TVSquad

Matthew Perry spent ten seasons on Friends and a rough season on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but it looks like he isn't sick of television.

Perry has signed to star in a new comedy titled The End of Steve. Perry will play a radio talk show host in Rochester, NY who likes to swear a lot. In fact, the first word you hear Perry's character say on the show is a certain word that women don't like to hear. It begins with a C and rhymes with something a baseball batter does, especially if there is a runner on first with no outs.

The show is from Peter Tolan (Rescue Me, The Larry Sanders Show, Home Improvement), and while there is no network announced for the show, I think we can assume it's going to be HBO or Showtime (unless it airs on FX or AMC and they bleep the swears, but that would blunt the edginess of the words).

[via Google News]

I almost didn't want to review this DVD set. Did I really want to go back into those murky waters again and bring up all those old disagreements? But here we go...

Actually, the DVD set for Studio 60 is much like the TV series itself. It starts out brilliantly and then as it goes on it starts to get worse and worse. But then it ends nicely!

Packaging

Pretty standard packaging, just a regular box containing three plastic holders housing two DVDs each. The artwork on each plastic holder is fairly interesting. Instead of a large pic on the front and the info on the inside, all the episode info is on the front and back of each individual holder, including pics from episodes and promotional pics.

What can I say about Friends that hasn't already been said? You either like the show or you don't. I think a lot of people look at the show as "just another sitcom" about friends who hang out somewhere, one that was overhyped and one where the stars where overpaid. The hype I can't argue with and the pay, well, more power to them if they could get it. But I also happen to think that for a while there, several seasons in the middle of the show's 10 year run, it was one of the best sitcoms of all-time. It was remarkably well-written, clever, and at the same time had at its core a really big heart that all the copycats that followed couldn't recreate.

But what about this DVD set? Should you go out and buy the complete set?

Just in time for tomorrow's series finale on NBC at 10pm comes this announcement from Warner Home Video that they will release Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - The Complete Series on October 16.

The set will not only include all 22 episodes from it's first and only season, but there will be a new behind the scenes featurette and episode commentaries by creator Aaron Sorkin and director Thomas Schlamme (hopefully cast members will join in too).

Ah, the 1990's! Not quite as good as the 1980's but still an okay decade. I mean, it brought us Generation X, the Grunge movement (which basically involved dressing in flannel and not showering), Boy Bands and, courtesy of Bill Gates and Microsoft -- Windows 95. You remember Windows 95, don't you? It combined Windows and DOS into one comprehensive operating system, gave us our first look at Internet Explorer, and provided us with a chance to hop on to the information superhighway.

You knew I'd be the one to tell you this news, right?

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip returns to the NBC schedule on May 24, presumably to just run the rest of the episodes they have filmed. Hopefully they knew they were ending early while filming so they can end the show in a good way.

By the way, May 24 is a Thursday. The show will air at 10pm in the slot currently occupied by ER. I wonder what would have happened to the show if it had originally been in this slot, or maybe an hour earlier. Oh well. I guess the best way to think of it now is as a long miniseries, one that will have around 22 episodes and a conclusion.

...of course, the second part of that headline should probably be "...but it probably won't be renewed."

There have been rumors going around that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip had stopped production, but that's not the case. In fact, they just finished filming episode 19 earlier this week, and filming of episode 20 started earlier today. So it looks like they'll film the full 22 for the season, but after that...well, they'll probably burn off the episodes during the summer and the show will not see a second season. That's Ray Richmond's take on it, and I agree with him.

Which is really too bad, because...well, for all the reasons I've mentioned several times here at the site before. And it's too bad that NBC abandoned the show, even though other shows that have premiered since Studio 60 was put on hiatus haven't done any better in the ratings. It would have been really nice to see what the show could have done in another time slot, another night. But I guess we'll have to be happy with a one season DVD set, hopefully with extras.

[via TV Tattle]

I almost didn't write this, because I'm really just inviting every person who hates me or hates Studio 60 (or the many people who seem to have a part-time job hating me and Studio 60) to just jump into the comments section and tell me why the show was bad and why I'm a terrible, terrible human being for even liking it. But then I decided, what the hell. In fact, let me help you with your comments. Cut and paste as you desire:

1. No one cares about what's going on behind the scenes of a late night comedy show
2. Sarah Paulson isn't funny.
3. The show isn't funny.
4. Sorkin is too preachy!
5. There's no chemistry between Paulson and Perry, and they focus on the Matt/Harriet plot too much.
6. Amanda Peet isn't believable/too young/too pretty to be a network exec.
7. You suck Sassone!

The previews hammered it home a thousand times this past week: this episode of Studio 60 would be the one that "America will be talking about." So I have to ask America: are you talking about it this morning?

I don't bring this up to dig into the episode specifically (though the two-part "Harriet Dinner" episode was certainly the worst so far). I like the show. I bring it up to point out that network promos these days are overdone, overhyped, misleading and/or confusing. They usually don't make sense or are disappointing when it comes to everything from ER to Lost, but this one was truly odd. Why would America be talking about this episode when America hasn't really been talking about the show so far? The moment they were talking about, I assume it was the kiss between Danny and Jordan? OK, nice moment, and the second part of this ep was better than the first by a longshot, but I hardly think it's something that we're talking about in any major way. Danny and Jordan aren't Sam and Diane yet, or Dave and Maddie.

Maybe they meant Ugly Betty star America Ferrera?