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Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip |
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Wednesday, 20 September 2006 |
By D. W. O'Dell
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Matthew Perry as Matt Albie and Bradley Whitford as Danny Tripp | Oh, what an age we live in! Thanks to the magic of DVDs, plus a bright idea by the marketing department at NBC, I was able to rent from Netflix an advanced copy of the pilot for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, NBC’s best, new hope for the upcoming TV season. Now we don’t have to wait until September to enjoy the new Fall TV season; it comes into our homes in August!
Studio 60 is the latest offering from Aaron Sorkin, the closest thing this generation has to a Rod Serling. Sorkin is the genius behind the woefully under appreciated Sports Night, and the four really good seasons of The West Wing (the two seasons after he was forced out were not good; the seventh season was mediocre but it was hailed as a 'renaissance'). As usual Sorkin’s partner in this endeavor is Emmy winning director Tommy Schlamme.
The show is about an award winning writer and his partner, a successful director. Right there you should be hearing warning bells. All authors begin their careers writing about themselves, but apparently Sorkin never outgrew that phase. Either that, or he and Schlamme think that they are just fascinating.
The pilot episode begins with the producer of a Saturday Night Live type show interrupting the opening sketch to tell the audience that the show is lousy and they should turn off their televisions. That the scene comes off as an obvious rip off of the movie Network would be inexcusable if Sorkin then didn’t have every news show covering the story make the Howard Beale connection. The new network president (Amanda Peete - yeah, right) decides the best way to fix the problem is to replace the now-fired producer with a writer and a director who were fired from the show four years earlier and went on to fame and fortune (and alcohol and drug problems).
The writer is played by Matthew Perry, who guest starred on Sorkin’s West Wing, and the director is played by Bradley Whitford (who won an Emmy for West Wing), which is the only thing that makes this plan appear to be plausible. Perry and Whitford have no trouble exuding intelligence and a subversive view of things, just the qualities you want in the team running Saturday Night Live, er, I mean Studio 60. They also have no problem playing a pair of friends (sorry, I was trying to avoid applying that word to Perry) who have not only known each other for years, but have probably let each other down on more than one occasion.
Amanda Peete is more of a problem as the network president. She is a fine comedic actress, especially opposite Perry in The Whole Nine Yards. Playing a Dragon Lady executive leaves her looking like a pale imitation of Faye Dunaway. It doesn’t help that her character is underwritten, at least in the pilot. Stephen Weber plays her boss (I’m not clear on the corporate structure here), whose role is even more mono-dimensional, if that’s possible. Weber is simply playing every “suit” you’ve ever seen in a TV show or movie. For years Weber has tried to avoid being type cast by his role in Wings - he should surrender and just stick to comedy. ...On second thought, The Stephen Weber Show wasn’t a good idea either.
It is difficult to assess a TV show based just on the pilot. Pilots have lots of exposition to get out, as well as bigger budgets and higher production values, which can get in the way of the story telling. That said, the pilot for Studio 60 didn’t enthral me. It is filled with the same sort of live TV control room talk that was an integral part of Sports Night, but here it just seems forced. Having two lead characters that are so autobiographical is distracting, and the other major characters weren’t fleshed out enough to hold my interest.
Maybe some of the minor characters will rise up and bring some life into the show. D.L. Hughly plays the host of the fictional Studio 60, yet he has nothing to do in the pilot. Another regular is Perry’s character’s estranged wife, but their relationship seemed like another cliché. I recognized a few other actors from Sorkin’s West Wing troupe - most notably Timothy Busfield - and given the depth of quality acting on The West Wing any one of these characters could turn out to be interesting.
I have a lot of faith in Sorkin and Schlamme. Despite my lukewarm appreciation of the pilot episode, I will give Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip a chance. But unless things pick up quickly, I won’t be watching come the November sweeps. If anyone can turn this around, though, it is Aaron Sorkin. |
