Running Studio 60 thread (spoilers)

I'm pretty sure it's Mark McKinney who is writing the sketches (as I've posted before), so theories about the sketches going by at Sorkin-like speed or Sorkin making grand overarching, yadda, yadda, don't seem to hold much water. Not coincidentally, I think McKinney also wrote for Sports Night.

 

McKinney may be writing the sketches, but they still sound like they're in Sorkin-ese. It's like most of Woody Allen's recent movies...He casts another actor, not himself, to play the lead role, but the new guy basically turns in a Woody Allen impression. (See Branagh, Kenneth, in Celebrity for the best example of this phenomenon.)

In the same vein, it seems like McKinney is trying -- consciously? unconsciously -- to conform to Sorkin's style.

I should also note that McKinney was a writer on SNL during one of that show's absolute lowest points (mid 90's) and that SportsNight rarely had laugh-out-loud funny moments in it, at least for me. Like all Sorkin projects -- including S60 -- it was more wry. A show to smile at, to think about, but not exactly spit-take funny.

 

I wasn't trying to hold up McKinney as a Matt Albie-esque comedic writing genius. Just pointing out that people keep blaming Sorkin for the poor sketches when it's McKinney who's writing them (with what influence from Sorkin, I don't know).

And I disagree that the sketches sound like Sorkin's dialogue. They just don't have that wham-bam, back-and-forth style that he does. The Nicholas Cage Show, Meet the Press with Juliette Lewis, etc ... I'm just not seeing it.

 

The game show sketch -- the one with all the kooks -- didn't sound Sorkinesque to you?

 

Good point. I forgot about that one. It did, indeed. That's the only one I can think of that did, though.

 

My problem is I really can't remember any of the sketches. And with so many of them, we only see excerpts. If I was to show you 20 seconds of Belushi's Greek Diner sketch, it might not be funny either. Or a couple of lines from the Coneheads, or Wild and Crazy Guys, or Spartan Cheerleaders.

Buckwheat would be instantly funny, though.

 

O-Tay!

 

How characters do things affects how you view them. If Josh decided he want to fix Social Security and he did it in some insane way, like focusing on a freshman Congressman from rural Minnesota who sits on the Ag Committee, you would stop and go, "Wait a sec, that makes no sense." If Sorkin wants us to believe that Josh is a political wheeler-dealer, then Josh needs to act like it. Imagine on Coach if Hayden Fox called prevent defenses on fourth-and-goal from the two, routinely went for long fake field goals and called for 10 Hail Mary passes per game despite the fact that his best wideout was a 5-9 white guy. Could you for a second believe that he was a coaching genius, even if most of the plays worked in the show? 30 Rock has the right idea: talk about sketches, but don't show them. If you tell me that Matt is a genius and give no evidence to the contrary, I'll believe you. But when you run shitty sketches, my willingness to believe you goes out the window.

 

Exhibit L for the prosecution -- "My Boys."

 

30 Rock has shown a sketch. They did so rather early on.

With Studio 60, we're not getting the whole sketch. Additionally, it isn't as if we're to believe that Matt is beyond flaw.

The audience for Studio 60 is not necessarily the same as the audience for Studio 60 the fake show.

 

Just catching up on last week's show, but a dumb question: if Amanda Peet's character is pregnant, why is she drunk? Seems to me an expectant mother smart enough to know to avoid a B-12 shot would also know to avoid alcohol.

Really like the McKinney character.

 

She wasn't drunk. She was suffering from the flu bug that was going around the office.