Watching Studio60

Consider this: An hour-long drama about a hard-charging network executive who’s juggling the demands of her job with those of a new baby and a new marriage. She’s got to fight daily for both the high ground and the bottom line, while facing constant challenges and second-guessing from her sharky boss and scheming underlings. Not to mention a viewing public that would rather watch crummy reality shows than brilliant scripted programming.

Would you watch that? I’d watch that, if it was written by Aaron Sorkin and starred Amanda Peet as the embattled Jordan McDeere; Bradley Whitford as her husband, Danny Tripp; Steven Weber as her shifty boss, Jack Rudolph; and as many Studio 60 cast members as they could afford to wedge in as friends and colleagues.

The idea for The Jordan Show was floated in an item on the Philadelphia Daily News site, after Peet — who’s doing lots of press right now for Martian Child — mentioned how much she wanted to work with Sorkin again, and suggested somebody pitch him a Jordan spin-off. Interviewer Howard Gensler quickly obliged, suggesting that Studio 60’s sprawling cast and troublesome show-within-a-show are what didn’t work, and streamlining the concept to focus on Jordan, her job, and her family.

It’s an interesting thought. I don’t know that it’s the first thing I’d have thought of spinning off — wouldn’t Cal be a cute center for a sit-com, directing and trouble-shooting at home the way he does on the set? — but it’s not a bad idea. Then again, an article on Film.com makes a case for Peet being box-office and ratings poison, so maybe Sorkin should just stick to making movies with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts for a while.

What characters would you spin off from Studio 60, and how would you do it? Pitch your own ideas in the comments.

Studio 60, NBC, Amanda Peet, Aaron Sorkin

I’ve been thinking some more about the Studio 60 DVD documentary I wrote about a few days ago. There was a certain poignancy to it, of course, since the interview portions seem to have been done early on, before anybody knew the show was going to become a pinata for critics and bloggers.

What really struck me about it, though, was how down-to-earth the show descriptions and praise were. The show got such grief for pretending like what these Hollywood types do matters, and for being all smarter-than-thou. But was Aaron Sorkin’s stated goal really so out of line: “I thought, is it possible that we can show people who work in Hollywood also as good people who are good at their jobs trying to do something good?”

I thought the show really did a pretty great job of that. People who care about their jobs like to believe their jobs are important, no matter what it is they’re doing. You want to feel like you’re making a valuable contribution to the world, you want to pump yourselves up for hard work by believing it’s meaningful. Studio 60 was about people trying to do that, written by people trying to do that.

It was a little touching when Thomas Schlamme said, “It is about hard work, it’s not about the fun and games of living in Hollywood and the sort of romantic nature of what our lives are like. These are people who get up really early and work really late, and usually don’t go to bed, they’re going to live here in this environment which is our show.”

Speaking for those he wrote about, and no doubt, those he worked with. Especially if it really took ten hours to get those tracking shots.

I suppose, in the end, the critics and the naysayers won with their message that, no, it’s not possible to show people who work in Hollywood as good people, good at their jobs, trying to do something good — and swelled-headed to think so, besides.

Speaking for myself, though, I thought they were good, on screen and off. And I appreciated the hard work.

_{Photo by Terri Mauro}

Studio 60, NBC, DVD, documentary

When the first reports starting coming out about Nielsen’s new “live plus seven” ratings, and the boost they’ve given to the numbers for Journeyman, struggling new occupant of Studio 60’s old spot, it made me wonder: Would this kind of appreciation have helped Sorkin’s show?

Journeyman picked up a million extra viewers in this revised estimate, making it one of the top beneficiaries, certainly among new shows. Does this mean that Monday at 10 p.m. is a hard time for many folks to catch a show live? Looks like it: According to a Media Life Magazine report from last November, “The live-plus-seven-day rating for NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is 136 percent higher than its live rating in DVR homes.” That sounds like a pretty hefty ratings boost to me.

Would it have been enough to save the show? This blogger thinks so, and I’d like to believe it, too. But I don’t think it was just ratings that killed Studio 60, but the groundswell of critical lambasting and mockery it received, combined, probably, with its cost. Still, it would have been nice to have those numbers included and appreciated, and if they kept up this high throughout the season, who knows, maybe NBC would have given it some extra time.

What I’m really going to take away from this, though, is the feeling that if you really love a show, and you want it to succeed, and it’s struggling, and especially if you have a Nielsen box, for goodness sake, watch that puppy live. Record it if you must, for future rewatches and adoration, but make the time commitment to view it when it airs and talk it up right after. Barring a schedule snafu or night job, our enthusiasm for something as great as Studio 60 should probably make it impossible to wait a second more than one week to see what’s next.

If your audience is 136 percent more likely to watch your show sometime, later, whenever it’s convenient, instead of right when delivered, maybe that’s not necessarily such a good sign.

_{Photo of DVR remote by Terri Mauro}

Studio 60, NBC, DVR, Journeyman

Okay, underwear designed by the former Josh Lyman. But still!

Normally, a purchase of fancy underwear from a place like Frederick’s of Hollywood couldn’t be said to support anything but the body within. But Clothes Off Our Backs, the auction site to benefit children’s charities founded by Bradley Whitford (Studio 60’s Danny) and his wife, Jane Kaczmarek, is giving online buyers a chance to make frilly underthings philanthropic.

From now through November 5, nearly two dozen corsets will be on the auction block for charities like America’s Second Harvest, the Art of Elysium, World Education, and autism research. Among the offerings is the red number pictured here, designed by Whitford and Kaczmarek themselves. It’s described as “a regal corset in elegantly patterned snakeskin silk in fuchsia and chartreuse. Accented with pleating at the bust, hem and back, and finished with a halter neckline.”

There are currently no bids, but you have to start at $300 to open.

Also still awaiting their opening bids as of this writing are corsets designed by Ashley Olsen, Kidada Jones, Eva LaRue, Aisha Tyler, Ginnifer Goodwin, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Patricia Arquette, Jeremy Piven, Ashlee Simpson and Mandy Moore.

Already garnering offers in the $300-plus range are Fergie, Debra Messing, Andy Garcia, Virginia Madsen, Kim Kardashian, Maria Menounos, Sophia Bush, Gabrielle Union and Nicky Hilton.

Surely some Whitford fan’s got a few hundred bucks hanging around to put a lacey unmentionable he helped designed into that company. Who’s got $300? My stock’s tied up in cheap undershirts and sports bras, or I’d totally pitch in.

Studio 60, NBC, Bradley Whitford, Jane Kaczmarek, Clothes Off Our Backs

According to the More4 site, “The Harriet Dinner, Part 2″ was the episode broadcast last night in the U.K.; it originally aired in February 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 - R/O)
• Studio 60 Guide

For those of us who saw “The Harriet Dinner, Part 2″ nine months ago, it’s the one in which all the plot threads I listed last week for Part 1 get tied up, some neatly, some in a big old ugly tangled knot. By the end, Danny and Jordan are together (yay!), Matt and Harriet are apart (like that’ll last), Tom and Lucy are reconciled (aww), Simon and Darius are done with their fight, Jack has made the world safe for dirty words on the news, and thanks to Cal’s Noah’s Ark approach to snake control, the stage has been torn up.

Just another day in show biz.

More importantly, this is an episode that really set up the major storylines for the rest of the season. We’re in happy Danny-and-Jordan land now, with baby silliness and childbirth drama to come. Meanwhile, the most recent in this series of breakups with Harriet sends Matt into a tailspin that’s nothing but trouble for his mental health and the ratings. Jack’s walk on the right side moves along the softening of his character; he’s maybe no longer the coyote now, just the snake in danger of being attacked by bigger bad guys.

Studio 60, NBC, The Harriet Dinner

Wondering what that documentary on the Studio 60 DVD set is all about? If you haven’t got your own discs to pop in and see, spend 24 minutes with me here and I’ll give you a look. I’ll try to describe the general flow of the thing, the people and the scenes, with a few good quotes sprinkled in.

The documentary starts in a way that made me think my DVD player had messed up and I was coming in mid-show — we see the S60 set getting built from the ground up in fast-forward, and hear that although most TV-show sets fake a second story, this one really had an entirely functional second level. And just as I was starting to fiddle with the rewind, up came the letters:

In Depth: The Evolution of Studio 60

And now, following a couple of establishing scenes from the show, here’s Timothy Busfield, who the caption reminds us played Cal Shanly. He’s talking soft and talking fast, as if he didn’t want anybody to know he’s still speaking Sorkin-ese. He talks about how Aaron and Tommy really wanted a theater to shoot in, since there’s no romance to a movie set. Then, speaking of Tommy Schlamme, here he is.

Schlamme: I kept thinking about, this is a group of people who get together every week and put on a show. This is a group of people who get together every week and put on a show. And as I kept, that was the mantra, I went, “Well, isn’t that a theater experience?”

Carlos Barbosa, Set Designer, talks about the art deco look of the show’s “shell,” and then we’re back to Busfield, who’s, I guess, our host? He’s talking on the phone like we’re interrupting him. That’s okay, we’ll wait.

(more…)

That Steven Weber is one busy dude. The erstwhile Jack Rudolph on Studio 60 has a guest-starring role coming up on Brothers & Sisters. He’s got a Lifetime movie, More of Me, co-starring Molly Shannon as a woman who splits herself into three, coming up on November 17. He’s “a spewer of hyperbolic, liberal-leaning outrage” in a Huffington Post blog. And now, once again, he’s set to be a sit-com star.

According to TVGuide.com, Weber has been tapped to play the lead role in NBC’s Zip, about, to quote, “a Beverly Hills hanger-on who, with a colorful cast of accomplices, concocts one scheme after another to ‘make it big’ and provide for his three kids.” Wow. Is it just me, or does that sound terrifically unpromising? Sounds like something Jordan would make a joke about.

TV Squad reports that this is not the first time around for Zip, which was previously rejected by NBC as a pilot with a different cast. I think they made the right choice the first time around.

Weber has done the sit-com thing before, with Wings and Cursed. I don’t know that I’d say he should never do the sit-com thing again. But more recently, he’s been doing such a great job in more dramatic roles, with Studio 60 and Once and Again before that. I’m looking forward to see what he can do opposite Rachel Griffiths in Brothers & Sisters. A silly sit-com with a weak-sounding premise? Not so much. But maybe he’ll make it work.

Studio 60, NBC, Steven Weber

My Studio 60 DVD set has finally arrived, oh joy! And as I did with my Brothers & Sisters set on that blog, I’m going to put up a bunch of photos here for those who have not yet had the pleasure of unboxing the thing. Apologies in advance for the fact that both my camera and my photography skills are sub-par.

The photo above shows the back of the box and the three cases it contains. The packaging is pretty simple: The box is thin cardboard, open on one side and tucked in as a flap on the other. Each thin plastic case holds two discs. The contents of odd-numbered discs are outlined on the front of each case, even-numbered on the back. Information includes title of episode, writer, director, original airdate, and a brief description. Discs One-Five have four episodes each. The sixth disc has two episodes plus a special feature, “In Depth: The Evolution of Studio 60.” The only other extra is a commentary on the pilot episode, on Disc One.

Below are the fronts and the backs of the cases:

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According to the More4 site, “The Harriet Dinner, Part 1″ was the episode broadcast last night in the U.K.; it originally aired in January 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 - R/O)
• Studio 60 Guide

For those of us who saw “The Harriet Dinner, Part 1″ nine months ago, here’s a refresher.

(more…)

Aaron Sorkin’s not the only one doing the New York theater thing this season. According to an item on Playbill’s site, Sarah Paulson, Studio 60’s Harriet, will be appearing off-Broadway in Crimes of the Heart, a revival of the play by Beth Henley to be directed this time around by Kathleen Turner. Paulson earlier appeared in the play under Turner’s direction at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

The play centers on the Magrath sisters — never-married Lenny, much-married Meg, and Babe, who just shot her husband. Paulson will play Meg, following in the footsteps of Mary Beth Hurt, who played the character in the play’s original Broadway run in the early ’80s, and Jessica Lange, who played her in the 1986 movie.

In a bit of trivia, Paulson starred opposite Lange a few years ago in a Broadway production of The Glass Menagerie, with Lange as the mother, Amanda, and Paulson as her daughter, Laura.

(more…)

So I got an e-mail from BarnesandNoble.com yesterday informing me that my Studio 60 DVDs are delayed, and will really be shipping out any old minute now over the next five business days. Sigh.

Fortunately, I found a tiny bit of solace on YouTube, on which Warner Home Video has posted a minute or so of the pilot episode with commentary by Sorkin and Schlamme (see above, or click here). They’re talking about the set, and the fact that cast members were willing to come and just mill around to make it look like the real backstage of the show-within-a-show. Actually, didn’t I hear just about exactly that same commentary on the pilot episode of The West Wing? Sounds like a good excuse to get those discs out. While I wait.

In other DVD-related news, here’s word on an additional special feature: TV on DVD Buzz reports that, in addition to the commentary exerpted above, there’s a behind-the-scenes documentary entitled “The Evolution of Studio 60.” What kind of evolution, I wonder, and measured at what point? I mean, is it the evolution of the show from idea to completion? From hyped hit to perceived disaster? From entertainment satire to romantic comedy? There’s lots of evolution to be looked back on, you know? I’d probably enjoy watching something early and hopeful, but it’s going to seem a little sad, too, if it’s oblivious to the eventual outcome.

It’s a big Sorkin week this week, with The Farnsworth Invention opening on Broadway this past Monday for previews. According to an item in the New York Observer, the playwright got a standing ovation on opening night. I’ll gladly give him one myself when that S60 set gets here. If it gets here. Ever.

Studio 60, NBC, DVD, Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme

While I’m impatiently waiting for Barnes and Noble to send me my long-awaited Studio 60 DVD set, already, let me distract myself by writing a little more about a show with an oblique S60 connection, Pushing Daisies.

As I mentioned in an earlier post about Pushing Daisies, that connection is Kristin Chenowith, who plays a slightly unhinged waitress in the show, and sometime girlfriend of Aaron Sorkin for real life, as well as allegedly being the model for Harriet Hayes. For fans of the later years of The West Wing, she’s also familiar as PR pro Annabeth Schott. Before the show premiered, I was mostly interested in it because of her. Now, I wish they’d cut down on her scenes and just show more of the really completely adorable leads.

I was surprised by how much I like this show. I thought it was going to be way too quirky and cutesy even for me. But so far, it works. The narration may get old eventually, and likewise the Mary Engenbreit-like set decoration, but again, have I mentioned how completely adorable Lee Pace and Anna Friel are? They are. Adorable. Completely.

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The DVDs are coming! The DVDs are coming!

Tomorrow, October 16, is the day the Studio 60 DVD set is finally released. I’ve got mine on order, and hope it will come on time or soon thereafter. I’m very interested in watching these episodes again absent the atmosphere of critical loathing that surrounded them during their broadcast debuts. It’s hard to shut that buzz out when you’re watching a show, hard not to think “Boy, they’re really going to pick on that” when a particular plot turn comes along.

According to the description of the set on the Warner Home Video site, the only extra we can expect is a commentary on the pilot episode by Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme. Amazon’s page doesn’t even list that, so I’m holding out a shred of hope that there may be other goodies that aren’t being promoted because the folks in charge thinks nobody much cares.

Once I get my set, I’m going to start doing recaps, memorable lines, and five questions about each episode, as I do on my Brothers & Sisters blog. They’ll be indexed on a separate page to make them a good resource for anybody discovering the show or wanting to remember particular episodes. I hope readers here will make their comments on those episode recaps as well, to share their own impressions.

Speaking of which: Share your thoughts on the DVD set here. Have you ordered it? Will you be running out to the store first thing tomorrow, or are you just planning to pick it up somewhere down the line? Or, maybe, not at all? Tell your plans in the comments, and what you hope to find when you open the box.

Studio 60, NBC, DVD

There was a time, not so very long ago, when you could still go on NBC.com and find some material on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Sure, the section of the site dedicated to the show had been stripped down some since cancellation. Most of the video links led to an ad for the DVD set. The photo section was disorganized and poorly labeled. And the entry page seemed to be serving as an ad for Saturday Night Live as much as S60. But at least it was there, bearing witness to the fact that at one time, on NBC, there was a show featuring those actors and that writer and that storyline and that title.

Not anymore.

The Studio 60 pages are gone, cancelled, wiped from the face of the Web. Go ahead, click here and see. Or click on that “NBC Official Site” in my blogroll — it worked when I put it there, honest. Or Google “Studio 60 NBC” and click on the link for the NBC site. “We’re sorry. The file you have requested is no longer available.” That’s what you’ll see, before the page redirects to NBC.com proper.

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According to the More4 site, “Monday” was the episode broadcast last night in the U.K.; it originally aired in January 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 - R/O)
• Studio 60 Guide

For those of us who saw “Monday” many months ago, here’s a refresher: It’s the one where Danny calls Jordan, continues to call her even after she blocks his number, has his friends fax her with recommendations, and when she asks him to please back off, replies “No.” It’s the one where Matt bids on Harriet, Tom asks out Lucy, Simon and Darius disagree about a Fruit of the Loom sketch, and Jordan wrangles with a new head of Illiterate Alternative Programming who’s read a stupid book about power. And it’s the one where Jack and Wilson wage war over the FCC ruling and make a deal with the father of viola-playing Kim that involves her going out with Tom on the very night of his just-made date.

Whew! Remember all of that? If not, there are some good clips on YouTube to help you out. You can enjoy:

• A promo for the episode
• Danny pursues Jordan
• Tom and Lucy being adorable
• Jack learning Chinese
• Jack saying, “You’re a moron”
• A Danny-Jordan music video
• and another Danny-Jordan music video.

Tom and Lucy make a cute couple, don’t they? And with all the silliness this episode with Matt bidding on Harriet and Danny stalking Jordan, it’s kind of refreshing to just see a guy walk up to a girl and say, “Hey! Want to go on a date with me?” Ah, the simple life of the hired help.

Studio 60, NBC, Monday