The Fate of Studio 60

     Will there be a “no show within a show?” That is the 2.5 million dollar question. Well, at least that is a ballpark figure of what each episode cost to produce.

     Actually, I don’t think NBC should be considering if S60 should come back. They should be more concerned about how they could make it a different and better show. But I highly doubt that would be the case.

     For one thing, NBC is giving 30 Rock (another “show within a show”) higher bids. And it’s not because they are soaring higher in the ratings than S60. It might be that 30 Rock is cheaper to produce and the show is owned by NBC (S60 is owned by Warner). Please view the link below for a more thorough comparison:

http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/04/05/heres-why-30-rock-was-renewed-and-studio-60-wont-be/

     The other night I was engaged in a S60 discussion with several friends. We were construing our own possibilities for S60’s fate. I suggested that Sorkin take it to HBO or Showtime. It might not be a bad idea to add a different element to the show: the not suitable for TV, but perfect for HBO.

     One of my girlfriends loved the idea of seeing Bradley Whitford naked. I don’t know about that, but sex and the F word definitely helped the success of shows like Sex in the City and Sopranos. It might be interesting to see television execs cussing out the lawyers, board members and other executives (we know it happens).

     Another consideration is to put the “show within a show” back into the show. The episodes, Nevada Day: Part 1 and 2, are a great illustration of this concept. John Goodman has a guest role in these episodes. He plays a right-wing Christian judge, who is mightily upset about the show’s sketch “Crazy Christian.”

     These episodes expose many interesting dynamics “within and behind” a show like S60, which resembles a show like SNL. We find out what happens when celebrities’ words are misconstrued like Harriet’s. She was cited in an interview that she is anti-homosexuality, yet she feels her statements were misrepresented. Harriet and Tom are out having dinner when a couple of gay boys approach Harriet and become confrontational. Tom defends Harriet and ends up in jail in Nevada.

     The judge in Nevada has a personnel vendetta with S60 and decides to show no mercy, since they have offended the entire Christian population. This was a great display of Hollywood’s “inner drama.” I loved the play out of this episode: an angry Christian judge, a devout Christian actress on a liberal comedy sketch show, an agnostic boss who is in love with the Christina actress, the high-powered executive that believes money can buy everything.

     S60 had its great episodes and its bad ones, but doesn’t every show go through that? I still believe that S60 has possibilities for a comeback. They just need to figure out what to comeback as.

     My friend Jason suggested the best possible scenario for S60. He proposes that NBS network gets into serious financial trouble and is sold to Mr. Macau, the Japanese businessman. Mr. Macau fires everyone on the board and has Jack Rudolph run the network. Mr. Macau becomes enamored with Jordan and has Jack replaced by her. That could be interesting.

     My “anti-Sorkin” friend, Elizabeth recommends that Sorkin sell the show and relinquish all writing rights. Elizabeth thinks S60’s success can only come without Sorkin. I think  Sorkin just needs to learn to be a team player.

     I am hoping that S60 will find a new place. I loved the show and the writing. My favorite dialogue was when Jordan said, “My hormones are like a Los Alamos experiment.” And my favorite episode was the “Christmas Show.” Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI2LdpW7g5U

So what was you favorite S60 episode? And do you think they should come back? If so what would you do different?

Matt and Danny: The Chemistry that Works

I remember the buzz about Studio 60. I have a group of friends that get together for “martini & margarita” dinners (I know a screwy cocktail combination). But the month before Studio 60 was to debut, our dinner table was buzzing over Sorkin’s new show.

“Wow Sorkin’s doing another show?”   “Do you think the cast will be as brilliant as West Wing?”   “It’s got to be. It has Matthew Perry!”

Those were just a few comments flowing around the table, along with the margarita pitcher. Interestingly, among the eight of us, half liked Sorkin’s work the other half thinks Sorkin sucks. 

Either way, Sorkin is known to create character-driven shows. And like any program, the chemistry is in the writing and among the characters that deliver the dialogue.

The ensemble of Studio 60 was sure to be a good combination: Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, D.L. Hughley, Steven Weber, Sarah Paulson, Timothy Busfield and Nathan Corddry…  so where did the show go wrong?

My amateur analysis is that the connection of the characters got lost in the writing. Recently, I had a chat with one of the Cinema-Television  professors and he mentioned that Studio 60 was becoming a typical Sorkin series. He explained that Sorkin puts too much of himself in his writing: his impassioned political and social views.

Interestingly, Sorkin has mentioned in interviews that the relationship with Matt and Harriet was derived from a personal relationship he had with Kristin Chenowith, who played a media consultant on the West Wing. Chenowith did say to a reporter for “The New York Dog Magazine” that Sorkin used ‘pretty much verbatim’ dialogue from arguments they had during their relationship.

It’s not uncommon for a show to have a couple come so close to getting together and then BAM… something was bound to happen, right? There’s this rift that bust them apart and then for the remainder of the season we watch this dance… they come close and drift apart. Doesn’t it seem like every show has that (Friends, Will and Grace, Scrubs, Ed the list can go on)?

This is another signature of Sorkin’s writing; he titillates the viewers with this “I want you, but I don’t want you” tortured love. In the West Wing, Josh (Bradley Whitford) had this with Donna and it worked. However, in Studio 60, Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) and Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson) are lacking some type of spark or flame.

One of my margarita buddies thinks the problem is that Matt seems more like Harriet’s brother than lover. I find Matt’s affections to be sincere and unquestionable. Yet what doesn’t seem believable is the relationship between Harriet and Matt.

I would speculate that Matt and Harriet’s history should have been experienced and not suggested as Sorkin did at the beginning of the show. The only knowledge we had that there was more to Harriet and Matt’s relationship is when Matt walks in to Harriet’s dressing room and announces he has just become her boss. “Oh and by the way, this thing we had, we have to put it behind us,” says Matt. I feel like Sorkin robbed us from developing an emotional connection towards their relationship.

Of course, there has to be another love tryst and it’s with the other boss, Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) and the newly appointed network president, Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet). My speculation on Matt and Harriet’s relationship was derived from watching the budding affection unfold between Danny and Jordan. Initially, I found the love connection to be interesting. But then for some reason, it became tiring.

However, there was one particular episode between Danny and Jordan that I found incredibly amusing. Jordan was preparing for motherhood and had this computerized baby. She makes a bet with Danny that he wouldn’t be able to handle the baby. Danny ends up giving the baby to Simon Stiles (D.L. Hughley) and Tom Jeter (Nathan Corddry). They end up chopping the baby’s head off!

Interestingly, the relationships that clicked were the ones among the men of the show. Simon and Tom were great when they bantered against each other. There’s that episode when Tom gets arrested in Nevada and has Simon’s jacket on. He had no idea that inside Simon’s jacket was some marijuana.

The chemistry that did work the best was Matt and Josh. Matt and Danny had this engaging type of connection (maybe they should have been the romantic couple!). They were constantly feeding off of each other.  This was evident in the episode when Matt had writer’s block. Danny starts harassing him in a jokingly way and he begins to develop his story ideas.

This was an amazing scene. If this “show within a show” unfolded the way this particular scene did then maybe it could have had a better chance.

Sadly, we don’t know what is going on with Studio 60. NBC has yet to give a concrete “no” we’re not bringing it back, or an affirmative “yes” we’re thinking about other ways to do this show. However, the obvious “no” is that the chemistry between Matt and Harriet is not working, and the noticeable “yes” is that the real chemistry with Danny and Matt is.

What happened to Studio 60?

Canceling Studio 60 was probably a great idea but I didn’t support it. The show itself wasn’t that great but for some reason I loved it. I think one reason behind that was the casting. Aaron Sorkin wrote an ok show but whoever was in charge of casting it did a fabulous job. Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Bradley Whitford, D.L. Hughley, Steven Webber, Timothy Busfield and Sarah Paulson are all great actors cast in a mediocre show, which is disappointing because with a cast this good the show could have been great. This brings me to another disappointment, Aaron Sorkin. This guy is a great writer so why crap out now? He had such great success with The West Wing and A Few Good Men, even Sports Night was good but under appreciated, so why half ass the next one? I had high hopes for this show especially after the pilot, which i thought was GREAT. It did everything that a good pilot needs to do: gave the audience something to look forward to, had relatable drama (the Matt and Harriet relationship) and outlandish drama (Danny’s cocaine problem and the firing of the executive producer), a killer opening monologue and a great conclusion that left you anxiously awaiting the previews for the next week. The show’s momentum fluctuated until the last 2 episodes, when Matt started popping pills and having made up flash backs, when it crashed and burned. Sorkin also completely blew the Danny Jordan relationship. The idea was great but the execution sucked. At first he made Danny look like a psycho stalker, and then when he stopped that and started being kind of cute and funny (like having big name directors and actors send Jordan a recommendation letter for him) Jordan was unnecessarily mean to him. After a way too long courtship Jordan gave in and the two were happy for…like a minute. By the next episode Jordan was being annoying and Danny was rolling his eyes, which indicated an a soon to be break up. The same goes for the Harriet and Matt relationship. As soon as you thought that maybe they were on the road to recovery they fell apart, and over something SO STUPID. This constant back and forth in such a short amount of time made it almost seem like Sorkin couldn’t decide where he wanted this show to go. In the middle of the season the show went on a break, which in cases like Heros, can be a good thing, but in this case it did not help. The show pre-break was great (it even got a Golden Globe Nomination) but post-break it tanked. The first half was completely different than the second half. All of the drama that was great during the first half morphed into this stupid string of obnoxious and exhausting melodramas. I was really looking forward to the Monday night line up of Heros and Studio 60 but I think NBC got it right when they axed the Sunset Strip in favor of The Black Donnelly’s. I just hope that Paul Haggis will prove to be more successful than Sorkin so that I don’t have to have to write about three different shows for every blog.

The Man Within a Show: Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin is a god to me. I worship and adore the man, which would probably earn me a descent amount of grief from someone like Harriet Hayes. And yet, it is the complex neurosis of her and her cast mate’s personas that make Sorkin’s shows work.

Sorkin is either loved or hated in the wide world of televison; however, no one can deny the man is a genius, especially when it comes to creating great shows with controversial storylines. There is no doubt Sorkin is a gifted writer. Yet, his greatest gift is the ability to create complex characters and have their lives intertwine in a unique and unassuming way.

In his recent show Studio 60, Sorkin took the idea of creating “a show within a show,” which has become a trendy concept in the entertainment community. Actually, isn’t this the premise of most popular reality shows? In the highly-rated show, American Idol, the audience finds a great deal of entertainment going behind the scenes and watching the wannabe idols compete to become the one and only idol.

The idea of watching “a show within a show” unfolding was not an immediate appeal for many critics. Today most of those same critics believe that is the underline basis for Studio 60’s lost of luster. This could be a valid assumption; however, I don’t believe it is the correct one.

Before I began to type out my blog, I decided to do some background research and refresh my memory. I came across a site that had a link for a “YouTube” promo of Studio 60.

 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl0isLMhhkY) 

 The promo clearly reveals what went wrong with Studio 60 and it was not the critical notion of creating “a show within a show.” After watching the promo (which I highly encourage you to do), it is quite obvious that the show’s luster of drama and power was slowly dwindling.

The greatest moments of Studio 60 was when the “show was within a show.” In one particular episode, a sketch called Crazy Christians produces a furor of controversy. The beautiful irony of this episode and sketch is that in the fictitious world of Studio 60; a group of right-wing networks refuse to air the episode. Ah, art imitates life! In the real world, a group of right-wing networks protested and threatened to not air the episode as well. These realistic moments are what make great drama and create an entertaining effect, which are the very elements Sorkin uses to write and create amazing shows.

Studio 60 was set up to resemble a show and a cast like SNL (Saturday Night Live). The show delved into the backstage lives of the characters and the makings of a live show. Many critics opposed this concept. They thought that viewers would not find the private lives of the characters interesting; ironically, the public is constantly consumed with the private lives and matters of celebrities. Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan have proved this to be true.

I was recently at a dinner party and one of the topics of conversation was over the “bed bug” dilemma that Maya Rudolph (from SNL) and her husband were encountering in New York. According to my source, she is suing her landlord. Quickly, the conversation shifted to other female actresses from SNL. - - empirical evidence proves, the public is entertained by the private lives of actors/actresses.

 Sorkin has an incredible ability to engage an audience with neurotic, yet simple characters. It is in the complexities of his characters and their lives that we are drawn and then hooked. He superbly did this with the West Wing. And I was “hook-line and sinkered” at the beginning of Studio 60.