(S01E19) In the spirit of tonight's episode, I'd like to start my review with some dramatic irony. The following dialog took place between me and Aaron Sorkin in March of 2006:Aaron Sorkin: You know, I think that the brilliance of this show is going to be that I'll open it with the promise that it'll be about the creation of a network TV show, but by the 19th episode it'll be almost completely about the war. And also, religion!
Me: Aaron, I smell a hit. That's exactly what America wants.
Aaron Sorkin: You know what else I think? Paris Hilton will never go to jail, and Pluto will remain a planet forever. Now sit down. My good friends Michael Richards and Don Imus are coming over to discuss race relations.
Me: Good choices, AS! Those guys are as racially sensitive as anyone!
Aaaaaaaaand scene. Now, on with the review...
I think there's something particular to Studio 60 fans in that we really, really want the show to be good. Being a Studio 60 fan is a lot like dating a girl that's unpopular with your group of friends. Every time you go out with them, you feel the need afterwards to justify why you're still dating her. "No, no, you guys just don't get it! I know she keeps bringing up religion at inappropriate times, but she's such an intelligent conversationalist!"
I'm prefacing my review this week with that so you know that I really want the show to be good. I'm not a hater. I'm not watching each week twirling a mustache and cackling. Yes! Yes! That's right, Mr. Sorkin, make a left turn into a dramatically unsatisfying kidnapping of Tom Jeter's brother! Yes! Now flashback to 2001 for no reason whatsoever! Ah, yes! Now I get to go on TV Squad and write a bad review! And then, afterwards, maybe I'll eat some almonds... evilly!
That's not what I'm doing. I sit down every week hoping that the show will be good. I hope this for two reasons: 1) because I'm sticking out the remainder of the episodes to review it and I want to be entertained in that time, and 2) I've been reviewing on this site long enough to know there isn't a fanbase more rabid than Studio 60's. Each of your comments gets sent to me as an email and I have crushingly low self-esteem even by stand-up comic standards; 50 "get a clue <expletive>, I wish that someone would jam a <expletive> in your <expletive>" emails is not my idea of a fun Friday.
So that's why it's with a heavy heart that I must report my dislike of this episode. The second Harriet went down to pray in the opening sequence, I thought the show went off the rails. That, combined with the meaningless (and I mean absolutely meaningless!) flashback, the silly K & R conversation, and the crass Jordan pregnancy scare (more on this in a minute) and we were left with a pretty bad 60 minutes of television.
Let's get the bad over with first:
-- Harriet praying. I'm not a religious person, but every week I pray that Harriet and Matt don't talk about religion on the show. Is that irony?
-- The flashback. Sorkin can get pretty ham-handed with his "messages," but even I thought the "This war will be over with by dinner time" comments were being laid on a little thick. Why not just have a character hold up an iPod and say, "what the heck is this thing? An MP3 player? Yeah, right, like that'll ever catch on." Yeah, Aaron, we get it, the war has dragged on a lot longer than anyone ever expected. Remember when this was a show about a TV show? I thought the exploration of trying to be funny in the face of war and 9/11 was a particularly rich vein (remember Giuliani and the firefighters at the first new SNL after the attacks? "Can we be funny again?" "Why start now?"). Too bad this was ignored for... I don't even know what the flashback was trying to accomplish!
-- Jordan's pregnancy scare. Here's a question for you: when a show is struggling in the ratings and the show within said show is also struggling in the ratings and one of the characters very crassly suggests that the way to save the show within the show is to have someone on that show deal with a pregnancy crisis (as it's an easy way to manipulate the female audience) while those very characters are DEALING WITH A PREGNANCY CRISIS, how are we supposed to care for those characters? I mean, it's almost as if Sorkin is saying to us, "All right, jerks, you're not watching, so here's something that'll make the women weepy." I'd like to believe that it's just an ironic wink, but I really didn't feel that way tonight. I found the whole thing insulting.
-- Tom Jeter's brother. I'm sorry, I'm just not buying this. Like the flashback, there's an interesting story about the consequences of political satire ("Mohamed the Thin Skinned Prophet" and how a Muslim extremest group might deal with it) buried underneath about thirty layers of faux-drama. Instead we're treated to Tom Jeter asking angry questions.
-- "Pray with me. I'll show you how."
-- The lack or promos! NBC isn't showing them anymore. They promise "more Studio 60 after this" and then just show ads for other NBC shows (and to answer your question NBC: yes, age does matter. Now stop asking me!) Am I missing something or did you guys get the promos for next week cut too?
Now, all that being said, there was some good stuff tonight. Sorkin's too talented to turn in a complete clunker. A Sorkin misfire is like getting divorce papers served to you at your favorite restaurant. Sure it was a bad night, but at least the food was good!
So, the good:
-- No Simon! I like D.L. Hughley, but let's face it: there's nothing for him to do anymore. His disappearance was the first of the cost-cutting absences that actually improved the show.
-- The return of Cal! Yes, like a lot of you, I'm attending Timothy-Busfield-aholics anonymous. Mostly the meetings involve just watching Little Big League all day long as a reminder that the man is not infallible.
-- Danny proposing to Jordan. It was romantic and moving and funny all at the same time.
-- Danny ribbing the doctor. As a man with a wife who is eight months pregnant myself, I, too, want some Reed-Richards temple-white on my doctors. Something about a baby-face treating my baby-to-be irks me to no end.
-- The Ask.com commercial that aired during the first commercial break. I'm not sure if it was national, but back me up if you saw it... that commercial was saying, basically, if you want to find the freaky porn that you're into, come to Ask.com, right? If I'm not mistaken, that was the first pro-internet-pervert commercial in the history of network television! I kept expecting Chris Hanson to walk out and arrest the guy.
-- Jack. Last week he was in full-on stereotype mode, this week he's Mr. Sharp-Suited-Super-Shark-With-a-Soul. Not sure why the characterization keeps oscillating, but when Jack Rudolph is good, he's really good.
-- In keeping with that, the Matt and Danny and Jack conversation in the flashback was the only part of it that I liked. It seemed like an outtake of the show that I was promised by the pilot: smart, creative people trying to put together a TV show in the face of network needs, global crisis, and personal problems.
Question of the week: Do you find your continued devotion to Studio 60 to be something that your friends don't understand? 
I'm really sorry gang. I'd love to give the show a six or a seven and sit back and watch all the happy comments roll in, but I can't do it. I have to give tonights episode... 3 meaningless flashbacks out of 7.
Giveaways reminder: Office, Eli Stone, Supernatural, South Park
Giveaway Thursday: Tickets to the New York Television Festival ... all of it!
I miss the media-friendly John McCain - VIDEOS
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-08-2007 @ 2:13AM
Margaret said...
On the money. And you have got to be the most entertaining reviewer I've read at TV Squad so far.
There, that will counterbalance some of the hate mail for not loving this episode.
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6-08-2007 @ 2:17AM
mike m said...
I hate to say you're wrong, but you're wrong. Tonight was drama...full out drama. It was heartwarming, romantic at times, and felt like a show more people might have watched if it had been given an actual time slot. This week was good from beginning to end. Last week I was not happy, this week I am. It's just too bad the show is canceled because then there really would be something to tune in for.
All the war talk is fine by me. I'm a conservative republican from NY, but I felt the war stuff accurately portrayed how we all felt at 9/11. I didn't think Sorkin was being preachy, I thought Sorkin was being Sorkin. He does politics better than anyone I know. So of course a show about a network show is going to be all about politics. the only problem with that is we dont get more time with the romance of the show. It's obvious he's going to have Harriet and Matt together at the end. At least, it's a pretty safe bet considering his romance track record on...oh....EVERYTHING he's EVER done.
All in all, I give this week a 6 of 7. Even when it sucks, the show is a 4.5-5, and higher than most of the schlop on the tube on a weekly basis.
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6-08-2007 @ 2:17AM
BigTed said...
I liked this episode. Why? Because Sorkin's gone friggin' crazy. He just doesn't care anymore. He'll rub our faces in the fact that we're watching a show with lousy ratings about a show with lousy ratings, give us a health crisis straight out of every lousy nighttime drama ever made (with the addition of a sudden marriage proposal to make the "female demographic" happy), and throw in war commentary so ham-handed that it makes you forget this is virtually the only series bothering to do war commentary at all.
And then... after all that... he says, "You guys hate Matt and Harriet? You guys hate Matt and Harriet arguing about religion? Well here's EIGHT YEARS of Matt and Harriet arguing about religion -- and there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, that's right. Go ahead -- cancel me. Oh, that's right, you did already. Suckers!
More than ever, this show is a giant-size, metaphorical portrait of Aaron Sorkin's brain. And it may be dogmatic, sappy and infuriating at times, but it's still a pretty interesting thing to watch.
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6-08-2007 @ 2:20AM
mike m said...
Response to BigTed:
Your post was freakin' hilarious man. Just thought I'd let you know. I was literally laughing out loud.
peace.
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6-08-2007 @ 2:53AM
Bill said...
Disappointed nerds everywhere are wondering how an episode called K&R made not a single reference to Unix or C.
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6-08-2007 @ 3:17AM
Jeff N. said...
Big Ted that was a great comment you posted. Well written Blog Jay Black. It was an entertaining episode. Crazy,... But Entertaining.
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6-08-2007 @ 3:36AM
Matt said...
Leaving aside the entire problem that people read the pilot script and decided what the show should be and have never forgiven the show for their own misunderstandings of it...
...can we please at least look at a calendar? "K&R" is episode 19 of "Studio 60," and is only the third episode of this burn-off period. Episode 16, the last that aired in the regular season, aired in February - a day before Amanda Peet gave birth to her child.
In other words, every episode we've seen so far post-sweeps was written no later than January and filmed no later than mid-February, and probably in late January. Yes, "Studio 60" was not a ratings darling at the time, but there's this implication that things we're seeing now were created in response to NBC taking it off the air in February, and that just didn't happen.
Even with a full 22-episode season, all of the filming would have wrapped by mid-April at the latest. It's unlikely that anything that happened in the real world after early March is reflected in any of the scripts, and even those would be 3-4 episodes down the line.
I didn't get as good a look at this one as I wanted. There was a thunderstorm five miles southeast of buttcrack, so no one in Oklahoma was allowed to watch it in HD so the stations could impose weather maps of something outside their broadcast area. So I probably missed a few lines, but I'm pretty sure Danny told Jordan that network research shows that a pregnancy complication is the #1 audience motivator for women, not that the show-within-the-show should have a "pregnancy crisis."
But yeah, that line was a bit jarring. On the other hand, I really liked the Matt vs. Harriet montage near the end. Since this whole "Harriet's a Christian and Matt thinks she's crazy" thing started in the pilot with her appearing on the 700 Club, it added quite a bit for me to realize that these two have literally been having this same argument for eight years. They really love each other, but he can't accept her beliefs and she can't accept his, and they keep coming back to it.
If you've never known a couple like that, you've lived too insulated a life. It's kind of like watching a slow-motion car wreck with the outcome still undetermined. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it's not real.
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6-08-2007 @ 6:01AM
Bobby said...
I totally agree with Jay and BigTed. Also, I think Aaron had a drug relapse and forgot this was Studio 60, not West Wing. When the show is witty, it's one of the best written stuff on TV. When the show tries drama...not so much.
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6-08-2007 @ 6:18AM
Cindy said...
I bet your suprised with the feedback or your review.
I too, loved this episode. I was entertained all the way.
It was true drama and showed a real reaction to real
life that is taking place that most shows stear clear of entirely. Yes, some of the lines were "out there", but
Sorkin being who he is, that can be expected.
The proposal was my favorite. It was very romantic and the young doctor argument was great.
The only bad I comment on is that some of the flashbacks were hard to follow, but once you saw them it seemed to put some things in perspective that has happened on the show.
It may not be the best show on but I still wish it was not cancelled because it is still 70% better than most of the same old boring repetition that is out there.
On the comment of the commercial, You were right on.
It was a blatant pro-perv ad. I thought I must have misunderstood. Glad someone else caught that too.
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6-08-2007 @ 7:44AM
tozmervo said...
All I know is that I'm using Ask.com now
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6-08-2007 @ 9:07AM
Alicia said...
Jay... Love you man, but you were off the mark on this one. I enjoied this episode. I did. I loved the Matt and Harry Flashback. 8 years. To see it put htings a little more in prospective.
Anyway... Big Ted you had me rollin'. That was funny. And *squash* to the person who tried to crush it.
Oh yea... the Ask.com ad.... certainly pro-perv.
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6-08-2007 @ 9:09AM
Allison said...
Well, I can't say that Studio 60 is a brilliant show or an accurate portrayal of anything (TV business, politics, romance, whatever). But gosh darn it, I stay entertained the entire time. For some reason, I seem to care about what happens to Matt, Danny, Tom, Jordan, Cal & Jack (could do without Harriet). I lost a bunch of my favorite shows this year and I would have liked this one to stick around and see where it goes. Oh well.
I did like this episode even though it had little to do with TV. In fact, I enjoyed it much more than the Disaster Show episode which was all about TV. Maybe I'm a fan of the West Wing (politics) even though I've never seen it?
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6-08-2007 @ 9:13AM
WhizGidget said...
"2) I've been reviewing on this site long enough to know there isn't a fanbase more rabid than Studio 60's."
Yes there is - they're called Jericho fans and they sent thousands of pounds of nuts to CBS and got *their* favorite show back on the schedule.
So what can Studio 60 fans send to NBC to get this show back on the schedule besides petitions?
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6-08-2007 @ 9:57AM
Jim said...
NBC promos: this has been a complete fraud for some time. "Stay tuned for more Scrubs!!" There's NEVER more Scrubs. Or Earl, or whatever. How dumb do they think we are?
Little Big League: What did TB do wrong there? Charming little movie. And some of the most realistic "movie baseball" I've seen, to boot. Give it a break!
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6-08-2007 @ 10:02AM
courtney said...
Dreadul, boring stuff. I can't recall a couple lacking in chemistry as much as Matt and Harriet - if they had managed to come up with performers who had that spark needed to sell this depressingly dysfunction relationship, I probably could sit still through an episode, but these two just grate - make it end already with discussing all their past arguments.
The rest? Hamfisted all the way and totally lacking in wit and spark - to me anyway.
I will not watch the remaining episodes - just too dull.
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6-08-2007 @ 10:06AM
Lee said...
The thing that makes Studio 60 so good is the dialogue. I love the intelligent interaction between the characters. It is as good or better than any show on TV. That being said, the storylines tonight and recently have been disappointing. They're implausible and maudlin. And yet the characters and dialogue make it worth watching. I think that someone else needs to come up with the outline for the plots and let Sorkin put the words in the actors mouths. Then we'd have a show worth watching.
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6-08-2007 @ 10:08AM
David said...
The old Studio 60 was bad, this is horrible.
Whatever happened to the 70 million dollar FCC storyline with the Asian guy? That had something to do with TV.
Now it's just "This war is shit... blah blah...." Even the West Wing wasn't full of this much bullshit and I hate the war and religion.
The pregant storyline was added pretty much after the show failed anyways.
And I love the flashbacks. If it's now Mathrew Perry doesn't wear a hat, if it's 5-6 years ago he does, if it's 10-15 years ago he wears it backward. Now that's funny.
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6-08-2007 @ 10:54AM
Paul said...
Great review Jay... I couldn't agree more. While I understand what some of the people are saying about Sorkin, I think he could have done it in a better way, and made the episode a heck of a lot better. Doing things the way he did, it seems like it was him just giving up, and being an ass... not being creative about it.
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6-08-2007 @ 11:03AM
robert said...
thank god they canceled studio 60 so that we can make room for some quality programming on television like "age of love"
seriously... as bad as anyone may feel this episode was, try to keep in mind what our alternatives are.
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6-08-2007 @ 11:32AM
Colleen said...
I'll say it again, I miss Bob's reviews of Sorkin.
A 3, really?
Yes I thought Harry's falling to her knees to pray and the whole Mary has connections with the Trask people was a bit of a reach. The pregnancy scare didn't bother me. But maybe its because I have had two friends recently have complications.
I still think Studio 60 is far better than most of the crap we get on network tv.
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