Running Studio 60 thread (spoilers)

I didn't say it was. Neither did she.

 

Twenty three minutes in.

The mechanism on this show is really creaking tonight.

 

I just happened to watch NBC tonight when Studio 60 came on. I didn't see my DVR's recording light turn on when it hit 10:00, yet my DVR still lists the show on my series recordings.

Anybody else have a similar problem?

 

Last week, I had the red dot on S60 ... but it didn't record. Phhhht.

 

Forty minutes. Finally.

The Matt and Danny pill scene should have led the show. Or a show.

 

I'm pissed.

My DVR, too, shit out taping last week's episode and I missed Allison Janney.

This week was OK.

 

Fifty three minutes.

Yeah, you could see that coming from space.

 

Sure, we all saw it coming, but the execution at the end was pretty stellar. Wasn't on par with the Bartlet-assassination-attempt reaction or even the initial reaction to Zoe's kidnapping, but that's a pretty high bar to clear.

 

Jesus.
ANOTHER speech from a Sorkin character about their very special personal experience as a child with drug and/or alcohol abuse? It was the central pivot to the SportsNight pilot and to that early WW in which the young aide leaks Leo's Secret Service file. Even the suicidal parent angle was the same.
Creak, creak, creak....

 

Eh, I wasn't thinking of those, though I loved both shows. I didn't really care for how they dealt with Matt's drug problem, with the exception of the scene with Danny. Whitford and Perry really do play off each other well.

But the rest of the episode was what I expected. Fast-paced, overly-clever but fun dialogue with a number of moments that were funny in that making-you-smile way rather than laughing out loud. Wonderfully uncomfortable moments for the characters, like with Harriet and the lawyer near the end of the show.

And I will say it again...telegraphed or not, they absolutely nailed the scenes where the audience and then Tom finds out about his brother. From D.L. Hughley's character charging over to tell his friend what was going on to Steven Weber making sure everything is taken care of as best as he can for Tom.

Nathan Corrdry absolutely nailed it...denial, panic, rage..powerful stuff from the "funny little brother" character.

And as useless as I have always found Peet's character, there was just that one line that helped wrap up the scene...when points out that one guy has an axe...You could tell everybody saw it, but she is the one who blurts things out...

 

I get tired of Sorkin's tic whereby he elides discussion of tough questions by putting them in the personal experiences of cute little drop-in characters, or in the mouth of beloved stars. The SportsNight Casey-ex-machina thing about his brother short-circuited an interesting, and for network TV daring, discussion of the stupidity of the anti-marijuana laws. The scene with Leo and the aide was just completely unrealistic and even in A Few Good Men, Sorkin dodges what can be called the Calley Question by making his defendant Marines cute and by giving the argument to wimpy Kevin Pollak. Sorkin writes great dialogue but, give him a serious issue, and he'll drop it on his foot. Every time.

 

Dead on.