The Studio 60 "Wake" Post.
Jul. 3rd, 2007 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caz963I said a while back that I was going to write some stuff down about Studio 60 and have a virtual wake.
Well, here it is. Pick your bevvy of choice and jump in anytime.
For a while now, I’ve been wanting to try to get my head around a number of issues to do with the show, the content, what happened to it, etc. and write them down, and I thought that now was as good a time as any to try to do that.
This is just a collection of random thoughts really, although I’ve tried to organise them a bit. There are bits and pieces here that I’ve talked about with friends - so forgive me if you’ve heard it before!
Please do jump in with comments and observations of your own - even if you weren't a fan. I always enjoy a good discussion, and long, rambling comments are more than welcome.
Brad fangirling is also welcome, but not obligatory! (I can't believe I said that...)
I know there are people on my f-list who aren’t S60 fans – and I want to thank them – because although they didn’t enjoy the show, they nevertheless recognised that I did, and we were still able to talk about it in a civilised and polite manner – two things which were sadly lacking on many of the fora and message boards in the rest of the so-called fandom – so thank you for that and for not saying “I told you so.” (Not that any of you would have, but you know what I mean).
All this is just my opinion. I’m not an insider, I’m not “in the know”, I’m just stringing stuff together based on things I’ve read, heard and talked about with friends, so please don’t take any of this as gospel, okay?
Okay. So - What went wrong?
Lots of things I suppose. I can’t help but wonder if NBC really knew what they were getting when they bought Studio 60. And I got the feeling at times that Sorkin wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do with it.
I don’t know a great deal about NBC other than that it’s one of the major US TV networks, and that it’s been struggling in recent years, having lost a lot of its audience and that it’s now the fourth-ranked network.
I also know that they clearly couldn’t promote a TV show if their lives depended on it. I mean, seriously… who the hell came up with the straplines for those trailers? The stars are about to collide?? WTF? Not only was there only one real TV star in amongst the lot of them (because much as I love and adore Brad, I’m the first to admit that he’s not a household name in the way Matt Perry is) but WHAT THE HELL DID THAT MEAN??
So... NBC is struggling and decides to pay a small fortune to secure the latest TV show from Aaron Sorkin, widely regarded as one of the best writers for the medium. The West Wing had been a hit for them, so maybe he can provide them with another (badly needed) one.
Did anyone at NBC actually read the Pilot script? In the first five minutes we get that fantastic diatribe about the current state of television and how we’re all being lobotomised by cheap, crap reality shows. Exhibit A – new NBC supremo Ben Silverman’s recent comments about people wanting undemanding entertainment when they get home at the end of a long day at the office. Yeah. The 'Boobs' show will be that alright.
Looks like Jordan’s “dual masturbation show” can't be far away, now.
So NBC backs up the Brinks truck to secure the show, at the same time putting a clause in Sorkin’s contract that he has to be working several shows in advance. Not something he's well known for doing, and I can't help but wonder if that was a problem for him, a well-known "seat of the pants" type.
They get in a big television name – Matt Perry – bring in (eventually) one of the best actors on television – Bradley Whitford – the two of whom have chemistry that goes off the scale. They also strike gold with Nate Corddry, Steven Weber, Mark McKinney and Lucy Davis among others – but badly miscast (IMO) one of the female leads.
Word gets around quickly, the Pilot script is all over the internet, and the hype machine starts. You can’t buy this sort of publicity – and even if you could, NBC probably couldn’t have afforded it given what it probably cost them to secure the show in the first place!
The trouble with hype though, is that you can’t really control it. And also, that nothing, no matter HOW GOOD IT IS can EVER live up to those expectations.
Sorkin suffered two-fold on this one. The heights he reached in West Wing, the second season in particular, and most of it in general - raised the bar impossibly high. I’d defy anybody to have cleared it. So he’s a victim of his own success AND of all the hype that started immediately his ‘return to television’ was announced.
Nowhere – so far as I know – did Sorkin OR NBC say that he was going to save TV single-handedly from the state it’s gotten into – but that idea started to get around the media, and once something like that starts, well, it got mentioned a lot, didn’t it? The inevitable backlash started- before the show even went on the air.
Although the critical reaction to the Pilot was generally good, the knives really came out after the second and third episodes aired. But they weren’t all that bad, surely? I mean the Pilot for West Wing is still the best pilot I’ve ever seen, but Post Hoc… and A Proportional Response? Mr Willis of Ohio? They were okay – and still better than practically everything else on TV, but they weren’t In Excelsis Deo or Celestial Navigation. And while Season 2 of WW remains possibly the best twenty-two hours (well, lots of 42 minutes) of television produced in recent years, Sorkin had to write Season 1 first!
You’ve gotta love the meeja. Their favourite sport is putting someone up on a pedestal and saying they’re the best thing since sliced bread, and then turning on them like a pack of wolves. And don’t get me started on the ‘fandom’. I stopped going over to TWoP waaaay back before all this started, but I had friends who visited occasionally and who were stunned by the sheer amount of hatred and vitriol that was being heaped on Sorkin and their utter loathing for the show. And I – as I’m sure you did – kept asking myself why they were wasting their time watching a show they didn’t like?! I certainly don’t have the time to do that – but I guess Sorkin-bashing had become a sport for some of them – who will now undoubtedly be amongst the first to complain that there are not enough intelligent, well written shows on TV. Go figure.
I said before that you can’t control hype – and you can’t. But what the NBC PR department should have done, is to have cultivated a few influential journalists etc, who could have gone out there with more balanced opinions when the backlash really got going. Of course, NBC themselves weren’t going to say anything – that sort of thing always backfires – but it was obvious fairly on in the season that they weren’t showing it much support. Okay, so they picked up the back nine and ordered a full season, but I’m sure we all wondered if that had more to do with the cost of their not picking it up rather than any faith they had in the show.
The fact that they then started to refer to the show as a ‘romantic comedy’ made me wonder if anyone at NBC was actually, you know, watching it.
So yes, the “change of direction to focus on the romantic relationships”. Whose idea was that then? I guess we’ll never know whether it was something Sorkin wanted to do, or if it was something he was told to do by the network, in the same way as we’ll never know whether it was completely his decision to write in Amanda Peet’s pregnancy or not. And I’m sorry, but seeing as I’ve brought her up (again) I have to say that I blame her for some of this (!) If memory serves, her pregnancy was announced shortly before or shortly after the pilot aired? So the change of direction had to be made pretty early on. And whilst I’m nothing but pleased that she had a smooth pregnancy and a healthy baby, and of course support her right to have a child – when you’ve just been signed up as the female lead on a (potentially) twenty-two episode TV show … well, I don’t think anyone would dispute that her timing sucked.
I’ve definitely said this before (sorry) – but that “refocusing” detracted badly from the relationship on the show that we were all interested in long before it started – the friendship between Matt and Danny that we didn’t see nearly enough of, IMO. And the scenes we got with Brad and Matt in The Option Period, for example, and lately, in the K&R episodes only serve to remind me what we’ve missed out on. I think I’ll always be a bit miffed about that.
On the one hand, I can’t see someone of Sorkin’s calibre being forced into taking the show in a direction he didn’t want it to go. On the other… I guess NBC are paying his mortgage, so…
Then there was the crappy time-slot. NBC announces a Thursday slot for Studio 60 – and then heads for the hills when Grays is put opposite and shifts it to Mondays at 10. I'm not overly familiar with the workings of US TV - I do understand why NBC did what they did, but... they surely can't have expected Studio 60 to outperform a powerhouse show. So it wouldn't really have mattered which slot they'd put it in, would it? Surely all the channels have their "big" shows on at 9pm, so whichever night S60 ended up on, it would have been up against a ratings winner. I’d doubt the audiences for Grays and S60 had a big overlap anyway (okay, so that's me talking - I don't watch Grays!) and in any case, a poor showing in that timeslot would have at least had an excuse if NBC had wanted one!
But no, they ran scared and moved it to Monday, which is never a good night for most forms of entertainment, and shoved it back to 10pm. And if I saw one comment or post or quote about how a lot of the people who watched the show couldn’t watch it live because it finished too late and they had to get up for work next say, I saw hundreds. And given that the audience for the show was expected to be a desirable demographic (i.e, people with money) the likelihood was that the majority were going to be in work. This, I'm sure, accounts for the good DVR and download figures. Which, sadly, don't "count".
There’s also the fact that on WW, Sorkin and Schlamme had John Wells as their co-exec. Now, say what you like about Wells and what happened after Sorkin left, but I’d bet all the money in my pockets that he spent a lot of time dealing with the suits and leaving Sorkin and Schlamme to do what they did best – write and direct. On Studio 60 they were the sole execs and so would presumably have had to have gotten involved with all the crap they didn’t have to deal with last time around. I’d guess, simply because he didn’t actually direct all that many episodes, that a lot of that fell to Tommy, but still, I think it could have made a difference if they’d had a Wells fighting their corner.
So what were the detractors expecting from the show? Another West Wing? I can’t say, but I got basically what I expected. Something witty, funny, dramatic, thought-provoking - and Bradley Whitford to stare at.
(What? Give me a break - I got through almost half the post before I brought that up!:))
But there were similarities - and I don't just mean the recycled names or lines. The biggest thing, as far as I was concerned was that the show "Studio 60" was the backdrop for whatever drama was being played out, just as the White House was the backdrop for the drama and the character interaction on West Wing.
And the sense of "family" that Sorkin seems to like so much. You got that with Matt and Danny straight away, and then more characters were added, so that in the final episode, we get the "family" shot with the team on stage as Danny hands out the cigars and the pep talk.
Sure, there were problems – I enjoyed the show, but I’m not blind to the fact that there were things that didn’t work. Yes, a lot of the sketches weren’t that funny. But some of them were, and I'd imagine that it's not possible to produce a 90 minute show each week that's belly-laughs from end to end. Harriet drove me bonkers at times, and the famous Sorkinuity (someone should make that a real word!) was often in evidence. But the trademark snark and snappy dialogue was there, most of the characters and relationships had great potential and there were some important themes to be explored. Okay, so maybe those themes weren’t ‘important’ in the same way that fighting terrorism or eliminating child poverty are, but there are things that need saying about the state of the entertainment industry (which Sorkin brought up a few times in WW) , television in particular. It’s the most influential medium in the world, it’s where the majority of people get the majority of their entertainment, their news etc. (well, in the west, anyway), and though maybe it was a rather sweeping generalisation to have Wes say that current programming is mostly aimed at stupid 12 year old boys, I don’t think anyone can deny that, given the proliferation of channels, all with a lot of airtime to fill, we’ve become inundated with cheap programming, much of it “reality” oriented in some way.
(And I’m not saying that all reality TV is crap – it’s not and some of it is very good – but those shows are fairly few and far between.)
I guess what pisses me off is that in this world of multi channel TV, there wasn’t room for one show a week that wasn’t about a bunch of losers trying not to get thrown out of a house.
I’ve been asking a few friends over the last few days what the critics meant when they called Sorkin “preachy” – because I honestly don’t get that. I know they don’t mean he’s preaching in the religious sense and I couldn’t work it out – I was starting to feel that maybe I was too stupid to see it.
But then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
teresadivicenzo pointed out to me that I probably wouldn’t find Sorkin preachy because I share many of the same views and outlook, so that whatever he was saying wouldn’t feel “out of step” to me. Which I thought was an interesting way of looking at it that hadn’t occurred to me. And coloneljack suggested it was because there were people watching who didn't want to hear the "opposing argument" to whatever was their own standpoint. The liberals didn't want to hear from the religious right, and the religious right didn't want to hear from the liberals. Like that's a big surprise! I’ve sometimes found Sorkin's writing a bit sugary (the speech at the end of Crackpots makes me wince a bit for example), but I can’t ever remember feeling as though I was being “preached at”.
Then there was the oft-complained about fact that Sorkin was using Studio 60 to work through his own relationship issues. To be quite honest, I could have cared less. Although I do think there was too much of the Matt/Harriet stuff in the early episodes, it wasn't a bad storyline, and at the end of the day, that's one of the things I was watching for - good stories. But I'll concede that we did get hit over the head with that one more than once too often. I almost cheered when Danny said in the finale -
Because you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and he doesn't? Are you kidding me, who gives a damn?
AT LAST.
I’ll be interested to know what Mr Caz thinks of the show when he finally gets around to watching. He’s seen the Pilot, but no more (he’ll watch it when it starts airing here at the end of the month (finally!)) – and all he really knows about Sorkin is that he had a drug problem. But I’d guess that even when I do get around to telling him about KC "and all that", he won’t give a stuff either.
I was more fascinated by the idea that what Sorkin showed happening to Matt and Danny back after 9/11 was based on what actually happened to him and Schlamme on West Wing. In one of the script books, Sorkin says it was always their intention to leave after the 100th episode, which would have been mid-fifth season, but that his drugs bust hastened their departure. But he’s obviously not going to write there that they were forced out because TPTB didn’t like Bartlet being so liberal after 9/11.
That’s the extent of my knowledge on that one, thanks todigitalred93 and teresadivicenzo - but feel free to jump in if you can enlighten me further!
I said before that Harriet often drove me nuts – and she did. I do think it was a big mistake to focus so much attention on her faith so early in the show, and I could quite happily have beaten her senseless with a head of cabbage on numerous occasions. I thought her “God loves me and you’re going to hell” attitude, which I guess was meant to be a joke (I’m thinking of the thing in The Focus Group where the lights are going on and off) wasn’t coming across that way (if that is indeed how it was meant). BUT – that said, she was also funny and warm, she cared about her friends, and it was made clear that she was someone who was at times struggling to reconcile the principles of her faith with life in the 21st Century. She was a devout Christian who nonetheless had pre-marital sex. Some might see that as hypocritical. (Yeah, I’m not going there).
I loved the way, in K&R I, her response to the news about Tom’s brother, then about Jordan was a simple “alright” as she knelt down to pray. I thought that was classy. But then we had her God always wins as she drags Danny off to pray in K&R III which annoyed me, but which was very much in character. But Sorkin balances that with Danny’s assertions that if God loves me, why doesn’t he just fix it? – which I would guess is something that most people of faith (as well as heathens like me!) ask themselves frequently given the things that go on in the world. I did like the fact that she then admits that Danny has a good point, and at the end of the episode we have Danny finally humbling himself as he kneels at the glass.
Despite my reservations however, I did enjoy some of the arguments she had with Matt about her faith and his lack of it.
In the scenes between Tom and Captain Boyle, Tom’s desperation to save his brother at any price is balanced by the Captain’s argument that any ransom paid will be used to fund terrorism and will encourage further kidnapping of military personnel. Both men are right, but it’s not an easy choice, either way.
And then there was Jack Rudolph, the ultimate pragmatist. He was painted fairly black in the early episodes, the network suit who only cared about money and ratings – but it soon became clear that there was more to him than that. Sorkin could easily have washed his dirty laundry and made Jack the baddie, but he didn’t. Jack was as conflicted as any of the other characters were – possibly even moreso. He clearly did have a conscience, but had to push it aside frequently in order to do his job. He “loves reality TV” but doesn’t watch it. He refused to accept the fine imposed by the FCC because of the swearing in the news report and was prepared to resign over it.
So it’s always seemed to me as if Sorkin does at least try to show both sides of the coin, even if he doesn’t always succeed.
I know there were people out there who were angry about the way Sorkin brought up certain racial issues. I’m a white girl from Essex. I’m not going there because I can’t.
There were a lot of missed opportunities in the show, most of them due to the fact that plots and storylines had to be truncated or dropped altogether in order to wrap up the season once the axe had fallen. The biggest disappointment for me was that we never found out the reasons behind Danny’s relapse. I also think that his was one of the characters who suffered most from the “change of direction”. Not that I’m complaining about the fact that Brad at last got to play a more ‘romantic’ role, (yeah, pile of fangirly goo), but I do think that Danny had the potential to be a much darker character, and that was stripped away when he was paired up with Jordan so early on.
(Heh. I really shouldn’t mention the words “Brad” and “stripped” in the same sentence, should I? :))
I mentioned the FCC thing earlier – again, that was a storyline that just disappeared and which had a lot of potential.
Hallie Galloway, Head of ‘Illiterate’ Programming – annoying blonde chick who was supposedly brought in to keep Jordan on her toes, and perhaps even to replace her. Not that I mind in this case, but she also seems to have been given a one-way ticket to Mandyville.
I’m also guessing that Matt’s pill-popping would have been a much bigger and longer storyline had the show been granted a second season. But as it was, the ‘crash’ he was supposed to have experienced, according to Suzanne, never happened, which, considering that the final five episodes all took place the same night, is another example of Sorkinuity at its best. :)
I do think that Studio 60 took a while to find its feet, but there were definite glimpses in the early episodes of what it could become if it was given a chance. For me, the show hit the mark with The West Coast Delay - that was what S60 should have shown more of early on, the frenetic, behind-the-scenes stuff that surely goes on during a live TV show. Then I think from The Option Period on, it was much more solid - that show in particular featured some cracking dialogue and Brad/Matt interaction.
Sorkin delivered yet another wonderful Christmas episode, but then after the show returned, the next ridiculously long hiatus was immediately announced, and I suppose that was really the writing on the wall. Personally, I think NBC had lost faith and interest way before that, but that’s just my own opinion. We know Sorkin had a “play or pay” clause in his contract, so I guess they figured they might as well ride it out.
Who knows if they’d have ordered another season if the show had been cheaper to produce? We know the ratings in the Monday slot weren’t that bad compared to other shows that were renewed, and that it was consistently among the most DVR’d and downloaded shows. And while I think there were probably other factors involved – I mean, Sorkin choosing to bite the hand that feeds him was maybe not the best way to go – I guess it all comes down to money in the end.
When all's said and done, I liked the show and I’m sorry to see it go.
What did I like about it? (Apart from the obvious? :))
It was smart, funny and warm and I felt like I wanted to get to know (most of) the characters. The trademark quickfire dialogue that I love was very much in evidence, Brad and Matt were simply wonderful together and I adored Jack and Cal and Tom. I liked that the show tried to say something about the state of the entertainment industry, because although I no longer work in it, I'm still fascinated by it. The workings of a television show may not have the same significance as the workings of the White House, but given that more people probably watch Deal or no Deal than watch the news - and I use that term fairly loosely given recent events - I'd say there's a lot that needs to be said about the workings of television. And I think that perhaps, had the show been left alone and Sorkin been able to pursue the storylines he wanted, it might have broadened out that way.
As a teacher, I see, every day, the way kids are losing the ability to think for themselves and it scares the hell out of me. Because those kids will soon become adults and their kids won't know how to think for themselves, and voila - non-surgical lobotomies. I'm glad that someone far more eloquent than I has seen the way things are headed and felt the need to say something about it. And maybe that's me being "preachy", but it's my LJ so, you know, whatever.
Well. Those are some of my observations. I’m sure I’ll remember things I wanted to say after I’ve hit “submit” and maybe your comments will jog my memory.
*pass the bottle*
Well, here it is. Pick your bevvy of choice and jump in anytime.
For a while now, I’ve been wanting to try to get my head around a number of issues to do with the show, the content, what happened to it, etc. and write them down, and I thought that now was as good a time as any to try to do that.
This is just a collection of random thoughts really, although I’ve tried to organise them a bit. There are bits and pieces here that I’ve talked about with friends - so forgive me if you’ve heard it before!
Please do jump in with comments and observations of your own - even if you weren't a fan. I always enjoy a good discussion, and long, rambling comments are more than welcome.
Brad fangirling is also welcome, but not obligatory! (I can't believe I said that...)
I know there are people on my f-list who aren’t S60 fans – and I want to thank them – because although they didn’t enjoy the show, they nevertheless recognised that I did, and we were still able to talk about it in a civilised and polite manner – two things which were sadly lacking on many of the fora and message boards in the rest of the so-called fandom – so thank you for that and for not saying “I told you so.” (Not that any of you would have, but you know what I mean).
All this is just my opinion. I’m not an insider, I’m not “in the know”, I’m just stringing stuff together based on things I’ve read, heard and talked about with friends, so please don’t take any of this as gospel, okay?
Okay. So - What went wrong?
Lots of things I suppose. I can’t help but wonder if NBC really knew what they were getting when they bought Studio 60. And I got the feeling at times that Sorkin wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do with it.
I don’t know a great deal about NBC other than that it’s one of the major US TV networks, and that it’s been struggling in recent years, having lost a lot of its audience and that it’s now the fourth-ranked network.
I also know that they clearly couldn’t promote a TV show if their lives depended on it. I mean, seriously… who the hell came up with the straplines for those trailers? The stars are about to collide?? WTF? Not only was there only one real TV star in amongst the lot of them (because much as I love and adore Brad, I’m the first to admit that he’s not a household name in the way Matt Perry is) but WHAT THE HELL DID THAT MEAN??
So... NBC is struggling and decides to pay a small fortune to secure the latest TV show from Aaron Sorkin, widely regarded as one of the best writers for the medium. The West Wing had been a hit for them, so maybe he can provide them with another (badly needed) one.
Did anyone at NBC actually read the Pilot script? In the first five minutes we get that fantastic diatribe about the current state of television and how we’re all being lobotomised by cheap, crap reality shows. Exhibit A – new NBC supremo Ben Silverman’s recent comments about people wanting undemanding entertainment when they get home at the end of a long day at the office. Yeah. The 'Boobs' show will be that alright.
Looks like Jordan’s “dual masturbation show” can't be far away, now.
So NBC backs up the Brinks truck to secure the show, at the same time putting a clause in Sorkin’s contract that he has to be working several shows in advance. Not something he's well known for doing, and I can't help but wonder if that was a problem for him, a well-known "seat of the pants" type.
They get in a big television name – Matt Perry – bring in (eventually) one of the best actors on television – Bradley Whitford – the two of whom have chemistry that goes off the scale. They also strike gold with Nate Corddry, Steven Weber, Mark McKinney and Lucy Davis among others – but badly miscast (IMO) one of the female leads.
Word gets around quickly, the Pilot script is all over the internet, and the hype machine starts. You can’t buy this sort of publicity – and even if you could, NBC probably couldn’t have afforded it given what it probably cost them to secure the show in the first place!
The trouble with hype though, is that you can’t really control it. And also, that nothing, no matter HOW GOOD IT IS can EVER live up to those expectations.
Sorkin suffered two-fold on this one. The heights he reached in West Wing, the second season in particular, and most of it in general - raised the bar impossibly high. I’d defy anybody to have cleared it. So he’s a victim of his own success AND of all the hype that started immediately his ‘return to television’ was announced.
Nowhere – so far as I know – did Sorkin OR NBC say that he was going to save TV single-handedly from the state it’s gotten into – but that idea started to get around the media, and once something like that starts, well, it got mentioned a lot, didn’t it? The inevitable backlash started- before the show even went on the air.
Although the critical reaction to the Pilot was generally good, the knives really came out after the second and third episodes aired. But they weren’t all that bad, surely? I mean the Pilot for West Wing is still the best pilot I’ve ever seen, but Post Hoc… and A Proportional Response? Mr Willis of Ohio? They were okay – and still better than practically everything else on TV, but they weren’t In Excelsis Deo or Celestial Navigation. And while Season 2 of WW remains possibly the best twenty-two hours (well, lots of 42 minutes) of television produced in recent years, Sorkin had to write Season 1 first!
You’ve gotta love the meeja. Their favourite sport is putting someone up on a pedestal and saying they’re the best thing since sliced bread, and then turning on them like a pack of wolves. And don’t get me started on the ‘fandom’. I stopped going over to TWoP waaaay back before all this started, but I had friends who visited occasionally and who were stunned by the sheer amount of hatred and vitriol that was being heaped on Sorkin and their utter loathing for the show. And I – as I’m sure you did – kept asking myself why they were wasting their time watching a show they didn’t like?! I certainly don’t have the time to do that – but I guess Sorkin-bashing had become a sport for some of them – who will now undoubtedly be amongst the first to complain that there are not enough intelligent, well written shows on TV. Go figure.
I said before that you can’t control hype – and you can’t. But what the NBC PR department should have done, is to have cultivated a few influential journalists etc, who could have gone out there with more balanced opinions when the backlash really got going. Of course, NBC themselves weren’t going to say anything – that sort of thing always backfires – but it was obvious fairly on in the season that they weren’t showing it much support. Okay, so they picked up the back nine and ordered a full season, but I’m sure we all wondered if that had more to do with the cost of their not picking it up rather than any faith they had in the show.
The fact that they then started to refer to the show as a ‘romantic comedy’ made me wonder if anyone at NBC was actually, you know, watching it.
So yes, the “change of direction to focus on the romantic relationships”. Whose idea was that then? I guess we’ll never know whether it was something Sorkin wanted to do, or if it was something he was told to do by the network, in the same way as we’ll never know whether it was completely his decision to write in Amanda Peet’s pregnancy or not. And I’m sorry, but seeing as I’ve brought her up (again) I have to say that I blame her for some of this (!) If memory serves, her pregnancy was announced shortly before or shortly after the pilot aired? So the change of direction had to be made pretty early on. And whilst I’m nothing but pleased that she had a smooth pregnancy and a healthy baby, and of course support her right to have a child – when you’ve just been signed up as the female lead on a (potentially) twenty-two episode TV show … well, I don’t think anyone would dispute that her timing sucked.
I’ve definitely said this before (sorry) – but that “refocusing” detracted badly from the relationship on the show that we were all interested in long before it started – the friendship between Matt and Danny that we didn’t see nearly enough of, IMO. And the scenes we got with Brad and Matt in The Option Period, for example, and lately, in the K&R episodes only serve to remind me what we’ve missed out on. I think I’ll always be a bit miffed about that.
On the one hand, I can’t see someone of Sorkin’s calibre being forced into taking the show in a direction he didn’t want it to go. On the other… I guess NBC are paying his mortgage, so…
Then there was the crappy time-slot. NBC announces a Thursday slot for Studio 60 – and then heads for the hills when Grays is put opposite and shifts it to Mondays at 10. I'm not overly familiar with the workings of US TV - I do understand why NBC did what they did, but... they surely can't have expected Studio 60 to outperform a powerhouse show. So it wouldn't really have mattered which slot they'd put it in, would it? Surely all the channels have their "big" shows on at 9pm, so whichever night S60 ended up on, it would have been up against a ratings winner. I’d doubt the audiences for Grays and S60 had a big overlap anyway (okay, so that's me talking - I don't watch Grays!) and in any case, a poor showing in that timeslot would have at least had an excuse if NBC had wanted one!
But no, they ran scared and moved it to Monday, which is never a good night for most forms of entertainment, and shoved it back to 10pm. And if I saw one comment or post or quote about how a lot of the people who watched the show couldn’t watch it live because it finished too late and they had to get up for work next say, I saw hundreds. And given that the audience for the show was expected to be a desirable demographic (i.e, people with money) the likelihood was that the majority were going to be in work. This, I'm sure, accounts for the good DVR and download figures. Which, sadly, don't "count".
There’s also the fact that on WW, Sorkin and Schlamme had John Wells as their co-exec. Now, say what you like about Wells and what happened after Sorkin left, but I’d bet all the money in my pockets that he spent a lot of time dealing with the suits and leaving Sorkin and Schlamme to do what they did best – write and direct. On Studio 60 they were the sole execs and so would presumably have had to have gotten involved with all the crap they didn’t have to deal with last time around. I’d guess, simply because he didn’t actually direct all that many episodes, that a lot of that fell to Tommy, but still, I think it could have made a difference if they’d had a Wells fighting their corner.
So what were the detractors expecting from the show? Another West Wing? I can’t say, but I got basically what I expected. Something witty, funny, dramatic, thought-provoking - and Bradley Whitford to stare at.
(What? Give me a break - I got through almost half the post before I brought that up!:))
But there were similarities - and I don't just mean the recycled names or lines. The biggest thing, as far as I was concerned was that the show "Studio 60" was the backdrop for whatever drama was being played out, just as the White House was the backdrop for the drama and the character interaction on West Wing.
And the sense of "family" that Sorkin seems to like so much. You got that with Matt and Danny straight away, and then more characters were added, so that in the final episode, we get the "family" shot with the team on stage as Danny hands out the cigars and the pep talk.
Sure, there were problems – I enjoyed the show, but I’m not blind to the fact that there were things that didn’t work. Yes, a lot of the sketches weren’t that funny. But some of them were, and I'd imagine that it's not possible to produce a 90 minute show each week that's belly-laughs from end to end. Harriet drove me bonkers at times, and the famous Sorkinuity (someone should make that a real word!) was often in evidence. But the trademark snark and snappy dialogue was there, most of the characters and relationships had great potential and there were some important themes to be explored. Okay, so maybe those themes weren’t ‘important’ in the same way that fighting terrorism or eliminating child poverty are, but there are things that need saying about the state of the entertainment industry (which Sorkin brought up a few times in WW) , television in particular. It’s the most influential medium in the world, it’s where the majority of people get the majority of their entertainment, their news etc. (well, in the west, anyway), and though maybe it was a rather sweeping generalisation to have Wes say that current programming is mostly aimed at stupid 12 year old boys, I don’t think anyone can deny that, given the proliferation of channels, all with a lot of airtime to fill, we’ve become inundated with cheap programming, much of it “reality” oriented in some way.
(And I’m not saying that all reality TV is crap – it’s not and some of it is very good – but those shows are fairly few and far between.)
I guess what pisses me off is that in this world of multi channel TV, there wasn’t room for one show a week that wasn’t about a bunch of losers trying not to get thrown out of a house.
I’ve been asking a few friends over the last few days what the critics meant when they called Sorkin “preachy” – because I honestly don’t get that. I know they don’t mean he’s preaching in the religious sense and I couldn’t work it out – I was starting to feel that maybe I was too stupid to see it.
But then
teresadivicenzo pointed out to me that I probably wouldn’t find Sorkin preachy because I share many of the same views and outlook, so that whatever he was saying wouldn’t feel “out of step” to me. Which I thought was an interesting way of looking at it that hadn’t occurred to me. And coloneljack suggested it was because there were people watching who didn't want to hear the "opposing argument" to whatever was their own standpoint. The liberals didn't want to hear from the religious right, and the religious right didn't want to hear from the liberals. Like that's a big surprise! I’ve sometimes found Sorkin's writing a bit sugary (the speech at the end of Crackpots makes me wince a bit for example), but I can’t ever remember feeling as though I was being “preached at”.Then there was the oft-complained about fact that Sorkin was using Studio 60 to work through his own relationship issues. To be quite honest, I could have cared less. Although I do think there was too much of the Matt/Harriet stuff in the early episodes, it wasn't a bad storyline, and at the end of the day, that's one of the things I was watching for - good stories. But I'll concede that we did get hit over the head with that one more than once too often. I almost cheered when Danny said in the finale -
Because you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and he doesn't? Are you kidding me, who gives a damn?
AT LAST.
I’ll be interested to know what Mr Caz thinks of the show when he finally gets around to watching. He’s seen the Pilot, but no more (he’ll watch it when it starts airing here at the end of the month (finally!)) – and all he really knows about Sorkin is that he had a drug problem. But I’d guess that even when I do get around to telling him about KC "and all that", he won’t give a stuff either.
I was more fascinated by the idea that what Sorkin showed happening to Matt and Danny back after 9/11 was based on what actually happened to him and Schlamme on West Wing. In one of the script books, Sorkin says it was always their intention to leave after the 100th episode, which would have been mid-fifth season, but that his drugs bust hastened their departure. But he’s obviously not going to write there that they were forced out because TPTB didn’t like Bartlet being so liberal after 9/11.
That’s the extent of my knowledge on that one, thanks to
digitalred93 and teresadivicenzo - but feel free to jump in if you can enlighten me further!I said before that Harriet often drove me nuts – and she did. I do think it was a big mistake to focus so much attention on her faith so early in the show, and I could quite happily have beaten her senseless with a head of cabbage on numerous occasions. I thought her “God loves me and you’re going to hell” attitude, which I guess was meant to be a joke (I’m thinking of the thing in The Focus Group where the lights are going on and off) wasn’t coming across that way (if that is indeed how it was meant). BUT – that said, she was also funny and warm, she cared about her friends, and it was made clear that she was someone who was at times struggling to reconcile the principles of her faith with life in the 21st Century. She was a devout Christian who nonetheless had pre-marital sex. Some might see that as hypocritical. (Yeah, I’m not going there).
I loved the way, in K&R I, her response to the news about Tom’s brother, then about Jordan was a simple “alright” as she knelt down to pray. I thought that was classy. But then we had her God always wins as she drags Danny off to pray in K&R III which annoyed me, but which was very much in character. But Sorkin balances that with Danny’s assertions that if God loves me, why doesn’t he just fix it? – which I would guess is something that most people of faith (as well as heathens like me!) ask themselves frequently given the things that go on in the world. I did like the fact that she then admits that Danny has a good point, and at the end of the episode we have Danny finally humbling himself as he kneels at the glass.
Despite my reservations however, I did enjoy some of the arguments she had with Matt about her faith and his lack of it.
In the scenes between Tom and Captain Boyle, Tom’s desperation to save his brother at any price is balanced by the Captain’s argument that any ransom paid will be used to fund terrorism and will encourage further kidnapping of military personnel. Both men are right, but it’s not an easy choice, either way.
And then there was Jack Rudolph, the ultimate pragmatist. He was painted fairly black in the early episodes, the network suit who only cared about money and ratings – but it soon became clear that there was more to him than that. Sorkin could easily have washed his dirty laundry and made Jack the baddie, but he didn’t. Jack was as conflicted as any of the other characters were – possibly even moreso. He clearly did have a conscience, but had to push it aside frequently in order to do his job. He “loves reality TV” but doesn’t watch it. He refused to accept the fine imposed by the FCC because of the swearing in the news report and was prepared to resign over it.
So it’s always seemed to me as if Sorkin does at least try to show both sides of the coin, even if he doesn’t always succeed.
I know there were people out there who were angry about the way Sorkin brought up certain racial issues. I’m a white girl from Essex. I’m not going there because I can’t.
There were a lot of missed opportunities in the show, most of them due to the fact that plots and storylines had to be truncated or dropped altogether in order to wrap up the season once the axe had fallen. The biggest disappointment for me was that we never found out the reasons behind Danny’s relapse. I also think that his was one of the characters who suffered most from the “change of direction”. Not that I’m complaining about the fact that Brad at last got to play a more ‘romantic’ role, (yeah, pile of fangirly goo), but I do think that Danny had the potential to be a much darker character, and that was stripped away when he was paired up with Jordan so early on.
(Heh. I really shouldn’t mention the words “Brad” and “stripped” in the same sentence, should I? :))
I mentioned the FCC thing earlier – again, that was a storyline that just disappeared and which had a lot of potential.
Hallie Galloway, Head of ‘Illiterate’ Programming – annoying blonde chick who was supposedly brought in to keep Jordan on her toes, and perhaps even to replace her. Not that I mind in this case, but she also seems to have been given a one-way ticket to Mandyville.
I’m also guessing that Matt’s pill-popping would have been a much bigger and longer storyline had the show been granted a second season. But as it was, the ‘crash’ he was supposed to have experienced, according to Suzanne, never happened, which, considering that the final five episodes all took place the same night, is another example of Sorkinuity at its best. :)
I do think that Studio 60 took a while to find its feet, but there were definite glimpses in the early episodes of what it could become if it was given a chance. For me, the show hit the mark with The West Coast Delay - that was what S60 should have shown more of early on, the frenetic, behind-the-scenes stuff that surely goes on during a live TV show. Then I think from The Option Period on, it was much more solid - that show in particular featured some cracking dialogue and Brad/Matt interaction.
Sorkin delivered yet another wonderful Christmas episode, but then after the show returned, the next ridiculously long hiatus was immediately announced, and I suppose that was really the writing on the wall. Personally, I think NBC had lost faith and interest way before that, but that’s just my own opinion. We know Sorkin had a “play or pay” clause in his contract, so I guess they figured they might as well ride it out.
Who knows if they’d have ordered another season if the show had been cheaper to produce? We know the ratings in the Monday slot weren’t that bad compared to other shows that were renewed, and that it was consistently among the most DVR’d and downloaded shows. And while I think there were probably other factors involved – I mean, Sorkin choosing to bite the hand that feeds him was maybe not the best way to go – I guess it all comes down to money in the end.
When all's said and done, I liked the show and I’m sorry to see it go.
What did I like about it? (Apart from the obvious? :))
It was smart, funny and warm and I felt like I wanted to get to know (most of) the characters. The trademark quickfire dialogue that I love was very much in evidence, Brad and Matt were simply wonderful together and I adored Jack and Cal and Tom. I liked that the show tried to say something about the state of the entertainment industry, because although I no longer work in it, I'm still fascinated by it. The workings of a television show may not have the same significance as the workings of the White House, but given that more people probably watch Deal or no Deal than watch the news - and I use that term fairly loosely given recent events - I'd say there's a lot that needs to be said about the workings of television. And I think that perhaps, had the show been left alone and Sorkin been able to pursue the storylines he wanted, it might have broadened out that way.
As a teacher, I see, every day, the way kids are losing the ability to think for themselves and it scares the hell out of me. Because those kids will soon become adults and their kids won't know how to think for themselves, and voila - non-surgical lobotomies. I'm glad that someone far more eloquent than I has seen the way things are headed and felt the need to say something about it. And maybe that's me being "preachy", but it's my LJ so, you know, whatever.
Well. Those are some of my observations. I’m sure I’ll remember things I wanted to say after I’ve hit “submit” and maybe your comments will jog my memory.
*pass the bottle*
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Date: 2007-07-04 04:01 pm (UTC)I think the day we stop asking questions about anything and everything is the day we should all pack up and go home.
But you're right - he's not preaching at me, as you said the other night when I asked for your opinion about the 'preachiness' - because as I said, I honestly didn't get it. I wasn't trying to be obtuse or ask a question I knew the answer to - it was a geniune desire to understand the appellation.
And as you said, it's partly crappy research on Sorkin's part, or perhaps even no research. I'm sure a writer as gifted as he is is perfectly capable of crafting better arguments- and maybe he was trying to cram too much in.
Perhaps that's partly what I felt when I wondered if he quite knew what he wanted to do with the show. So much to say, he couldn't decide what to say first!
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Date: 2007-07-04 06:37 pm (UTC)I have to confess that I was always doubtful of whether he knew what he wanted to say in this show - and I'm not just talking about religion here. There was too much crammed in and the writing wasn't tight enough at points. It was as if he knew he had *something* to say about certain issues, but even he wasn't sure quite what. It was an exploratory work, a work in progress. That's never going to be good enough to succeed, even though it can be an interesting exercise in itself at times.
The other annoyance of mine was the "illiterate programming". I watch reality TV, I enjoy it. It's like any other genre in the sense that there is good and bad. He must have known that this would jumped on as a banner by many. And I must say that I was put off reading much of fandom because I became annoyed by seeing that phrase crop up - it was used in a way that implied I was dumb for watching this type of programming.
Yes, Sorkin tried to put across the point the there is good and bad, but once you use such inflammatory language, subsequent arguments are lost in the noise and it seems as if you only included the counterargument to show that you had bothered to consider that point of view. It was there as a 'liberal' courtesy, if you like.
He's a smart guy. He knows the noise that this would cause. On this one, he is wrong. It's not all rubbish. And to suggest that people who watch it are dumb, which again when you tie in what he has said publicly on the genre, is intellectual snobbery at its worst.
And whilst I'm at it, Mr. Sorkin, not all of us wear PJs and some of us are VERY qualified to comment on your work. Don't push me or I might just take it off the internet and into a prominent journal or two where my words will carry far more weight. Trust me when I tell you that the internet is a preferable medium for my views.