Watching Studio60

So what did we watch last night?

Well the ratings are in and in the 10.00 pm time slot, the rerun of “CSI Miami” beat “Friday Night Lights”, which drew about the same audience that “Studio” normally draws. What did that tell NBC? I hope they realize that going against “CSI Miami” is not a winning strategy, whatever the show. Not that I understand it - I have always been a huge fan of the original CSI but have never watched either of the spin offs, Miami because I do not like Caruso, and NY because it always went against “Law and Order”. So - what will NBC do now?

I took the opportunity to check out “What About Brian”, as I liked Barry Watson in the Camden drama, “7th Heaven”. It was cute - sad but cute. Well acted and appealing in a “Soap Opera”, mindless entertainment, sort of way. It will be my second choice if they put Studio back on Monday night but probably my first choice if they stick with Friday Night Lights.

Just to finish the post - I had to travel to San Francisco today to see a client. I drove to Milbrae, then took Bart to the city. In the morning I drove up 280 and door to door was about an hour and a half. Coming home this evening, I drove 101 instead of 280 and it took me 3 hours door to door. What a nightmare that drive was. If that is normal commuting traffic, then I feel really sorry for anyone who has to do it on a daily basis. I take my hat off to all who remain sane in the face of such adversity.

Thank you to Aaron for hooking me up with the TVSquad web site and their thoughts on the scheduling. It raises some interesting questions about the art of tv scheduling - or is it a science.

I heard it described this morning on the radio and competetive and confrontational. And it is.

The trick is to get more people to watch your show then all the others. And it seems to me this season there are so many good shows that you cannot possibly watch them all. Thanks to Dish Network not giving out free DVR’s to exsiting customers, I do not have the ability to record a TV show while I am watching another - and Yes I know it is SOO last century but I watch enough TV real time, that I am sure if I had the ability to record other shows I would treble my viewing time and that woudl leave me no time for other pursuits - but I digress -

I have to choose between Without a Trace and Desperate Housewives (this week Trace won), Justice and Heroes, Grey’s Anatomy and CSI, and so the list goes on. It seems that all the good new shows are competing with the shows I watched last season. What is a girl to do? And yet we have Saturday evening when there are no new shows or good shows - in fact nothing but repeats. We have the hour from 7 to 8 with very little to watch, so it seems to me that by using that hour on a nightly basis and by making better use of Saturday I might not have to make so many decisions on a nightly basis!! And of course - it is all about making my life easier, despite what I said before!! And I could watch 4 hours of TV a night for 7 nights a week, instead of 3 hours for 6 nights. A gain of 10 hours of TV - and Yes you’re right - I do need to get a life!

As there is no show tonight and I have had no repsonse to my Trivia, I want to take the opporunity to vent about a pet peeve of mine.

I went to a party yesterday - the hostess had gone to a lot of trouble to decorate her house, prepare a great meal, provide pumpkins for every one to carve and prizes for the best carving. The guests started arriving and after eating we went outside to carve pumpkins and enjoy the weather, play croquet and generally just socialize. At no time had anybody’s cell phone been on display, or even rung. Until the last guest showed up, sporting an ear piece on their ear and a cell phone hanging of the back pocket of their trousers. The ear peice stayed in place all day - through the croquet game, through the pumpkin carving and was still in place when I left. Not once did that phone ring but the paraphenelia stayed in place, on view the entire time.
My peeve is that I think that is so disrepsectful not to mention rude to the hostess. Why was it necessary to keep the ear piece on during the party, especially as the phone never rang. I came up with a few reasons why - a la Letterman (but only 6):

6) The extra weight in the back pocket was needed for balance
4) it wasn’t really a cellphone - it was a transporter
4) it is the latest line in earrings
3) it was a status symbol (that failed)
2) it was something to hide behind
1) the ear would fall off if the piece was removed

Joking aside - I really hate the dependency we have on cell phones. You see people in supermarkets, pushing their trolleys, pulling things off shelves, all the while talking on their phone. Now if their conversation is about the shopping, that might be acceptable, but when it is work related NOT OK. I had a work related phone call at 7.00am the other morning - and when I politely asked my colleague not to call me at 7.00am, the response was “I thought I would get your voice mail”. Again NOT OK! Private time is private time - we all need to get away from work, to deal with the family or day to day chores and the intrusion of cell phones has made this more and more difficult.

I say - leave the cell phones at home or in the car when you are at a party or shopping or in the movies. If it’s important the caller will leave a message and you can return the call at your convenience - if it’s not important, then they will call back.

a) “I learned to fall down early in life - I was like six - because I realized it was a way to make girls laugh.”
b) “You need to be real enough to be believable, but you don’t necessarily have to be real enough to be real”
c) “As an actor, my main focus is finding good writing and attacking a good role.”
d) “I can’t do anything else. I can’t type or run a computer, and I’ve been fired from jobs as a custodian, waiter, and elevator operator. Acting has always been my passion.”

1) Amanda Peet
2) Steven Weber
3) Bradley Whitford
4) Matthew Perry

I love Trivia so if you want more let me know.

Tonight the clocks go back and the world is once more aligned with Greenwich Mean time. I have heard a rumour, as yet unconfirmed, that this will be the last year that we change the time. They tried it in England about 40 years ago - we stayed in British Summer TIme for two years, but for whatever reason, and I have to confess I cannot remember what it was now - they reverted back to the Spring forward, Fall back behaviour and it has been so ever since. So if anyone out there can confirm or refute the rumour, I would be very interested in how they are planning on making it work.
And you may ask - what has that got to do with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Well, not a lot I confess, except that when I am watching the second season next fall I need to know what time it wil be aired!!!!
On the subject of unconfirmed rumours - I know they are showing an episode of Friday Night Lights on Monday in Studio’s time slot, but I am sure I saw in TV Guide (online) that they are airing the next episode of Studio tomorrow (Sunday) night. It is the first part of a two parter where some of the cast have to trave to Arizona to get Tom out of jail. Anybody out there know if this is right

Well - with the good news that Studio 60 has not only won the popular vote to be kept on the air, but also that NBC has ordered 3 more episodes, I though it would be appropriate to offer a summary to date for all those fans that are now going to flock to watch this amazing show. Rather then reinvent the wheel, I have added links to the Wikipedia web site that does an excellent job of describing the characters and the episodes to date.

Dramatis Personae
Episodes

So - now we are all on board and caught up with the plots and characters, maybe we can speculate as to where we think Aaron will take the show next.
- Do we want Matt and Harriet to get back together again, or is there more mileage in the romance with the baseball player and Matt playing the field?
- Do we think Danny and Jordan will hook up?
- Do we even care about the various romances and maybe prefer to concentrate on the other plot lines - like Danny’s cocaine usage, Tom’s relationship with his father and his brother, the Vanity Fair story - what will it reveal…
- How will they manage Amanda Peet’s real life pregnancy
- Will Danny’s part get more air time and more lines and will he stop playing support to Matt.
- Will Joshua Molina join the cast

Any thoughts,comments or additional suggestions

I have spent the best part of the last two hours “Googling” Studio 60 to see what is being written about the show, and I have found that comments run the gamut from “This show is awful, boring” to “This show is the Best thing on TV”. So how can this be?
The people who hate it seem to think that it is tired, same old format, pulling too much from previous shows, abuses the characters and especially - What does Amanda Peet bring to the show.
On the other hand, the people who love it call it Witty, Fast, Thought provoking, Not afraid to address sensitive topics and especially love the cast. And actually call it the Thinking Man’s Show (which I think I referred to in my last blog!)
So this leads me to a premise that might ruffle some feathers - the people who like the show want above average entertainment, don’t need “Hit you in the Face” comedy or baseline humour and appreciate thought provoking story lines which will evolve over time. On the other hand, the people who don’t like the show - well as Andrew Shephard says in The American President “….was that they simply don’t get it”. (Yes, I have misquoted a Tad!) Maybe that’s too harsh, but the writing is a cut above the norm, does take thought and you do have to pay attention as so much is going on around the central action that can distract you.
I am glad that NBC signed up for 13 episodes, which I hope means that we will see at least 7 more shows, and I for one will not be watching Friday Night Lights, as I haven’t watched in in it’s first times slot, and I am just a little bored with movies and shows that centralize on American Football. Now don’t go railing on me. I just admitted that I haven’t seen it, so I am basing my predispostion Not to like it purely on the previews, and it looks to me like it’s about football, so Not on my Watch list!
That’s it for now follks - Keep spreading the Word - lets get the ratings and viewers up!

I have had a few comments to the effect that Studio 60 is not getting the viewers or the ratings it deserves and unless this changes there is a good chance it could get cancelled. So - I am urging you all to get the word out to your friends, realtives, colleagues, neighbours - anybody that touches your daily lives - get people watching so that the show stays on the air. This show is witty, well cast, well acted, well produced and all in all a great show. So we have to keep it on the air. I am so tired of good quality shows getting cancelled because they aren’ getting the viewers or ratings, and while I understand that the networks have to make money - they also have an obligation to entertain and to produce quality shows for the discerning public, instead of catering to the lowest common denominator all the time. We all know that reality shows (although I fail to see what is real about living on an island with 11 strangers for 39 days) are the big ticket and the half hour comedy shows also command big audiences, but Studio 60 is the thinking mans show - it has real drama, humour and doesn’t hesitate to address sensitive topics, all while entertaining and enthralling its audience - So lets keep it on the air!!

OK - It’s official - I absolutely adore Matthew Perry. Enough about that. What a show - could they cover any more issues in one show. Racial humour, Parent/Child relationships, or more specifically a father comparing the son in show business with the son at war, the loneliness of being the boss, the shallowness of sports stars (forgive the sweeping generalization) and then that wonderful veteran who had such historic memories, which touched on the McCarthy witch hunt. I was wondering how they could continue to make the show about producing sketches and Low and Behold, they gave us tonight’s show - called The Wrap Party, but really an opportunity to take us away from the business of producing the show and more about developing some of the characters. I particularly loved the 5 minutes given to Steven Weber - if I didn’t like him before - Now I actively dislike him - shows that sarcasm isn’t really that endearing. Lets get back to the parent/child thing. My two sons grew up without a father and I was always a little sad about that and constantly worried about how it would affect them as they grew towards adulthood. I know it’s only TV, but maybe we dodged a bullet. It seem that many TV shows take pleasure in portraying the father/son relationship as intensly complicated, confrontational and unrewarding. I know that cannot be a true reflection on all relationships, but it does make you wonder why so many TV writers have similar story lines. Oh Well - I am happy to report that both my sons are happy, healthy, “normal” sons, going to school, holding down jobs, sowing wild oats and generally behaving as millions of boys before them and I am sure millions of boys to follow. I must have done something right!!!

I didn’t start watching Friends until about the 4th or 5th season, but always thought that Matthew Perry had the best lines. That, of course, is down to the writers, but his delivery was always sharp and his comic timing was genius. I am so glad that he has found another vehicle to display his talents, and while there are funny moments in Studio 60, I think he is proving himself as a very talented serious actor. Bradley came from a completely different show and had more pedegree coming into Studio 60, but I think he is playing a support role to Matthew’s character in Studio 60. Somewhat surprising to me, but it is working extremely well and it was interesting to read that Matthew initially turned down the role of Matt but Aaron Sorkin didn’t want anybody else and finally wore down Matthew to the point of agreeing. Thank goodness he did, as these two central characters have a wonderful chemistry on screen, and I dont mean that in any sexually undertoned way - they just work well together. It will be fun to watch how they continue to develop their characters and their individual issues.

I thought I would make my first post about the creator of Studio 60. It turns out I have been a fan of his work without realizing it. My favourite movies - The American President, Malice and A Few Good Men, are all Sorkin works. And The West Wing was one of the best TV shows for most of the 7 seasons it ran. And now we have Studio 60. another phenominal ensemble cast, witty writing and story lines that sustain interest from week to week. In reading Sorkin’s bio it turns out he has a fascination with Gilbert and Sullivan Operas and always weaves a quote or a song line or a story line into his shows. For example, the second episode of Studio 60 had the case doing a parady of Modern Major General from Pirates of Penzance, as the opening skit. And should we expect to see Joshua Molina turn up in Studio 60 - he has been in every Sorkin work since A Few Good Men in 1992. I think Sorkin is brilliant - woudln’t you just love to have him for dinner. Imagine the conversation over the table - would you even have time to eat for all the laughing, or maybe he is only funny on paper - but wouldn’t it be fun to find out. Any time - let me know - open invitation.