Watching Studio60

Is the mere making of an entertainment program not weighty enough subject matter for the brilliant writing of Aaron Sorkin? That seems to be the theory being floated around now about the perceived failure of Studio 60. Nathan Corddry mentions in the interview linked to yesterday that the show really got good when Sorkin started writing about West Wing-like matters, and now Hank Azaria, who stars in Sorkin’s forthcoming Broadway venture The Farnsworth Invention, seems to think the same.

When asked in a New York Magazine interview for his take on Studio 60, Azaria said: “You know, I thought it was brilliant. But ultimately, I felt similarly to how I felt about Sports Night — you could see the brilliance in it, but I don’t know that it exactly applied to the subject matter in a way that was satisfying. Focusing on the specific inner workings of a comedy or sports TV show clearly couldn’t sustain a series.”

The play is about TV, too, but the creation of the medium as opposed to one program within it. Of the difference, Azaria says, “I feel that this play—and not just ’cause I’m in it—this is Aaron’s instinct focused correctly. He’s taking a historical event and humanizing it, like he did with A Few Good Men. That’s when I think Aaron is most resonant.”

Personally, I found both Sports Night and Studio 60 to be sufficiently resonant, and I believed that for the characters, their work was as big a deal as any historical event. But Sorkin does seem to succeed better with a larger audience when he’s bringing his particular approach to a bigger canvas, so let’s hope Farnsworth and his other endeavor this year, the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, find some significant success.