Watching Studio60

Five questions that popped into my head while re-viewing “B-12″:

1. Why were they doing a hostage sketch in the first place? I guess I could see how the news stories could have crept into Darius and Lucy’s ideas for the sketch, but no matter where the Grosse Pointe stand-off stood at showtime — ongoing, ended peacefully, or ended violently — the sketch still would have been in bad taste. I suppose maybe nobody worried about it because nobody ever expected the sketch to get on the air; still, it’s something I’d expect a killjoy like Andy to have flagged.

2. If there were an Olympics of bantering, would Martha O’Dell win? Matt and Danny are world-class, but in two episodes now she’s pretty much shut them down every time — mostly, I think, by not caring about winning, and being tickled that the guys so very, very much do.

3. Or would Andy shut down the competition? He’s kind of the anti-banterer, isn’t he. I’d kind of love to see a conversation between him and Martha. They’d either have a hoot of a discussion about how silly everybody else is, or sort of implode since they both need someone to react against.

4. Have the musicians always been playing from the balcony? That’s what it looked like Corinne Bailey Rae was singing from, anyway. I’m pretty sure Sting was on the main stage, right? I was sort of surprised to see her floating up there, but maybe I’ve got the stage set-up all mixed up. And speaking of Rae …

5. Was her song “Trouble Sleeping” specifically picked as a backdrop for that scene between Danny and Jordan? Boy, was it perfect, lending the same sort of heart-tugging backdrop to a scene between not-quite lovers that Sting’s “Fields of Gold” did for Matt and Harriet in “The Long Lead Story.” The lyrics are all pretty appropriate to Jordan’s distress, Danny’s compassion, and the elephant in the room that is their unspoken love for each other. But the look on Danny’s face when Jordan turned around and looked so desperate and defeated, the way he immediately switched from light banter to caring and concern, with “I’m falling in love” ringing again and again in the background tell the tale just beautifully. Nicely done all around.

Studio 60, NBC, B-12, commentary