Watching Studio60

Please excuse a momentary departure from “Missing Studio 60” territory into “Missing The West Wing Too,” but I was so excited to be watching the season finale of Burn Notice last night (DVR’d from Thursday) and seeing Richard Schiff — Toby! — as the mysterious bad guy.

That’s probably a spoiler to those who haven’t watched their DVR’d episode of Burn Notice yet. And to prevent further spoilage, I’ll put the rest of this after the break.

So alright, my excitement was cut pretty short due to the brief life expectancy of mysterious bad guys on this show. A little cat and mouse, a few exchanges of dialogue on a rooftop, and — bang! — Schiff’s character was dispatched by an unseen sniper in a big splash of blood. Rats. I don’t know if being a regular on a USA Network show is really what I’d like to see for this actor’s career, but a nice recurring role wouldn’t hurt. Maybe that murdered character has an evil twin.

The writer’s blog for the show has a nice little bit about the casting:

“By the time we were writing, it was all blue skies and smooth sailing. And then we got some huge news: Richard Schiff signed on to play the man who burned Michael, Phillip Cowan. Now, allow us to be huge TV nerds for just moment. RICHARD SCHIFF? The guy from The West Wing. That Richard Schiff? Saying stuff we wrote? Wow. Let’s see, maybe I want to take another brush over that dialogue and make sure it’s worthy.”

Would have been nice to see a little more dialogue before the gunshots, but I’m just happy to see that face on my screen.

Studio 60, NBC, Burn Notice, USA, Richard Schiff