Watching Studio60

Five questions that popped into my head while re-viewing “K&R Part II”:

1. Did they get tired of coming up with “we’re in the past now” costuming? I guess since the flashbacks weren’t that long ago, they didn’t need to do that much — just put a cap on Matt’s head and take off Andy’s glasses, and it’s 2001! Still, since Andy was playing fundamentally the same role in writer’s rooms present and past — The Guy Who Asks Matt Questions — it would have been fun to give him a really goofy haircut or hat or something jarringly past.

2. Why are Tom’s parents at the studio? Don’t they live in another part of the country altogether? Might have made more sense to fly Tom to Podunkville than to keep everybody sequestered in the Entertainment News capital of the world.

3. Why isn’t Lucy in with Tom? Surely the guy could use a little aid and comfort, and the military man sure isn’t providing it. I mean, if Darius can be in with Tom’s parents (and I give that one another big huh?), Tom should have his girlfriend on hand. And if he says he wants to spare her, she should barge the heck in there anyway. You’d have to have some pretty heavy artillery on hand to, say, keep Harriet away from Matt in a situation like this.

4. Was that doctor auditioning for a spot in the Studio 60 cast? ‘Cause unless you’re working the hospital on Scrubs, surely that amount of sarcasm and levity is uncalled for. I keep expecting him to slip Danny a videotape and a headshot.

5. How pathetic does it make me that when I saw the reporter, Leon, the first thing that went through my head was “Hey, is that the dad from Even Stevens!” Pretty sad, I’m afraid. I can find no evidence that the actor in the shadows is the same one who played Shia LaBeouf’s pop, but it sure looked like him to me.

Studio 60, NBC, K&R Part II, commentary

I watched “K&R Part II” again on Monday night, and was reminded of how thankless is the task of the second episode of a three-parter (or really, for this particular series-ending block, the third episode of a five-parter). You know nothing’s going to get resolved, and that in fact things are only going to get worse, and so there’s a certain lack of satisfaction in getting to the end of it.

Still, there were some things I really liked about this particular episode, over and above the story arc it’s plopped in the center of:

• Cal gently correcting a frazzled Matt as he kept bungling details of the Jordan-Danny story
• Andy as the voice of experience on childbirth matters
• Matt and Harriet bickering affectionately rather than bitterly, and about something other than religion
• Very little of Mary, other than to set another plot in motion regarding Danny’s legal rights over the baby
• Acknowledgment of the fact that Lucy is Tom’s girlfriend, and should be involved in this plot somehow
• That fact that, although Tom’s parents are appropriately referenced, we don’t actually have to witness the sort of nasty dialog that would likely be taking place between Tom and his father
• The snarkiness of the military officer assigned to Tom; he doesn’t really have anything to do until Mark’s situation is resolved, so he might as well just sit around and tweak the show-business folk
• Any and all hospital scenes — I’m just a sucker for that storyline.

What did you like about this episode? Share it in the comments, and come back later this week for a recap, memorable lines, and five questions.

Studio 60, NBC, K&R II, review

Five questions that popped into my head while re-viewing “Breaking News”:

1. Was that Jordan pregnancy complications storyline a deliberate throwback to the ER episode “Love’s Labor Lost”? In that harrowing 1995 episode, Bradley Whitford played a young husband with his pregnant wife in the ER as complication piled upon complication — including, as I recall, preeclampsia — and Dr. Greene got more and more over his head. In the end, the baby lived but the wife died. Man, I still remember how traumatic that episode was. I had talked my mother, who usually found medical shows too emotionally wrenching, into watching this zippy new ER show with me, and then it had to be that episode. She was pretty ticked with me. Seeing Whitford in a similar situation now in Studio 60 brought it all back. If characters could have flashbacks to the experience of other characters played by the same actor, Danny would really have been panicking.

2. Did anybody else get a Timothy Busfield vibe from the actor playing Jordan’s ER doctor? Honestly, I was running off to IMDb to see if the guy was related in some way to the director of this particular episode. He’s not, as far as I can see, but it distracted the heck out of me anyway.

3. What was that song at the end? According to IMDB again, it was “Have a Little Faith in Me” by John Hiatt. And if hearing it like that, starting as Danny watches Jordan being wheeled off to surgery and running intermittently through Matt and Harriet’s faith-based discussion has you wanting to track it down on iTunes, I got the link right here.

4. Did Gran Bel Fisher pay extra for all the references? Sure, I get it, the military guy was using the info to check out Tom’s emotional state. But there were any number of ways he could have done that. Mentioning the name of that night’s musical act another time or three seems more like a product placement.

5. Should Mary be going after Jack? When Matt said he could come up with a million, she said they were definitely going out. Later, when the amount went up to multiple millions, Matt knew they had to find Jack. So, especially since Matt and Harriet are so not through, shouldn’t Mary just commence to flirting with Mr. Moneybags now? He’s getting divorced, right? Maybe he’d enjoy her “I am endlessly smart and attractive” schtick.

Studio 60, NBC, K&R Part I, commentary

I watched “K&R Part I” again last night, and again I loved the bedside byplay of Danny and Jordan, alternately sweet and tart, culminating in that marriage proposal. I loved it, even though I had just watched it on YouTube a short while before. Bradley Whitford acting scared to death and cocky simultaneously never gets old.

Nice to see Mary Tate get down to business and not have to pause periodically to declare how brilliant and/or sexy she is. I also like the way Cal knew all about the K&R business, and was right in there expressing his viewpoint in those conversations. Good to hear another voice outlining the rights and wrongs of a situation instead of our old faithfuls.

“Old” is the operative word for the argument Matt and Harriet have been having forever. I kind of enjoyed the “argument montage,” and we’ve certainly seen enough additions to it this season. On the one hand, if they’ve been fighting over it all these years and still love each other, that bodes well for them being able to live through many more years of bickering. On the other hand, it’s always possible that the reunion we know is coming will be just one more get-together followed by one more break-up. Since we don’t get to see any more of their relationship, I’m going to decide they last.

Besides, what’s she going to do, go back with Luke, again? He’s been pretty consistently a jerk for eight years.

It was apparently Simon’s turn to be missing in action this week, but everybody else was keeping busy — Jack, yelling at people both present and past; Harriet, praying where prayer was most assuredly called for; Matt, trying to fix things; and poor Tom, being advised by the least-helpful military envoy possible.

And in flashback, happy Andy, rejoicing in a wife and child we know will be gone before we see him in present times. At least this time, there were no mysterious guys with anagram names hanging around the writer’s room.

Come back later this week for a recap of “K&R Part 1,” memorable lines, and five questions.

Studio 60, NBC, Breaking News, review

Five questions that popped into my head while re-viewing “Breaking News”:

1. Couldn’t they have found something else for Jenna Fischer to do? Insert her into one of the sketches they showed or something? As it was, it looked like she was just passing by the building and they said, “Hey, Jenna, come in here and pretend you were the guest host!”

2. Who knew Nate Corddry could do drama? He’s been kind of a cute befuddled presence throughout the season, but he really came through in those scenes when he saw his brother in peril. If there was an Emmy for Outstanding Work in Facial Expressions, he woulda been a lock.

3. What’s Mary like in the courtroom? Is she all business? A cutthroat shark? Or does she do that flirty-and-then-serious thing there, too? ‘Cause I’d sure like to find her in contempt of court.

4. Does all that software Jack was going on about actually exist? The music one does (and notice that they have the S60 clip right on the front page of the site). The TV-making one I think was just a figment of a network executive’s fantasy, or we never would have seen an end to the writers strike.

5. Where was Cal? I hate it when the family’s not together. You could have traded in any, I don’t know, five scenes with crazy Mary to find some Cal time. Or was it Timothy Busfield’s turn to disappear?

Studio 60, NBC, Breaking News, commentary

I watched “Breaking News” again last night, and you can tell the show is really taking a turn for the dramatic in its last few episodes. About the only lightheartedness allowed was in the adorable flirting scenes between Tom and Lucy, and even they were colored by the knowledge that Tom was about to have the most terrifying night of his life. I really wish we could have had another season to watch this sweet little romance develop, but I guess we just have to imagine for ourselves that it does.

I also appreciated the subplot of Suzanne confronting Matt on his drug use — and then not taking his “Oh, I’m stopping” for an answer, but going to Danny. Suzanne’s been hanging around on the edges all season, providing funny exchanges here and there, and it was nice to see Merritt Wever get to play some serious stuff, too.

On the other hand, I could have done with a whole lot less of Mary Tate, that plot device in heels. I guess she has to be around this evening to get involved in the K&R stuff to come, but her continued questioning/flirting with Matt just grates. I guess if Luke was around to make Matt look good, maybe Mary’s around to make Harriet look better. Do we really have to wait four more episodes for them to get back together?

Speaking of annoying characters who need to go away, Jordan got bludgeoned quite a lot with Hallie, though at least we didn’t have to see that little weasel. Is this what Jack brought her on for, to threaten Jordan with? It put Jordan in an awfully uncomfortable position, and Danny didn’t make it any easier by doing what he wanted regardless. As glad as I am to not have to see Hallie anymore, it would have been kind of fun seeing her try to chastise Danny over the ratings. Jordan’s been too distracted by her pregnancy to put that girl in her place, but I’m thinking Mr. Tripp might have been up for the task.

But now we’re at the top of the roller coaster, and facing a long, scary, downhill race to the finish. Jordan’s off to the hospital. Tom’s brother is in captivity. And we’ve got just four episodes left with these people.

Come later this week for a recap of “Breaking News,” memorable lines, and five questions.

Studio 60, NBC, Breaking News, review

If you’ve been following along with my Studio 60 Revisited Monday marathon, we’ve now reached what turned out to be our final night with our friends from Studio 60. Not the final episode, of course — it’s going to take five episodes to get through this one particular night of hostage-negotiating and birth-giving and pill-kicking and media-baiting and flash-backing and conscience-finding and romantic reconciliation. But tonight’s pick — “Breaking News,” the show’s eighteenth episode, originally broadcast on May 31, 2007 — is the one that gets all of that action going.

As I wrote back in November of last year, when this episode aired for the first time in the U.K., “‘Breaking News’ was the one on which Jenna Fischer of The Office was the guest host for the show-within-a-show; Matt’s pill-popping out of a children’s vitamin bottle became a subject of discussion; the blonde lawyer was still wandering around flirting with Matt in a way that really should have been the product of a drugged imagination; Danny and Jordan argued over the show’s sliding ratings, and what might need to be done about that; and, oh yeah, Tom’s brother went missing in Afghanistan and Jordan collapsed, setting up the trilogy of ‘K&R’ episodes to come.”

Most importantly, though, after last week’s amusing but disorienting “Disaster Show,” it’s the one where Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford and Amanda Peet came back from wherever it was they were hiding last week. Welcome back! We’ve got a fresh batch of medical and psychological trauma waiting for ya!

Studio 60, NBC, Breaking News, commentary

Five questions that popped into my head while re-viewing “The Disaster Show”:

1. What the heck happened to Matt, Danny and Jordan? Or, maybe more to the point, Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, and Amanda Peet? It was just bizarre to have the three of them missing. Did the actors all have other commitments? Was there a mini-strike going on? Were they all trying to avoid Allison Janney? What?

2. Is Tom Jeter the hardest working man in show business? He seemed to be in every one of Janney’s disastrous sketches, and he still had time to exposition about the occurrence of disaster shows and help mess up his best friend’s love life.

3. What was with Lucy’s frumpy frock? She looked cute enough, I guess, but if you wanted to create a contrast between her and Simon’s scantily clad cuties, you couldn’t have done much better short of a burlap sack.

4. Does Matt have another reason for not being with Harriet besides the fact that they’re working together? It’s really not such a bad reason — Luke made an exception by trying to date and work with Harriet, and look how well that turned out.

5. Did anyone else notice West Wing references? It’s true, pretty much any Aaron Sorkin production is going to borrow from past Aaron Sorkin productions, but maybe it was the presence of Miss C.J. Cregg herself that made them pop up at me this time. Allison “making a list” reminded me of Leo on Big Block of Cheese Day, and Jack’s “I’m pretty drunk” took me back to Toby sitting in that hall in the early days of the Bartlett campaign, expecting to get fired. Did you pick up any references? Share them in the comments.

Studio 60, NBC, The Disaster Show, commentary

I watched “The Disaster Show” again last night. That was an odd little outing, wasn’t it? In a show with a big cast, it’s not unheard of to leave a character out of the mix — Jack, for example, was missing for a couple of episodes there — but for Matt, Danny, and Jordan to all be otherwise occupied? What show is this, anyway?

It was great to see Allison Janney, and boy, is she a good sport. It was fun to see her interacting again with Timothy Busfield, and it didn’t bother me, as it did some, that she was her actual starred-in-West Wing self and Busfield, who often acted with her on The West Wing, was playing another character. But it seems like such a missed opportunity for her not to get a chance to yell at Bradley Whitford. Bring Danny in from the parking lot already!

I’m happy to see Tom and Lucy’s relationship continuing with a trip to Hawaii. Not so happy to see a drawn-out illustration of the fact that Simon is a dog. We knew that already, right? Like we knew that Harriet is conflicted about Matt, and everybody is pretty sick of Harriet being conflicted about Matt. Without Matt actually being there, it’s like we’re marking time.

And yet, I’d still have to say it was an enjoyable episode. Cal in crisis-control mode is always fun to watch. I’ve been missing Jack, and it was great to have him back, drunkenly commenting on the ridiculousness of the bomb threat situation and the strike-impaired show. And if you’re going to throw a lot of slapstick physical comedy around, Janney will sure make it work for you.

I guess this was kind of a little rest between the emotionally heavy cycle that started with “The Harriet Dinner” episodes and ended with “4 A.M. Miracle,” and the long “K&R” day that actually starts with next week’s “Breaking News.” Nice to have a bit of a break from the angst, I guess, but now — bring it on.

Come later this week for a recap of “The Disaster Show,” memorable lines, and five questions.

Studio 60, NBC, The Disaster Show, review

I watched “4 A.M. Miracle,” and honestly, if they hadn’t already used up the “Matt sees an imaginary person” plot last week, I’d totally have thought the eerily in-the-know lawyer lady was a chemical trick of Matt’s brain. Well, that and the fact that she was also seen or known about by Danny, Suzanne, and Jordan. In this place, though, you can’t rule out mass psychosis.

Danny and Jordan continue to be crazy about each other, anyway, and I’m happy to see that Jordan is no longer checking sight lines before smooching. The fake baby subplot was a little silly, maybe, but I loved it for the way it showed the affection between Danny and Jordan, the obliviousness of Tom and Simon, and Cal’s sort of heedless enthusiasm (and way with a practical joke).

I’m glad we seem to be coming to an end of the Harriet-Luke movie shooting and relationship skirting, because I find both Luke and his movie sort of intolerable. Sure, it’s not cool for Harriet to keep working out her Matt issues in front of him, but making everybody keep working just to get back at her? Not cool either. Especially for that poor guy who had to keep shooting himself in the head. At any rate, it was nice to have her back at the Studio at the end, back upstairs, back to being Matt’s muse, and appropriately remorseful.

Once again, no Jack, but no Hallie either, so I’ll accept that compromise. Maybe they both actually go home at night.

Come back tomorrow for a full recap of “4 A.M. Miracle.”

Studio 60, NBC, The Friday Night Slaughter, review

Five questions that popped into my head while re-viewing “The Friday Night Slaughter” (and in honor of this flashback-heavy episode, that’s 1999-era Matthew Perry pictured, with vintage guest host Neve Campbell):

1. Who was that singer? She’s so unknown, she’s made up. According to IMDb, the character of singer/pharmacist Diana Valdes was played by actress Gina La Piana, who I see from her IMDb page has previously played characters named Hot Friend and Hoochie. So apparently she has some experience acting with her chest.

2. Was that supposed to be Danny on the couch? At one point, Flashback Matt nudges a sleeping figure and calls him Danny, but the voice that responds didn’t sound like Bradley Whitford’s to me, and we didn’t really see enough to tell who it was. Was Whitford not available when they shot those flashback scenes, or not interested in pretending to be younger? Maybe he saw how little a baseball cap served to de-age Matthew Perry, and decided to pass.

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I watched “The Friday Night Slaughter” again last night, and two things are clear: Matt and Harriet have always been ideologically ill-suited, and Luke has always been insufferably sure of himself.

Watching Matt and Harriet’s theological debates previously, it’s been possible to think that they’re the result of intolerance built up over time and proximity. But nope, Matt was pretty much attacking Harriet’s faith from the first day he knew her, accidentally at first, but sticking with it. If she’s been able to overlook that and be in this on-and-off relationship, and he’s been nuts about her despite the fact that she’s a honey-crusted nut bar, then there’s got to be some sort of destiny about their relationship. They were made for each other, and somewhere angels are having a good laugh.

Luke’s been in the way from the first day, too, and although there’s nothing so specific to dislike about the guy in the early days, he’s just so “the anti-Matt,” even then, that I can’t stand him. He shouldn’t be the one getting the girl, then or now. Too bad he couldn’t be a figment of Matt’s imagination, the embodiment of his jealousy, maybe, at the thought of Harriet being with anyone else.

As for Tim, Matt’s actual phantom self, I was surprised how affected I was by that final scene, where Tim’s wearing the baseball cap and Matt’s starting to realize that something’s not right. Nice twist there, with Matt suddenly looking more like present-day Matt, and then present-day Matt looking at the picture and realizing who he’d been thinking of all that time. I’m not sure if this is supposed to mean that Matt was having drug problems back then, or that he’s losing his grip now, but the latter is certainly true.

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Five questions that popped into my head while re-viewing “The Harriet Dinner Part 2″:

1. Is Wendy the anti-Harriet? That is, somebody with a bad-girl image, but who knows how to be nice to Matt, even when he’s being a jerk? She’s certainly got an unquestioningly patient way with the guy, putting up with the stiletto boot nonsense, and then letting him down gently when he reacts to being eviscerated by his true love by asking Wendy to be his girlfriend again. She’s a good friend, anyway. (A bit of trivia that I may be the last person to have figured out: While I knew that Wendy’s group, the Bombshell Babies, was supposed to be a takeoff on the Pussycat Dolls, I didn’t know that the actress who plays Wendy, Cyia Batten, actually was a Pussycat Doll. So she’s got some experience with the slutty costumes.)

2. Was Harriet purposely talking about wanting to sleep with Luke to hurt Matt? Talk about your acts of cruelty. She had to know that was the deadliest weapon in her arsenal, and the way she deployed it just before he went onstage was pretty brutal. Maybe she just got carried away; maybe she wanted to see if it would affect him, or thought it would not. But if it was at all deliberate, then I think he gets to take the victim high ground now for a little bit.

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I watched the episode “The Harriet Dinner Part 2″ again last night, and you know, for a so-called “good girl,” Harriet Hayes sure fights dirty, doesn’t she? Watching that ongoing argument was like witnessing a knife fight and being powerless to stop it.

And yet, there were so many delightful moments in this episode. I loved every second of Jordan and Danny’s rooftop exile, as they again bounced from banter to discussion of the state of Danny’s affections to silly efforts at rescue. I loved Jordan’s little magic trick, even though this time I knew it was coming, and I loved Danny’s race through the theater and into the parking garage to find her. It’s nice to see that one couple here knows how to communicate — in their own quirky way, sure, but in something like real time.

The scene in Tom’s dressing room between Jack and Zhang was pretty funny, too, with the revelation that Kim’s dad has known English all along. The way Jack talked back to him then, and the way Zhang went along with Jack’s FCC plan anyway, really enhanced my appreciation for both characters. And how nice to have Tom get off the hook, both with Jack and with Lucy. He really is a gentleman, but not exactly your go-to guy for high-pressure assignments.

Cal’s trouble with the dangerous critters was probably not a story that needed two episodes to tell, but it was worth it for his moments of exasperation and agony — lying to the cast about mold, sniping at the Humane Society lady, confessing all to Danny. And the breaking up of the stage paid off in the way Matt watched it, from his office, having already been torn apart himself.

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Five questions that popped into my head while re-viewing “The Harriet Dinner Part 1″:

1. So what damn Harriet crime did Matt commit? These two have been playing games since the show began, and it’s hardly been a one-way street (hello, Harriet? You didn’t know you were giving Matt a bat with another man’s phone number on it? Mm-hmm). While this prank was probably the most expensive, it’s certainly smarter than the stiletto boot incident, and it had a pretty good chance of being successful had Women United Through Faith not called a tie. She’s cried “breakup!” too many times and then slid back into mutual bantering to be able to unilaterally blame him for the state of their relationship. (Of course, having seen the end of the series, we know this one’s not going to hold, either.)

2. Was Jordan softening toward Danny before he locked her on that roof? The way she responded to his statement that he was going to stop pursuing her — a “Well … ” followed by a lengthy pause before “okay” — indicates that maybe she wasn’t quite as upset and determined to end things as she was in their last encounter. At least, unlike Harriet, Jordan was able to clearly articulate what damn Jordan crime Danny committed, and he was not tongue-tied like Matt in responding to it. (Speaking of which: Have we ever seen Matt that tongue-tied before?)

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