Update: I rewatched the Studio 60 pilot last night, and the script has all the same problems I nodded to back in 2006 (in the piece that MADE MY CAREER), but God, Thomas Schlamme directs the hell out of it. Almost worth it, honestly.

Here's the ding dang Studio 60 piece from fall 2006. It bears a lot of the faults I still struggle with (like an overreliance on "of course"), but there's a really good core! https://www.slantmagazine.com/tv/walking-and-talking-the-quick-wit-and-false-heart-of-aaron-sorkins-studio-60/

And if you want a little vintage Schlamme action, check out his work on the two-season show Manhattan, one of my unsung favorites of the last decade. He's phenomenally good at making that show work, and he mostly ditches the walk and talk in favor of understatement.

Is Aaron Sorkin indicating that Wes (the Judd Hirsch character) wrote for two comics that have diametrically opposed styles, or that Aaron Sorkin knows the two most famous Black comedians at the time, or both?

It's very odd that a character named Simon has the nickname "Sim" (pronounced like the video game).

lol I forgot about this part

Absolutely unacceptable

a.) The main Studio 60 set is bonkers amazing.
b.) Aaron Sorkin just listed a bunch of bands and concluded with Stone Temple Pilots, which feels like it explains something.

oh no oh no oh no

It is REALLY FUCKING TELLING that in this episode, Matt rejects cold open pitches that make his writers room guffaw with laughter in favor of a Gilbert and Sullivan reference that makes Timothy Busfield wryly chuckle. Everything that would sink the show in one episode!

(The writers room pitches are bad, too, but I would rather watch every single one of those sketches.)

Like as someone who frequently mistakes "clever" for "funny," I really don't have room to throw stones, but c'mon.

This is also how they kick off filming every episode of The Boys.

(Sorkin's view of Christians -- both fundamentalist and mainline -- is just WILD.)

In a vacuum, the Gilbert and Sullivan cold open isn't FUNNY, but you could get away with being, like, "People thought it was kinda clever." The show BUILDS IT UP SO MUCH that it can't meet those expectations. Also it contains the words "intellectual reacharound."

People asking me why I am watching Studio 60 clearly are unaware of my work.

Episode three of Studio 60 has so many problems, but you can see the core of a good show in there. I would have gladly watched several seasons of that show, complaining all the way.

But you also see the seeds of what would undo the show, particularly in the stories about faith.

I know we all make fun of the Commedia Dell'arte thing, and it’s incredibly ridiculous, but—
a.) I think Sorkin knows this?
b.) It involves a character named “Bassoon Pantaloon.”

I think this makes it good.

Ok, no, Aaron Sorkin, surely we had retired “not that there’s anything wrong with that” jokes by 2006.

The Matt/Harriet relationship makes no goddamn sense.

Harriet just thought that a baseball player’s phone number was his uniform number.

Sorkin frequently writes jokes that make a person out to be too dumb to actually live, and those jokes disproportionately are given to women for some reason.

(You do not need to explain to me that the Matt/Harriet relationship was most likely a way for Sorkin to work through his break-up with Kristen Chenoweth. I was there in 2006. I have the scars.)

Both Danny and Matt compliment Martha, the reporter played by Christine Lahti, on her breasts. Sooooooooo…

Genuinely can’t believe how anti-writers room this show is. It’s just, like, everybody who’s not Matt is a lummox, and he is a pristine comedy hero.

Honestly, though, episode four (where the characters have to break into the west coast feed to replace plagiarized material) is built around the kind of thing this show should have been about. But it’s also so full of axes being ground.

(This show is full of weird racism, too.)

wow same

This moment is followed by Sting playing his lute.

So many jokes people make about Studio 60 are in this episode, presumably because it made people tune out.

I will wander deeper into this wasteland.

We did not know what we had.

They paved paradise and put up a Chicago Fire.

The character I'm most interested in on this rewatch is Jordan McDeere, which is going to make it hurt all the more when Sorkin tanks her character in a handful of episodes. Amanda Peet was really good in this! And really good at Sorkinese!

More and more, I'm convinced the version of Studio 60 that works involves the writers room just writing a bunch of great sketches, then Sorkin weaving his bullshit around all of that, with what's most prominent in the story mix changing from week to week.

This is how I always exit a scene too.

Every episode, I'm struck anew by how amazing this set is. So many levels! So many places to put a camera!

Studio 60! Why?????!

Oh Tom's parents are here! I wonder if they have any other children.

Lauren Graham has been in these last two episodes, and if Aaron Sorkin could bring himself to write a woman who could anchor a TV show without condescension, etc., she was basically born to do that.

Alas.

Presented without comment

I would make fun of Jordan wandering around this party telling people she wants to make friends as Sorkin not knowing how to write women, but that was basically how I was for all of 2019, so maybe he's just REALLY GOOD at writing recently out trans women.

You know, if I had a son as snotty as Tom, I might yell at him in a fashion so over-the-top that it would continue to be a meme 14 years later, even though the show I said it on was canceled after just one season.

(Seriously, Tom is such a jerk to his parents!)

Aaron Sorkin.

Please, even though you are good at writing hack comedy.

Please do not write hack stand-up comedy to be delivered by Black people.

Sincerely,
everyone

Credit where it's due, I laughed at this (and it has ENORMOUS "2019 Emily Trying To Make Friends" energy.)

Aaron Sorkin, please no.

Aaron Sorkin Write A Scene Where Two Women Become Friends And Don't Both Become Giggling Idiots challenge 2006

Would it surprise you to learn that the Studio 60 characters are impressed by a Black comic who garners zero laughs and features this sentence in his set?

(His material, like everything else on this show, is fine, but more "clever" than "funny.")

I've gotta stop for the night, before my inner monologue descends into anarchy.

It is canon that ACN NewsNight from The Newsroom exists in the @ArdenPod universe. But my real question is: Does Friday Night in Hollywood (the show within a show on Studio 60) ALSO exist in the Arden universe?

cc @SaraGhaleb
cc @chrisdole86
cc @michellevelyna
cc @traceysayed

I'm watching Studio 60 again, and I feel bad for Julia Ling (who is in this episode). She seemed like she had a promising career, then she just disappeared and hasn't worked since 2013. She deserved (deserves?) better.

"Nevada Day, Part 1" feels like the air being let out of this show's tires. The only way it works is if you're invested in the characters, but this is only the seventh episode. Plenty of shows could overcome that, but Sorkin characters tend to be dialogue delivery vehicles first.