STUDIO SIXTY ON THE SUNSET STRIP - MONDAYS 10 P.M. ON NBC

Behind-the-scenes shows and movies have always been a staple of the entertainment industry. People who don’t work in television or movies find the process fascinating, and it is. Any creative process is fascinating, be it writing, painting, photography, or throwing clay pots. Television and movies have a special appeal, though – they’re thought of as glamorous and romantic by people not involved in them. The appeal of making thousands of dollars for appearing on TV, in particular, has an attraction that’s easy to understand. The attraction of just appearing on TV seems to weave a spell over way too many people who should know better, however. Just watch any episode of The Jerry Springer Show if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

It would seem that simply appearing on television has circumvented the desire to present something, anything that showcases talent or quality. As everyone knows, appealing to the lowest common denominator is the easiest way to make a buck – just witness the “infomercials” for any volume of Girls Gone Wild, which has to be the sleaziest product ever pushed in a long history of pushing sleazy products – and it manages the enviable feat of sucking in not only lonely guys watching TV at 3:00 A.M. but nubile college-age girls either so drunk or stoned out of their small minds that flashing their breasts on-camera seems like a great idea. Every time I see one of those promos as I flip across the 200+ channels satellite TV offers, I wonder how many fathers are clutching their chests and keeling over after seeing their little girls make out with female college roommates on nationwide TV.

Network television is just as guilty of sleazy programming as affiliates, but what’s worse is they do it during prime time. I myself don’t consider Donald Trump anyone to idolize – I find him a vain, self-important, rude, and self-centered crook – but check the ratings for The Apprentice, a show that glorifies back-stabbing and double-crossing in order to “make it to the top,” which in that particular case is working for a man who thinks nothing of trashing a fellow jackal’s dream.

Then you’ve got ABC’s Wifeswap, where two couples who are 180 degrees apart in terms of lifestyle swap wives for some period of time (I don’t know how long since I’ve never watched the program – I’ve only seen the promotions – but then again, you don’t have to eat an entire egg to know it’s rotten, as my Grandfather used to say). There’s also Supernanny, a program where two people who never should have been allowed to have children to begin with are taught by a total stranger how to make said children act like human beings, and CBS’s Survivor, which is a lot like The Apprentice in that it glorifies backstabbing for money.

So what the hell does this rant have to do with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? If you watch the show and saw the pilot episode, you know. In case you haven’t, Studio 60 is a behind-the-scenes look at a fictional live sketch show (obviously based on Saturday Night Live) that is rapidly going downhill due to bad writing, interference from timid network Standards execs, and general laziness. What was once a cutting-edge show is now a lame shadow of its former self and the producer of the show (Judd Hersch, who plays outraged better than anyone in the business), stops the show in the middle of a live broadcast and goes into a very true rant about the state of network television. The network’s Standards and Practices representative (read censor) demands the director cut him off, but the director (Timothy Busfield) leaves him on until he compares the network to a whorehouse. The new network president, Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet) inherits the mess and is charged with revitalizing the show by the tight-assed Chairman of the Board, Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber). She does this by hiring the former head writer, Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) and Assistant Producer, Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) to run the show again. This doesn’t go over too well with Jack, since he’s the one who fired Danny and Matt to begin with. It also sets off a wave of paranoia among the staff, writers and cast, since, like in real life, whenever new bosses come in they usually do a house cleaning. Danny and Matt, however, know where the problems lie and luckily have Jordan on their side.

The show is really about running a network program and includes the backstage politics inherent to it, and it deals with these subjects perfectly – Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme, both veterans of network television (having created, produced, written and directed both Sports Night and The West Wing) not only know intimately what they’re talking about but make it fascinating to watch and more importantly, to listen to – Sorkin has a great ear for dialogue, and his rat-a-tat style is handled beautifully by the cast. The really amazing thing about this show is that it humanizes the characters that, in lesser talented hands, would just be the usual network bad guys interested in nothing but making a buck – all the characters develop as the show progresses.

This is a dialogue-driven show but the dialogue moves so quickly (like on The West Wing) that it moves the plots along like lightning. (One of the things I’m glad Sorkin and his writers have cast aside is the repeat dialogue they used to do – where a character would say a word and have it repeated a minimum of three times by other characters.) The show is both witty and intelligent, two things not many TV shows are these days, so of course it has low ratings.

This is not to say that the show doesn’t have its faults. It was brought out in the early episodes that Harriet Hayes, the character played by Sarah Paulson, was the most talented comedienne on the show, the best it had to offer, but a few shows later a subplot was based on the fact that she couldn’t tell a simple joke. This struck me as rather odd, since there were at least three other characters that this idea could have been attached to, but I imagine it was attached to Harriet since she’s a major character. On the flip side, in the sixth episode, Matt is confronted by Simon Stiles (D.J. Hughley) about the lack of “black voices” in the writer’s room. This was a genuine concern on Saturday Night – none of the writers for that show (at least at the time Garret Morris was on it) knew how to write for black performers, so Garret was usually shunted to the side, playing manservants and such. Matt agrees and accompanies Simon to a comedy club to hear a black performer. They discover that the comic they were invited to hear is completely inappropriate to their needs – his act consists of observations about how lame white people are compared to blacks and talking about how he likes his “bitches” with big booties.

Hughley and Perry are excellent in this scene, both of their faces reflecting exactly what they’re feeling as they sit uncomfortably watching the act – Hughley is embarrassed and Perry is embarrassed for him. Later, as they sit at the bar and Hughley bemoans the lack of inspiration evident in the comic’s act, Perry overhears another black comic, Darius Hawthorne (Columbus Short), on stage bombing with an act based on intellectual observations. They go backstage after the guy is booed off and hire him to write for Studio 60, but Hughley warns him that it’s not going to be a free ride – he’ll come early and stay late, work harder than he ever has before, and listen to the advice he receives from Perry, the head writer.

I know that doesn’t sound like much written out like that, but it was a great moment of television. To me, it was absolutely electric and absolutely right. That is how fast it happens and the moment when Simon tells Darius the truth about what he’s about to take on is perfect. Instead of the expected “Congratulations, brotha – you made the Big Time” speech I expected to hear, Simon talked to Darius like a professional talks to a fellow professional. There’s a hint of fear mixed with the excitement in Darius’ face as he hears this speech and it made me reflect back to something a friend of mine, Mickey Devinko, once told me – “Don’t be afraid of success.” The reason he told me that is because the prospect of a dream coming true can be daunting - it means your life is going to change in a big way, and it’s human nature to wonder if you’re really up to it.

Studio 60 is full of moments like that, moments that make it worth watching. The only true problem I have with it is that when the show itself is featured – and by that I mean sketches written for the fictional show – they’re not all that funny. For all his talent, and it is considerable, Aaron Sorkin is not a comedy writer. He excels at bringing out the humor inherent in his characters, but he can’t write gags or sketches and make them funny. It’s an interesting conundrum, but it’s true of writing. Just as there are different styles of painting, there are different styles of writing, and just because you can do one doesn’t mean you can do another. Comedy writers are called that because that’s where their particular talents lay. You can have a great sense of humor and write, but that doesn’t make you a comedy writer. I’ve found that if you’re going to write comedy, it helps to surround yourself with people that you can riff with, so together you can build the final product, be it a five minute sketch or a feature length film.

Summing up, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is, in my opinion, a terrific show that deserves a bigger audience than it has. Check it out.

 written by Nick D'Amico © Copyright 2007