Watching Studio60

Seriously - I ended up crying last night. Now I know I am a big softie and tend to cry at a lot of movies, books and TV shows, but you have to agree that last nigths epsiode was special. So lets recap:

We started off with Danny and Jordon waiting in the hospital for her appointment with the baby doctor. It turns out that the father of her baby is an ex boyfriend who works for the Insurance office of NBS and he was the one who leaked the information about Danny’s slip with the cocaine. His motivation was the opportunity to sleep wth Jordan again. Later on in the show - Danny takes a moment out of the live broadcast to find Jordon and tells her that he is falling in love with her, and she had better get a good head start becuase he is coming after her. As declarations of love go - That was one of the best. Jordon, who had her mouth full, didn’t say a word, but her face told it all. Superb acting from both parties - and I cant wait to see where this goes.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch - Matt is full of Christmas spirit and wants to do a Christmas show. This is a break with tradition, but he is adament and asks the writing team - all three of them - to come up with ideas to pitch. He tells Cal that they need snow, and we hear that there was an earthquake which has isolated the warehouses that hold all the set decorations. Cal comes up with the idea of using shredded coconuts for the snow and proceeds to buy a truck load of coconuts. In trying to open one up he throws it on the writing table and breaks the table - coconut remains in tact, however, and we never find out how they eventually open them up - but we have snow at the end of the show, so obviously they succeed.

Harreit has lunch with and old flame who offers her the part of Anita Pallenberg in an upcoming movie about the Rolling Stones. He also admits that he is trying to date her again. Harriet tells Matt who is totally supportive and tells her she will be perfect in the part and they can work it into the down time from Studio 60. Later on in the show, Matt takes Harriet aside and they kiss - a wonderful touching moment, that causes Harriet to begin her news broadcast with ” Hi, I’m Matt”. Being a little cynical, I wonder if Matt didn’t do it because he knew the old flame was in the audience. Lets hope he really had the best intentions.

In a live news cast from Afghanistan, a solider uses the F word when a RPG explodes 50 feet from himself and the reporter. It got broadcast over the network and affliates and the FCC is causing problems, threatening to fine NBS some collosal sum of money that would effectively shut them down.. After much soul searching and advice from Lawyers and Jordon, Jack tries to offer his resignation to Wilson, who wont accept it, but instead tells Jack that this is the moment he has been waiting for for a long time. He intends to fight the FCC, will not pay a fine, will air the broadcast and will stand his ground.

Tom and Simon manage to inject their negativity towards Christmas into the writers, who struggle to come up with sketches for the show. However we do see some snippets of the final show and the sketch about Santa visiting little children every year - a play on Catching Predators - is hysterical.

More to the point, at the dress rehearsal, Danny finds out that muscians all over LA are calling in sick to give homeless New Orleans muscians, who are sleeping on sofas and unable to get work, an opportunity to get some play time. This will enable them to have money to send home for Christmas. The trombonist we see at dress is phenomenal, and Danny comes up with a plan - only revealed on the actual show. It is a truly inspirational piece of TV. An ensmble of New Orelans Jazz musicians plays “Oh Holy Night” against a back drop of black and white pictures from New Orleans. It is stunning, dramatic and inspired TV. I was sobbing.

When is the next show - we were promised trailers but they never happened.