Watching Studio60

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