost track of the show around episode 4, and Harriet's Christianity seemed little more than an excuse for her to smugly lord it over the rest of the cast and crew. Her piety seemed sui generis, it lacked the nuance and history and anxiety that attends the faith of the non-insane fundie Christians I've met. Maybe if we saw Harriet really struggling with the tension between her faith and the various temptations of showbiz (sex, drugs, acclaim), maybe if her piety was reaction to a previous wild period in her life. Right now, she's just a set of position papers.
Posted by: Justin K. | Sunday, October 22, 2006 at 09:32 PM
Women on L&O have been a problem ever since the departure of Jill Hennessy and Carey Lowell. It's been downhill ever since. On the other hand, I think Mariska HArgittay and Kathryn Erbe are pretty good, especially compared to the replacement they got during their pregnancies!
Has anyone noticed how many Oz "graduates" tend to rotate on L&O?
Posted by: Frenchdoc | Sunday, October 22, 2006 at 10:47 PM
If you think the biggest problem with Studio 60 is a mismatch between the setting and Aaron Sorkin's writing style...what setting should he pick for his next series?
A few ideas:
1. The U.N.
2. The CPA/U.S. Embassy in Baghdad starting in 2003
3. The Shanghai office of a large American company
4. The Founding Fathers starting around 1774
???
Posted by: monkyboy | Monday, October 23, 2006 at 04:07 AM
Nice to see the praise for Kathryn Erbe. I think you nailed what's she's doing right and she's one of the best - man or woman - that the L&O franchise has featured.
Posted by: Kevin Wolf | Monday, October 23, 2006 at 07:32 AM
I completely agree with you with your assessment of Kathryn Erbe. I think she does a wonderful job. One thing that I hate in mystery dramas is that the writers always seem to want to put sexual tension between the male and female detectives. (Maybe I'm thinking more Mystery! on PBS...) What I like about CI is that there is an easy understanding between Goren and Eames and that they seem like natural partners. They know how to play against each other with the suspects without their egos getting involved.
As for ER, man does that show suck now. It just keeps getting more and more ridiculous as it seems to recycle plots.
Posted by: Claire | Monday, October 23, 2006 at 09:36 AM
I completely agree with you with your assessment of Kathryn Erbe. I think she does a wonderful job. One thing that I hate in mystery dramas is that the writers always seem to want to put sexual tension between the male and female detectives. (Maybe I'm thinking more Mystery! on PBS...) What I like about CI is that there is an easy understanding between Goren and Eames and that they seem like natural partners. They know how to play against each other with the suspects without their egos getting involved.
As for ER, man does that show suck now. It just keeps getting more and more ridiculous as it seems to recycle plots.
Posted by: Claire | Monday, October 23, 2006 at 09:36 AM
I miss L&O Trial by Jury. That show had two intelligent capable female leads, Bebe Neuwirth and Amy Carlson.
Posted by: Lesley | Monday, October 23, 2006 at 04:54 PM
something tells me that this season might be the original law and order's last. that something is the fact that it's on friday nights, which is where networks often send shows to die.
Posted by: harry near indy | Monday, October 23, 2006 at 06:09 PM
Erbe is great.
Now Govich. Interesting. I will say she has a killer bod. I kind of like the fact she looks stupid most of the time. Part of the character.
I was on the "L&O is dead" bandwagon, but I have to admit the last few shows have been interesting. Better than average. Maybe they can get one more year out of it.
Now Diane Neal..that's the sexy one. You know how crazy those innocent looking girls are in bed...
Posted by: charlie | Monday, October 23, 2006 at 07:20 PM
gee, thanks for that prolonged elaboration as to what a tom-boy be or not be...
actually, the chuckle aside, it's fairly apt in its definition, and well said, that... was just amused by your need to "explain" yourself when you say >gasp< "tom-boy"... !!
Posted by: barking up trees | Monday, October 23, 2006 at 08:19 PM
The problem with Harriet is that her character doesn't feel organic...Harriet seems to serve as a device that allows Sorkin to criticize Republicans and extreme evangelicals without drawing ire from Focus on the Family. Harriet is supposed to be the "good kind of Christian" that non-Christians can accept, but which Christians like and can identify with. It's contrived, imo, to keep Dobson's troops from inundating NBC with phone calls and letters.
I find that whole pre-show prayer circle to be pretty unbelievable, too. The Christian element in Studio 60 just strikes me as a way to keep everyone happy. I never saw West Wing...did they use similar devices to please both the right and the left?
L&O is on its last legs. I mean, it's on Friday night, for Christ's sake.
Posted by: logorrhea | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 11:28 AM
As a former tomboy, who's had some hard-won success getting heard in the boardroom boys-club, I love your analysis. I still can't sit still for long!
I watch L&O, the formula is very soothing for some reason; and I like your read on the actresses, too. Even more I like Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect. The show is very realistic in its scripts and what Mirren does with good material just makes it better.
Posted by: marianne19 | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 12:35 PM
But isn't Govich's addition to the L&O cast a net positive -- in that the viewers are no longer subjected to the oleaginous uncharm of Dennis Farina?
Although it doesn't help that she (like too many characters across the franchise, especially recently) hasn't really been given a role to play -- it's all too easy to picture the actress asking "Where does my character come from? What are her hopes, her dreams, her fears?" and the writers replying "She's hot."
Posted by: Eos | Sunday, October 29, 2006 at 12:58 AM