Watching Studio60

According to the More4 site, “The Wrap Party” was the episode broadcast last night in the U.K.; it originally aired last October in the U.S. For those who want to read what was written about this episode when it was first broadcast, here are links to reviews, recaps and forum discussions on:

• Entertainment Weekly
• TV Squad
• Television Without Pity (recap)
• Television Without Pity (forum — read only)
• Studio 60 Guide

And when you’ve had enough of analysis, watch the YouTube scenes above — the entire storyline about Cal and the elderly gentleman wandering around the studio — and enjoy Eli Wallach’s Emmy-nominated performance, and an equally masterful one by Timothy Busfield, doing heavy expositional lifting like it was nothing.

Studio 60, NBC, The Wrap Party, Eli Wallach, Timothy Busfield

It’s hard to find anybody saying anything nice about Studio 60 in the media these days, with even cast members acknowledging fault. So I was cheered to see this assessment from Grace Dent on the Guardian Unlimited site, regarding the program’s current showing in the U.K. Under a headline calling Studio 60 the best kept secret on TV, she writes:

Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip, Aaron Sorkin’s take on the world of television, still has me hooked. It’s not had much hype, or a whole lot of viewers, which is sad as it’s the most relevant piece of satire on TV right now.

Studio 60 is about ego-maniac writers versus profit-obsessed studio execs. It’s about slack-jawed focus groups awarding “percentages of funny” and how the pressure of live TV makes producers do very silly things. It’s about TV “dumbing down”, religious groups pressurising advertisers and how ultimately the public gets the TV it deserves. It’s funny, clever and complex. No wonder no one’s watching it.

Of course, in the same column, she also trashes Brothers & Sisters, a show I also enjoy and write about. But I’ll take Studio 60 appreciation however I can get it.

Studio 60, NBC, Guardian Unlimited

When I mentioned Emmy nominations for Studio 60 a while back, I failed to note one that’s in the family, but not for the show: Matthew Perry’s for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie. The recognition is for his role as a crusading teacher in The Ron Clark Story on TNT.

I didn’t see that movie, and I wasn’t a big fan of Ron Clark’s book The Essential 55, but I’d certainly love to see Perry win. He’s competing against William H. Macy in Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Robert Duvall in Broken Trail, Tom Selleck in Jesse Stone: Sea Change, and Jim Broadbent in Longford, and … come to think of it, I haven’t seen any of those performances, either.

Maybe the generally enthusiastic reaction to Perry’s performance in Studio 60 will transfer over as good will in this race, as it sometimes seems to in award shows. We can’t give you an award for that, so we’ll give it for this, instead. If he wins, I’m totally going to take it as a Studio 60 victory, anyway.

Emmys, Matthew Perry, The Ron Clark Story, TNT

_{Photo: TNT.tv}

If you’re suffering from not knowing the long-term fates of your favorite Studio 60 characters, here’s one place to drown your sorrows: the Studio 60 section at FanFiction.Net. Matt and Danny and Jordan and Harriet and Jack and Suzanne and the rest of the gang live on here in a variety of scenarios. A few of the more recent creations:

• The Good Life. “It takes place in the future Matt and Harriet are married with 3 kids.”
• From Behind The Shadow. “Matt didn’t take it seriously…he thought it was prank until he’s left fighting for his life. Danny didn’t know and feels his new relationship with Jordan is to blame. Harriet realizes how much she needs Matt in her life.”
• Blink. “Jack blinks, and in that split second of black he sees her, him, them pressed against the wall of a clean bathroom stall in a chic nightclub.”
• The Unraveling of Perfection. “Things start falling apart when Suzanne makes one stupid mistake, and Danny can’t figure out how to put it back together.”
• Nice To Meet You. “Matt receives a phone call that changes his life forever. How will Harriet take the news?”

If you have some Studio 60 fan fiction online, or a favorite place to look for it, mention it in the comments.

Studio 60 cast member Nathan Corddry is in multiplexes this week with a supporting role in The Nanny Diaries, but the movie I’m really looking forward to from an NBS veteran is Martian Child, in which
Amanda Peet costars with John Cusack as they try to help a parentless boy who claims to be from Mars. As a bonus, West Wing alumnus Richard Schiff is also in the film, although it looks like he plays the bad guy, a bureaucrat who threatens to get in the way of Cusack’s adoption of the child. You can watch a trailer here to tide you over until the movie comes out on October 26.

Studio 60, NBC, Amanda Peet, Nathan Corddry, Martian Child, Nanny Diaries

Is the mere making of an entertainment program not weighty enough subject matter for the brilliant writing of Aaron Sorkin? That seems to be the theory being floated around now about the perceived failure of Studio 60. Nathan Corddry mentions in the interview linked to yesterday that the show really got good when Sorkin started writing about West Wing-like matters, and now Hank Azaria, who stars in Sorkin’s forthcoming Broadway venture The Farnsworth Invention, seems to think the same.

When asked in a New York Magazine interview for his take on Studio 60, Azaria said: “You know, I thought it was brilliant. But ultimately, I felt similarly to how I felt about Sports Night — you could see the brilliance in it, but I don’t know that it exactly applied to the subject matter in a way that was satisfying. Focusing on the specific inner workings of a comedy or sports TV show clearly couldn’t sustain a series.”

The play is about TV, too, but the creation of the medium as opposed to one program within it. Of the difference, Azaria says, “I feel that this play—and not just ’cause I’m in it—this is Aaron’s instinct focused correctly. He’s taking a historical event and humanizing it, like he did with A Few Good Men. That’s when I think Aaron is most resonant.”

Personally, I found both Sports Night and Studio 60 to be sufficiently resonant, and I believed that for the characters, their work was as big a deal as any historical event. But Sorkin does seem to succeed better with a larger audience when he’s bringing his particular approach to a bigger canvas, so let’s hope Farnsworth and his other endeavor this year, the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, find some significant success.

There’s a fairly adorable interview with Nate Corddry, Studio 60’s Tom, on ESPN.com. It starts out being about the actor’s love of fantasy baseball, but moves on to some comments on what interviewer Keith Law, bless him, calls “the late, lamented ‘Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.’” Some excerpts:

On why the show was cancelled: “I think it was just money, the huge amount of money that it cost to create it and then run it. They needed it to be a huge hit to make money. The set was expensive, and it was expensive to pay all those people. … And Aaron Sorkin costs money. We had OK numbers, but it wasn’t big enough.”

On learning on the job: “[Studio 60] was my first long-term thing. And to do my first TV thing with those guys was great. Everyone was just a pro. Everyone knew how to do it, where to stand, what you need to do to make it go faster, to get your stuff done. So it was great, it wasn’t just like a show where it’s all 20-year-olds who’ve never done it before.”

On the last six episodes: “I think at that point he [Sorkin] knew it was getting canceled, so he said, screw it, I’m going to write “West Wing” episodes. And there were real stakes in those episodes, life and death, while before, the stakes were whether a TV show would get done or whether a writer could write a sketch. There’s just no weight to that — no one cares. So that was one of the biggest differences.”

On the workload: “Brad Whitford said this was like doing 11 feature films back to back to back to back, because the episodes were an hour long, so that’s 22 hours you were shooting, with no breaks except for Christmas. I don’t know how he did “West Wing” for seven years.”

On Aaron Sorkin: “He’s fast, great wit, really smart man, and he knows how to craft a joke while you’re walking down a hallway. People at the top of their game, battling each other, that’s what it comes out like. … He’ll have another show on in two or three years. It’ll be a cop show, or a hospital show; it’ll be set in a place where there are stakes, where people’s lives are at stake. He’s too good of a writer.”

Studio 60, NBC, Nate Corddry, Aaron Sorkin

Those who just saw it last night in the U.K. are looking back a little bit, and those of us who saw it last year in the U.S. are looking back a lot farther. For those who want to read what was written about this episode — which guest-starred Christine Lahti as reporter Martha O’Dell, Lauren Graham as the show’s host, and Sting as musical guest — when it first aired, here are links to reviews, recaps and forum discussions on:

• Entertainment Weekly
• TV Squad
• Television Without Pity (recap)
• Television Without Pity (forum — read only)
• Studio 60 Guide

On the other hand, if you prefer to let art wash over you, enjoy the lovely Matt-Harriet moment from the end of the episode above, and relive the need to scream at your screen, What is the matter with you people! Would you just KISS ALREADY! You have Sting singing a love song right there in front of you! What more could you possibly need!

Or, you know, just appreciate the pretty music and snappy dialog and stuff. Whatever.

Studio 60, NBC, The Long Lead Story, Sting

If the above sentiment is one you’d love to stick on your car, wear on your chest, view on your mousepad, or send 100 buttons-worth of to an NBC exec, Red Mustang is a store you’ll want to visit. Among its TV offerings are a few Studio 60 goodies, on shirts, buttons, stickers and other merchandise.

In addition to the plea for all things Sorkin, you can find items with SAY IT (what Danny needed to do with Jordan), Pray for Peace in the Midwest (what Jessica Simpson allegedly said when forced to ad lib), and a funny take-off of the Heroes cheerleader slogan (oh, how we wish that had come true).

Considering that NBC has just a few lousy logo items on sale in its online store to celebrate Studio 60, it’s up to fans to take up the slack. Go to CafePress and search for Studio 60 to find more show-related goodies.

Speaking of fans, the creator of the Red Mustang items also penned an “Ode to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” and although its plea for renewal is kind of a moot point now, it will reassure you that you were not alone in your fandom.

_{Image © Red Mustang. Used with permission.}

There has been much, very much, oh so very very much much much made of the correlation between the relationship of Matt and Harriet on Studio 60 and the relationship of Aaron Sorkin and Kristen Chenowith in real life. Imagine, then, what the scene would have been like in a second Studio 60 season for this little gossip item, pulled from a USA Today story about Chenowith’s new fall series Pushing Daisies:

“Meanwhile, co-star Kristin Chenoweth’s SUV has been covered in toilet paper by her admirer and former employer, West Wing producer Aaron Sorkin. ‘He told me it’s a tradition dating back to silent-movie times, that boys who are sweet on girls toilet-paper their cars,’ she says. (Her publicist Friday declined comment on the status of their on-again, off-again relationship.)”

You know, I’ve kind of dismissed all the talk that Sorkin was just recycling his private life in the show, but … but … man, that totally sounds like something Matt would do, doesn’t it? We lost a good opportunity for banter there, for sure.

Meanwhile: If somebody TP’d your car, would you buy that as a token of affection, or would you consider it a token that it’s time to be off-again again? And if it’s the former, would you expect his next token of affection to be cleaning up the mess?

Studio 60, ABC, Aaron Sorkin, Kristen Chenowith

A couple of months ago, Cheryl, the original writer on this blog, posted a link to an interview in which Amanda Peet shared her opinion on Studio 60’s troubles. Now, it’s D.L. Hughley’s turn. In an interview with The Onion A.V. Club, the actor who played Simon has this to say when asked about the show:

The A.V. Club: Were you surprised at what happened with Studio 60?

D.L. Hughley: No. I think that like most things that are highly touted—the number-one draft pick—we crumpled under the weight of expectations. I think that’s a fairly common phenomenon.

AVC: What do you think it could have done differently?

DLH: I think we could have not taken ourselves so seriously. We pulled back the curtain too much. It’s like when you go to a restaurant: It can be the best restaurant in the world, but I just want to eat the meal. I don’t want to know how they make the steak. I think we spent so much time explaining and making what we did “important.” We weren’t inclusive enough. We had conversations with ourselves to hear ourselves.

AVC: While you were still filming, did you have any sense of a backlash?

DLH: Absolutely. I don’t think that any of us were shocked. The pilot, I thought it was some of the most well-written television I’d ever seen, and it was the reason I was excited about doing it. But then we just became too aware of ourselves. It’s tough to have a show be about a medium that you love and respect—meaning comedy—and see people… It’s like seeing a pretty girl with somebody else, and they just don’t treat her right. It kinda hurts.

I’m not sure how possible it is to not be aware of yourself when people are throwing rocks at you. But I have wondered what the season would have looked like if they’d been able to write and produce all the episodes in a buzz-free environment, before the show got any critical response, good or bad.

_{Photo: NBC.com}

Studio 60, NBC, D.L. Hughley, A.V. Club

“Happy birthday!” one day late to Matthew Perry, who turned 38 yesterday. And while we’re spreading around the good wishes, here are more belated felicitations to the Studio 60 family members who’ve celebrated over the last few months:

• Thomas Schlamme (director) turned 57 on May 22
• Aaron Sorkin (creator/writer) turned 46 on June 9
• Timothy Busfield (Cal) turned 50 on June 12
• Mark McKinney (Andy) turned 48 on June 26, four days before I did

Everybody now, at your computers, sing a nice “Happy Birthday” to all five fellows. Lovely!

Studio 60, Matthew Perry, Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, Timothy Busfield, Mark McKinney

So we would have loved to see acting nominations for the terrific regulars on this show, writing nominations for Sorkin’s scripts, appreciation for the cool set and stylish art direction, and a Best Drama nom to wrap it all up. But we’re not too surprised, are we, that Emmy skipped over Studio 60 in those categories? What’s great is that the show actually did get a fair amount of recognition, with five nominations in the following categories:

• Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series: Elizabeth Barnes, Francine Maisler, and Liberman/Patton Casting.
• Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-camera Series: Thomas Del Ruth, for the pilot episode.
• Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series: Thomas Schlamme, for the pilot episode.
• Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series: Eli Wallach as Eli Weintraub.
• Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series: John Goodman as Judge Robert Bebe (above).

All but the directing prize will be given out on Saturday, September 8 at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, with the Primetime Emmy Awards hitting the tube the following weekend on Sunday, September 16.

Best of luck to all the nominees!

_{Photo: NBC.com}

Studio 60, NBC, Emmys, Thomas Schlamme, John Goodman, Eli Wallach

Hi, I’m Terri, and I’m going to be keeping this “Watching Studio 60″ blog going — for the folks in the U.K. who are watching the series for the first time; for the folks in the U.S. who are excited about the DVD release in October; and for the (possibly very few) folks like myself who hold out the hope that maybe, one day, when all the trash talk subsides, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip will work itself up a little cult following. I’m going to keep the flame burning for a while.

Personally, I’ve never understood why this show was so viciously reviled. You’d think Aaron Sorkin had gone around and personally stole everybody’s lunch money. As far as I’m concerned, any show that brings Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford into my living room once a week is a good thing — and if they’re spouting Sorkin-speak, so much the better. I found the show entertaining, sometimes thought-provoking, and entirely worth my time each week.

If others didn’t … well, okay. That’s the way it goes. I don’t care for police procedurals and reality shows. So I don’t watch them.

What I don’t get is people who watch shows they hate just so they can make sure they still hate them, then somehow blame the show for their wasted time. The bulk of writing from repeat-angry-viewers spewing hatred at shows like Studio 60 and another show I thought was panned all out of proportion, John from Cincinnati, has just astounded me. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it! Is that such an impossible concept? Talk about that remote in your hand being a crack pipe.

Anyway, I’m going to try to keep some positive dialog about Studio 60 going here, as well as news and gossip about what the cast members are doing now. If you’re also thinking good thoughts about the show, please share them in the comments as we go along. I’m not the only one still on the Studio 60 bandwagon, am I? Am I? Helloooooo?

_{Photo: NBC.com}

Studio 60, NBC, Aaron Sorkin, Bradley Whitford, Matthew Perry