Watching Studio60

Five questions that popped into my head while re-viewing the fourth Studio 60 episode, “The West Coast Delay”:

1. What did the writers do with “Hal’s” idea? Ricky told everybody to work on it, but what Simon read was pretty much word for word, and apparently word for word what the earlier user used. Perhaps whatever time the writers devoted would have been better spent sneaking around, trying to prove their colleague was a dirty plagiarizer.

2. Speaking of plagiarism, do shows like this do any copyright checks at all on sketches? I suppose there’s simply no time, with lines being written right up until showtime. But it seems likely there’d be some legal drone somewhere plugging key words into a search engine to make sure that, say, nobody else has ever done “Peripheral Vision Man.” OK, bad example — why would anybody do that?

3. How passive aggressive was Harriet’s gift? Bad enough it was a bat given to her by a guy she’s dating, and it has his phone number on it, but it’s also from the Dodger game at which she sang, an event that was widely believed to be involved in her breakup with Matt. Honest mistake? Not likely. For that kind of game-playing, I’m thinking she deserved to get a signed stiletto boot, possibly upside the head.

4. Whatever happened to Paula? Was the ex-girlfriend Tom was obsessing about ever mentioned beyond this episode? I mostly just remember his courtship with Lucy, and had forgotten about any earlier relationship info. Maybe because it was mentioned just this once?

5. Are Ricky and Ron the Matt and Danny of their own little show? These two guys seem to have their own complex team-minidrama going, what with Ron remembering Ricky’s troublemaking speech verbatim and snarking a little during Ricky’s speeches this episode. In an alternate universe, I bet they’d be bantering and debating and exhibiting male bonding just like our two heroes. In this universe, however, they can’t be gone soon enough.

Studio 60, NBC, The West Coast Delay, commentary