Watching Studio60

We’re taking a second look at “The West Coast Delay,” the fourth episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which originally aired on October 9, 2006. Following up on yesterday’s review, here’s a recap of the episode. Tune in tomorrow for a listing of memorable lines, and Saturday for five questions.

Apparently, Matt took Danny’s directive from the last episode to heart, because he’s asked the writer’s room to contribute to the coming week’s Studio 60. Well, to contribute 90 seconds worth of material. But hey, you gotta start somewhere! Ricky and Ron are aware of the need for those 90 seconds to be top-notch if they’re ever going to get 90 seconds more, and when one of the writers submits a little “News 60″ rant for Simon, it seems they’ve found their material. Boy, that was easy. Maybe … a little too easy?

Not easy at all is Harriet’s effort to get some relationship closure with Matt. She brings him a peace offering — a baseball bat, signed by a pitcher. Unfortunately, though, said pitcher also wrote his phone number upon it, and is now going out with Harriet. Matt pays plenty of lip service to the notion that he shouldn’t date Harriet while he’s her boss, but the bat makes him batty. Not much closure going on there.

Jordan wishes she had more closure with her former husband, who’s opened up their past and his imagination to profit from embarrassing stories about his exec ex. She talks about it over lunch with her friend Martha O’Dell, but unless they’re on the record, Martha gives no advice. So they’re on to the business at hand, which is that Martha wants to do a backstage story on Studio 60 for Vanity Fair, and that involves full access and the agreement of Matt and Danny. Jordan has an idea that if Martha just buttons her blouse a few buttons lower, the OK will be easy to get.

Matt does give the OK to the 90 seconds Ricky and Ron bring him, and presents it to Simon. Since the whole cast is gathered in Harriet’s room at the time, and there’s the usual amount of awkwardness between her and Matt, Tom decides the time has come for him to guide Matt on the ways of women. He’s got lots of alleged experience based on his breakup with a woman named Paula, and his advice somehow involves both Strindberg plays and a singing group called the Bombshell Babies.

For a crazy moment, Matt goes along, and actually gets a Bombshell Baby to sign a stiletto boot with her measurements, with the idea that giving this to Harriet will get back at her for the bat. Fortunately, the Baby in question is a better wing-person than Tom, and says the right things to dissuade him from going through with it. She makes sense, and gets her boot back to boot.

Being that Matt’s coming unhinged over Harriet and her jock boyfriend — though he steps back from the Bombshell Babies, he also sits down while holding the bat and breaks a window — it would seem like a really poor time for a snarky journalist to have unlimited backstage access. But Jordan wants it, so Danny wants it, so Matt wants it. Turns out they need the Vanity Fair coverage more than Vanity Fair needs to cover them, Vanity Fair-reading eyeballs being worth more to advertisers than normal eyeballs, and presumably more than Rapture-reading eyeballs.

Prurient eyeballs are going to get an eyeful of Jordan’s embarrassing past; not only is her husband selling their story on the internet, but her assistant informs her the man is going on Geraldo on Monday. But for now, it’s Friday, and Jordan’s going to go watch the show at Studio 60. Let’s see, reporter backstage, writer’s room material onstage, what could possibly go wrong?

This: Although the writer’s room material performs great in the live East Coast run, to the degree that Simon actually compliments Ricky and Ron and grants them pride of authorship, Martha O’Dell and her laptop quickly turn up an online video that’s making the rounds, showing the exact same material being performed by a stand-up a year ago. Whoops. Our heroes determine to break into the West Coast feed to issue a disclaimer and apology and hopeful legal sidestep. Well, that’s after Matt gets disentangled from the suit of armor he runs into when he sees the pitcher kissing Harriet. She runs after him to disavow any active participation in the kiss, but he’s already on crisis control.

Breaking into the feed involves technical challenges, which Cal is on top of, kinda, he thinks, probably. There’s also the need for an audience, which must be scraped off of Sunset Boulevard late at night, looking pretty much as you’d expect. Ricky and Ron refuse to give up the writer who did the cribbing, even going so far as to offer to resign themselves, which to my surprise nobody jumps on. I guess covering for an unoriginal content-thief is their way of showing they’re respectable guys, or so it goes in the ethos of comedy shows.

The break-in goes off smoothly … but, wait! What’s this? Turns out that stand-up who did the material a year ago didn’t write it either, but another guy. So … another break-in! And that goes off smoothly if a little stupidly … but wait! What’s this? Ricky and Ron remembered that second name, and it turns out to be someone who used to write for the show, lo, even at the time he wrote the disputed material. So, Simon, at this point pretty much disgusted with his entire choice of career, has to do one more break-in to say, essentially, “Never mind.” But we’re spared the sight, because our particular feed is through.

Studio 60, NBC, The West Coast Delay, recap