We interrupt live blogging of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip so that we may bring you a very special episode of Growing Pains

Although Wolcott hoped this might become an endearing holiday tradition, live blogging Studio 60 here might have been a Jewish holiday tradition.  I won't be live blogging it tonight and I'm not sure if I'll pick it up again next week.

For one thing, even if the show steadies itself and Aaron Sorkin finds his way and his sense of humor, I don't think Studio 60 will ever become the kind of show that bears intensive week in and week in attention, not like Deadwood or The Sopranos or, if Nancy Nall is to be believed---and Nance is always to be believed---The Wire.

For another, my impression is that, at least as far as the blog world goes, there's more passionate interest in Heroes and Prison Break and I'm just too late to those parties.

And for a third thing, I don't want this page to become all Studio 60 all the time.

Welcome to the Aaron Snarkin Blog!

But mainly the reason I'm skipping the live blogging this week is that when I finished last week I felt a little mean.

Not I might have hurt Aaron Sorkin's and Sarah Paulson's feelings nasty mean.

Small and petty and a bit cheap mean.

What do I think I'm doing, I asked myself, sitting here heckling somebody else's writing when I should be doing my own writing and heckling myself as I type?

Now, as it happens, one of the things wrong with Studio 60 is that criticizing it is for the most part a matter of heckling Aaron Sorkin's writing.  As I said somewhere in one of my umpteen Studio 60 posts,  Sorkin apparently thinks that people watch TV in order to listen to the writing.

Sorkin's characters talk beautifully but they do it too much.  He doesn't let silences carry meaning, and he doesn't leave spaces for actors and directors to fill.  He doesn't seem to care that TV is a visual medium.  Maybe he doesn't even know that it is.

It's been pointed out by several critics of Studio 60 that the kind of crappy television he has set up his characters in opposition to doesn't exist anymore or at least doesn't come close to dominating the landscape.  It's as if he stopped watching TV the year before All in the Family premiered.

Which would mean he missed the 80s, during which shows like Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, and St Elsewhere brought a more cinematic mode of storytelling to television.

Whatever.  He started as a playwright, he learned to tell his stories by having his characters talk them out, and he hasn't learned any new lessons for his adopted medium, which is only part of his weakness as a television writer.

Sorkin writes snappy dialogue.  But he doesn't write as much of it as you might think, if you listen to his shows with only half an ear.

His characters don't talk in their own voices.  They all talk in his voice.  And they don't talk about themselves.  They talk about what's happening around them.  Sorkin writes lots of exposition and divides it up among his characters to read at us.

He's like a novelist who puts all the narration inside quotation marks.

This makes Sorkin's shows---Sports Night, The West Wing, and Studio 60---easy to follow without watching.  You can just listen.

Which, as it turns out, has been what I've been doing too much of while live blogging.

I'm not that confident a touch typist.  I have to keep checking on what's going on down on the keyboard and the result is that I'm looking at the screen on my laptop as often as I'm looking at my TV screen.

I'm not missing any of Sorkn's dialogue, but I am missing what the actors are doing with each other while they are reciting Sorkin's dialogue.

Shakespeare's Sister, who is a big fan of Studio 60, tells me that one of the best things about the show is the friendship between Matthew Perry's character and Bradley Whitford's.

This week I want to see Perry and Whitford at work portraying that friendship.

So this week I'm just going to sit back and watch the show.

But if you've got things you just have to get off your chest as the show progresses, please feel free to put them in the comments section.

Treat it as a Studio 60 open thread.

Meantime, Scott Lemieux has hit on another aspect of Studio 60 that makes it, for Scott anyway, less than compelling.  Aaron Sorkin has been using it to write his autobiography.

And Claire Helene sent me the link to this review from the Chicago Reader that identifies Sorkin's very idiosyncratic nostalgia for a less than golden age of television.

Also, Dennis Perrin uses the first episode of NBC's other show about a Saturday Night Live-like comedy, 30 Rock, as a launching pad to all sorts of strange and wonderful planets.

Comments

[Nance]

"The Wire," not "Wired." And remember, Lance, YOU were the one who told me to read "Homicide: Life on the Street." Once again, it's ALL your fault.

[Lance]

Nance, Fixed it. I was reading the SNL oral history tonight, the parts about Belushi's death and how all his friends hated Woodward's book, Wired. So that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

C'mon, fess up, you're glad I did this to you.

[-k-]

Is it a good idea for the angry bald writer to be played by the same actor who played the angry bald political consultant? No, it is not. [I don't even know if he'll be on tonight's show, I've just seen the first 3 mins.]

SOMETHING FUNNY FINALLY HAPPENED - the window, the bat, the breakage.

Was that fred stoller doing the standup on the internet?

Why am I not posting this on my own blog?

How lazy am I?

[monkyboy]

Why feel bad criticizing a guy who made millions criticizing other people?

Studio60 sucks hard.

How many episodes did Cop Rock, Steven Bochco's "next big thing," last before it was put down for humanitarian reasons?

[Linkmeister]

"He doesn't let silences carry meaning"

Which is surprising, since he's in Hollywood, and one of the best practitioners of shutting up and letting the moment be savored is right down the road at Dodger Stadium.

[Shakespeare's Sister]

Shakespeare's Sister, who is a big fan of Studio 60, tells me that one of the best things about the show is the friendship between Matthew Perry's character and Bradley Whitford's.

Of course, one of the worst things about the show is the relationship between Matthew Perry's character and Sarah Paulson's. So last night's episode irritated me. "Get back to the stuff I care about!" said I, several times, to no avail.

[charlie]

well, I thought this episode was the best so far. Not saying much.

Two thoghts: One, it would be interesting to see to see how smart, interesting, sorkinesque characters manage, each week, to put out crappy comedy shows on Friday. How does the system grind out down? Not cheerful, and not funny, but insidery enough to make you interested. You would have to get rid of Amanda Peet and her "quality" things; I'd rather see her as more of a Tina Fey type, going for the laughs rather than promoting hardhitting comedy.

Two, I just discovered Sarah Paulson is a lesbian. Now, I'm not judging, but that explains a lot of my (lack of) reaction to her. I remember it was the same watching Jodi Foster in that Carl Sagan movie -- can you just move off the screen so I can see some of the cute girls?

Fire Peet's character, or make even more of a hypocrite. Get rid of Paulson. Bring a few more actal funny people on board, and you might save this.

[I am not Star Jones]

did anyone realize that the christine lahti character was a homage to aaron sorkin's former gf, maureen dowd?

http://theunemploymentcafe.blogspot.com/2006/10/studio-60-christine-lahti-does-better.html

[norbizness]

Cocaine's a hell of a drug.

[Justin K.]

There was something bugging me about this show, and the West Wing, that I wasn't able to put my finger on until last night, when, after all the belabored and unfunny do-goodery of breaking into the broadcast to properly attribute the stolen joke (isn't that the kind of thing you just address in a letter and payment to the comic the next day?), it turned out that the joke belonged to the show all along. After all the handwringing and earnest shouldering of responsibility it turned out the show was completely blameless.

It was like Amanda Peet's lame DUI, where she pulls over to ask the cop for directions and gets breathalized. Sorking never lets his characters sin, or be wrong. Even when they screw up, they're somehow in the right. He doesn't want you to love or hate or laugh at or emphasize with his characters, he wants you to admire them, and that gets old fast.

[Justin K]

And what was that whole Strindberg thing about? Tina Fey wouldn't hit us over the head with Strindberg.

[velvet goldmine]

Lance, I'm kinda glad about the liveblog moratorium. Not because I happen to disagree with you about the show, but because your gifts -- while they encompass the clever and the snark and you can do something like a live blog with one hand tied behind your back -- are better suited elsewhere.

Justin, about Jordan's arrest: I thought Danny pretty much slapped her down when she told that story. He said something to the effect that it wasn't fair for her to be taking other drivers' lives in her hands by deciding for herself what a suitable level of driving buzz is. I don't think Sorkin wants us to see her with a halo. (Although if we watch it while dipping into the 'shrooms, a halo or two are bound to crop up.)

Not Star: Maureen Dowd AND Kristen Chettawhatevah? Wow. I am having a really hard time getting a bead on his type.

[jillbryant]

"What do I think I'm doing, I asked myself, sitting here heckling somebody else's writing when I should be doing my own writing and heckling myself as I type?"

Thank you, Lance. It's always exciting to get insight into the life of a writer...

[Frank Weaver]

Having no live blogging is ok too. But why not incorporate somehow the fact a blog that connects to writing obviously has some good commentary whenever Studio60 is touched upon, thats ok too, or?

The whole "live blogging" phenomena has a similarity to when DVDs of old television shows started appearing with the bonus feature of director's or actor's commentaries. I've actually had more than one example, where this additional feature was basically allowing me to hear big gaps of silence, and then either some guffaw or "huh..." laughter, and occasional "oh that's funny... I forgot that scene", with finally some point like "oh I should say something shouldn't I" kind of insights.

Live Blogging is interesting because it's a writers format, you can't have gaps of silence really and then just...."oh thats funny". That means it's a good insurance policy for those who want some material to actually read/listen to.

[M. le D.]

Lance, you should check out Dexter on Showtime. Absolutely the greatest new show this season. Nicely creepy.