Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

I still find it strange that 30 Rock was supposed to go down in flames and Studio 60 was going to ride on into the sunset, at least that's what was first predicted.

Oops.

I'm a huge Sorkin fan and keep meaning to Netflix these.

This show had a fantastic pilot. It then went on to be quite possibly the smuggest show of all time.

The pilot was entertaining to a point, but each episode just got worse and worse as it kissed it's own ass on a consistent basis.

I agree on the brilliance of the Pilot. Then it got bad really quick. But the final 6 episodes are terrific. And lets not forget the Christmas episode.

Mathew Perry really shined here. His rapport with Bradley Whitford and Timothy Bussfield (fuck spelling) was really good.

Problem was, the sketches were horrible. Except maybe Snake Eyes Cage's Talk Show.

What he said, basically this show falls into the category of "Good Actors, bad show" (Although do people think Amanda Peet is good? *Shrug*). The only thing I liked about it was the set and look of the studio. Otherwise this was a crappy show.

The show's strongest character was portrayed by Steven Webber. After reading things like being denied interviews with current SNL cast members and a tour to the SNL set, Sorkin was as qualified to make a drama about producing a comedy sketch show as Tina Fey would have been with a comedy about producing a dramatic, policialy charged show.

If the show had just been 'NBS,' 'The Network' or 'The Suits,' about Piet, Webber and Asner and their interaction with the different aspects of a network (News, Scripted Entertainment, Reality Shows, Sports) I think they would have had a hit on their hands. Studio 60 could have been one of many 'Fake' shows in the show.

It broke my heart.

The casting was spot-on. Perry, Whitford, and Steven Weber were all excellent in their roles.

The problem was Sorkin. Peet and Paulson's characters were terribly written, veering between shrill harpies and needy children. Also, it's hard to buy a show about sketch comedy that appears to have no knowledge of sketch comedy, or even the comedic landscape of the last 20 years. Example: the first sketch ever shown on the show was a Gilbert & Sullivan parody that ended with a wild ovation. If PBS had a sketch comedy show, it would have been Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

The first scene in the pilot was great. All downhill after that. I bailed out after the one with the musician from New Orleans. I should have bailed way sooner.

Also: "That's all well and good, son, but your little brother is STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF AFGHANISTAN!"

Never gets old.

Was that the episode when Nate Corddry's hillbilly dad (who had never heard of Abbott and Costello!) screamed, "YOUR BROTHER IS STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF AFGHANISTAN!" ? That was when the show finally made me laugh.

EDIT: Dammit, Rath!

The Afghanistan one was like the fourth or fifth episode. The New Orleans one was the Christmas Episode, which was actually one of the good ones.

The fact was either they should've had real "comedy" people doing the sketches or didn't do the sketches at all. That and every comedy writter said no one acts like the way they were depicted on Studio 60.

It never learned the lesson that 30 Rock learned very early on. Move away from the Sketch show and focus on the character interactions.

I think Studio 60 created one of the only desent Mad TV sketches I can think of: Studio 69 on Van Nuys Boulevard.

Also, that bit about Sorkin being denied a tour to the SNL set as a reason for the show sucking is bullshit. Any number of the books written about SNL over the years has half a dozen stories that would have made fantastic episode. The Andrew Dice Clay story, for example, is tailor made to Sorkin's poetic speechifying and walk-and-talks and famous actors playing fake versions of real people. Compared to something like Sports Night (which is rumored to get a special 10th anniversary DVD later this year), this is such, such a disappointment.

Gah. Now I'm upset about it again. I will probably buy this, because I'm a Sorkin completist and a masochist, but I haven't made it past the episode where Whitford stalks Peet over Christmas break.

Especially the stories from Live from New York, if the story of Billy Murray wanting to kick Chevy Chase's ass doesn't get the creative juices flowing. Nothing will.

Watch the final 5, those were good. Specially the final 3. Webber was on fire.

They really missed the boat on the sketches but that was only a small part of it and it really boils down to the fact that it was preachy when we wanted more laughs, you can't promo Mathew Perry's return to NBC and not make him funny for fucks sake.

If they had done more of a "Noises Off" style approach to the SNL type show I think it would have worked a lot better. Much like the scene where the stage hands spiked Harriet's drink while she was on live television. The episode where they lost a snake and had to bring in a ferrett and then a wolf or whatever it was, that was fantastic.

Webber became the ONLY reason to watch this show. It went down hill so fast it's not even funny.

Yeah, it pretty much went down the shitter after the first episode. A part of me kinda wishes it went on just to see where this thing would be after two full seasons.

Weber was great, but the Whitfield/Peet love story was always creepy.

To be fair, good Sir, it was miles away better than the Perry/Paulson one. Although Perry himself was beyond solid imo.

Nonetheless, yeah I was a fan of the show despite its many flaws.

Ah yes, the born-again christian comedy actress. Wow, that was some compelling television eh?

Didn't this set NBC back $6 million per episode? I would've taken one look at some of the scripts and said, "No fucking way, Aaron."

Not quite that much. I believe from what Kevin Reilly was saying at the time that the show was breaking even with advertising, it was more like 4m an ep.

I tried to defend this show when it started and there's still some things I really like about it but I'm just going to echo what I've said in the main thread when it was on.

The show's biggest problem is Sorkin.

First off he used the show instead of going to his shrink (According to Kristen Chenowith, some off the Matt/Harriet arguements were verbatim the ones her and Sorkin themselves had). It derailed the show so much that you'd be hard pressed to find a viewer of the show who actually liked harriet as a character.

Same thing goes for Peet. I actually found her fine on the show, never had a problem with her. But again Sorkin just wastes her and then has her become part of some weird stalking relationship with Danny.

His other flaw is not being able to write an unlikeable character. Look at Weber at the start of the show and then at the end. He de-claws him. It's been said again and again but just reading 'Live on Saturday Night' would've given Sorkin a few years of material to work with. Take the episode with the Jack Black-type guy. He gets a chance to lead the show and pussies out of it because he's just not as talented as 'The Big 3' are. Bullshit! Those other bit players should be fighting for their parts. Not basking in the awe of the great ones.

The only thing I ever really felt held the show together was Perry. Even with some of the shit Sorkin gave him (Imaginary-writer-that-was-really-Matt episode), Perry always acted like he was in a better show. I'd say the only time he really falters is in the Pilot episode. I hope he works with Sorkin again in the future but on something that's actually worthwhile.

It became a science fiction show.

- No one could write a 90 minute sketch comedy show every week.
- All those cast members wouldn't be such good friends. They are all trying to make it big, where the fuck was the competitiveness? Like it was mentioned earlier, the young guy Jack Black-type wouldn't have passed on a chance to read News 60.

Those two factors made me want to smack the shit out of Sorkin, and I'm a monstrous fan of his. Its as if he didn't even comprehend how a sketch show worked.

I stuck with this show for as long as I could, but that one's when they lost me completely.

I think one thread was enough for this piece of shit show.

The only good thing about this show is it made me appreciate Steven Weber more.

I lasted until the John-Goodman-is-a-judge-in-a-small-Nevada-town episode. Like the real SNL, I kept returning, hoping against hope and making a ritual out of disappointment, until I forgot.

The reviews of Charlie Wilson's War were good. I hope Sorkin finds his feet again.

I said that a page ago. With that, I hope to retire as an Internet douche. Probably won't happen, though. Sorry.

Sorkin has four 'Best Drama' emmys, two masterpieces and more awards and accolades to his name than most other writers working today combined. I'd love to see you try and say that.

As a network exec, $6 mil. per? We'd have to be talking Shakespeare-level scripts, handed to me by $pielberg. There's zero way I'm not gonna call for more fiscal responsibility and take it down to $4 mil., at least. "Ah, so it's behind the scenes of a sketch show with Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry? And nothing explodes? Where the fuck is the money going?"

There's also the argument that none of the "show within a show" cast-members are fucking remotely funny. And yet, you constantly hear dialouge like, "God I wish I had your comedic talent" and/or "This is some of the best material they've done in years" (i.e. Pimp my Trike).

My guess is Sorkin's drug habit and that set. Otherwise, I've got nothing.

I had no problem ignoring the fact that most of the sketches they bothered to show weren't all that funny. Overall, I loved this show and I hated that it was cancelled.

why is this still a debate? The show was terrible, I thought most everyone was in agreement on this?

They're apologists and people who really haven't seen the show. *shrug*

Oh as far as I'm aware most of the money went on building sets for the show. I also remember when the show was on hiatus and Sorkin was moaning because they wouldn't give him extra funding so they could shoot on location as well. This was also the same interview where he said that the show has been a romantic comedy all along and the Matt/Harriet relationship is going to be more prominent.

Right there is when I knew that Sorkin had fucked us all.

Sorkin had NBC's balls in a vise. They wanted him and they wanted him bad. It's the only way the thing got more than a third of a season.

Was revisiting the series recently and stuck out wasn't so much that the sketches were bad. But how horribly out of date they were and then to hear characters say it was "the cutting edge of comedy" with a straight face. Meet the Press with Juliette Lewis, The Nicholas Cage Show, Holly Hunter jokes? If only it was 1996 and not 2006.

Also loved how they tried to set up the two writers that Perry and Whitford hated as douchbag hacks when they actually came off as sympathetic, decent and actually looked like they wrote comedy.