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Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - Episode 1 discussion, heavy on the pics
Just watched the aired version of the pilot for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and I am as giddy as a school girl who loves Aaron Sorkin. For those who haven't heard of Studio 60 here's what you need to know.
1. It was created by Aaron Sorkin, the guy who created The West Wing and Sports Night.
This means it is going to be really well written.
2. The executive producers are Sorkin, and his long time collaborator, Thomas Schlamme.
This means it is going to be really well directed and produced.
3. It stars Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, Steven Weber, Sarah Paulson, D.L. Hughley, Nathan Corddry and Timothy Busfield.
This means it is going to be really well acted.
1. It was created by Aaron Sorkin, the guy who created The West Wing and Sports Night.
This means it is going to be really well written.
2. The executive producers are Sorkin, and his long time collaborator, Thomas Schlamme.
This means it is going to be really well directed and produced.
3. It stars Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, Steven Weber, Sarah Paulson, D.L. Hughley, Nathan Corddry and Timothy Busfield.
This means it is going to be really well acted.
This episode begins on a typical shooting night for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which is the name of the show as well as the show with in the show.
As the audience is being warmed up, we cut to Wes Mendell (Judd Hirsch) the executive producer of Studio 60 who is arguing with a Standards and Practices guy about one of the sketches.
Wes wants to keep the sketch, S&P guy wants to cut it because it will offend people.
S & P guy points out to Wes that he no longer has the power to say what goes or stays. He tells Wes to play a really boring sketch in its place.
The control room director is Cal Shanley played by Timothy Busfield. Already I adore his character. It's very different from Danny Concannon, the reporter he played on The West Wing. He's very quiet, calm and assured.
The first sketch starts, and it's a lame parody of George W. Bush. It sucks, Wes knows it sucks and he can't take it anymore. He walks onto the set, tells the actors to leave and begins this wonderful rant.
You should change the channel right now, or better yet turn off the TV.
No, I know it seems like this is supposed to be funny, but tomorrow you're gonna find out it wasn't and I'll have been fired by then. This isn't supposed--this isn't a sketch.
This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it's gotten lobotomized by a candy-ass broadcast network hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience.
We were about to do a sketch you've already seen 500 times. Yes, no one's gonna confuse George Bush with George Plimpton, we get it. We're all being lobotomized by the country's most influential industry which has thrown in the towel on any endeavor that does not include the courting of 12-year-old boys.
And not event the smart 12-year-olds, the stupid ones, the idiots, of which there are plenty thanks in no small part to this network. So change the channel, turn off the TV. Do it right now.
...and there's always been a struggle between art and commerce, but now I'm telling you art is getting is ass kicked, and it's making us mean, and it's making us bitchy, and it's making us cheap punks and that's not who we are.
...We're eating works for money, "Who Wants to Screw My Sister", guys are getting killed in a war that's got theme music and a logo. That remote in your hand is a crack pipe...
..and it's not even good pornography. They're just this side of snuff films, and friends, that's what's next 'cause that's all that's left.
And the two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and every psycho-religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott.
These are the people they're afraid of, this prissy, feckless, off-the-charts greed-filled whorehouse of a network you're watching. This thoroughly unpatriotic--
The whole time, there has been a fight going on in the control room between Cal and the S & P guy.
S & P guy want s Cal to cut the feed; Cal out of loyalty to Wes, lets him go on for 53 seconds before they cut away to this:
Created by Aaron Sorkin.
I start clapping because it makes me just so damn happy to read those words.
We go to a beautifully designed house. It's a dinner party for Jordan McDeere who has been named the new president of the National Broadcasting System (NBS).
Who is being played by Amanda Peet. Her special skill seems to be headband wearing. She does it well.
Hosting the dinner party is the chairman of NBS, Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber).
Everyone is happy and toasting Jordan. She thanks Jack and his wife for hosting and then thanks the caterers. And then she recieves a message about Studio 60. Suddenly, everyone's phones start ringing. There is a crisis to be handled people!
At Studio 60, Jack quickly fires Wes. They then head to the office. Jack's worried about getting sued. Jordan's worried that people will say that Wes was right. She convinces Jack to let her hire Danny Tripp and Matt Albie to take over the show. Jack fired Danny and Matt from Studio 60 four years ago and since then, they've gone on to write and direct movies together. They've got class and that is what NBS needs right now. The fact that they hate Jack works in their favour - it's a daring move and will establish creditability.
Who are Danny and Matt?
DANNY IS PLAYED BY BRADLEY WHITFORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ahem.
He's a famed director and right now he is at the Writer's Guild Awards to support his BFF, Matt Albie.
Who just fell off his chair.
MATT IS PLAYED BY MATTHEW PERRY!!!!! WHO IS CLEAN!!!!
Ironically, Matt is high as he just had back surgery and took to much Vicodin. Mania is a side effect of the meds he is happy to report. He also tells the story of how he didn't break up with Harriet Hayes whom he broke up with recently.
Matt wins the award. They hug.
Sigh. This fandom is going to be so slashy.
As Matt goes up to receive his award, Danny gets the call about Studio 60.
Which brings us to the Big Three. The Big Three are the lead performers on Studio 60 and the ones the press are focusing on.
Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson) is Matt's ex-girlfriend and on of the B3.
At the wrap party she takes a moment to talk to Cal who is worried about his job.
Before going on to talk with her fellow B3ers, Simon Stiles(D.L. Hughley).
And Tom Jeter (Nathan Corddry).
When Harriet is confronted by a drunken minor cast mate, we discover that she is a Christian. She remarks that all week people have been aksing her if she was offended by the sketch. She was offended she wasn't in the sketch. They are all then called back to the studio.
Danny is in a hotel room, watching Wes' rant.
Danny/glasses = OTP. I love a man in specs.
Jordan shows up and offers him and Matt the job on Studio 60. Danny says they can't because they are going to be making a movie.
Jordan knows that they won't be because Danny recently failed a drug test and now he can't get insured for 18 months.
Danny thinks she's blackmailing him. She says it is just how she knows he's available. Danny heads off to Studio 60, where Matt is waiting, to tell him about his relapse.
Matt's immediate reaction is concern for Danny; it's really quite touching. I can't wait to see this friendship develop.
Then Matt also starts thinking that Jordan is blackmailing them. He runs (seriously, he runs and it is so funny) off to confront her, bursting into the office a spilling about Danny's relapse to an entire room full of people including Jack. Jordan had been keeping that information to herself.
Jack grills them for a bit causing Danny to leave. Matt realises that they have to take the job. He accepts the deal with Jack and then goes to talk to Danny.
On the way he runs into Suzanne who is the cute PA.
She asks: "Are you coming to save us?"
The next Donna Moss maybe?
Then he runs into Harriet and they fight. We discover the reason they broke up. She released an album of spiritual music and went on Pat Robertson to promote it. He doesn't like it that she sang for a bigot, she's mad he didn't support her the way she did him. They aren't going to get past it apparently.
He finds Danny sitting in one of the sets, a taxi with the front cut off. They talk and it is a really great scene.
They talk to Jordan. She asks Matt what he thinks of the sketch that was cut. He doesn't need to read it because he wrote it four years ago, right before he was fired. It was called "Crazy Christians". Jordan tells them to open with it next episode.
Matt and Danny are impressed.
And THAT'S where Queen and Bowie's "Under Pressure" kicks in and you know you've entered some kind of TV nirvana. Because it the perfect song choice and it just works. Sorkin's amazing like that.
They talk to Cal and tell him he still has a job and that if he'd let Wes rant for 54 seconds they'd have given Cal a raise.
They pause back stage. This is where they live now and then they walk out to thunderous applause.
And finally the six most beautiful words in all of creation:
A lot of you worship Joss Whedon, others Rob Thomas. Some haven't woken up to the fact that J.J. Abrams is an ADD afflicted hack. But for me, in TV land, it's Sorkin and Schlamme. Welcome back boys. Stick around for a while.
Things of interested to the Sorkin uninitiated
A lot of this is based on Sorkin's own experiences. Danny is like Schlamme, Matt is like Sorkin. As Sorkin relys on Schlamme so does Matt rely on Danny. What is interesting is that in this case is that Danny is the one with the drug problem when it was Sorkin with the drug problem a few years ago. Sorkin has said that with Matt and Danny, it's like Schlamme stuffing up instead of him.
Also, Sorkin dated actor Kristin Chenoweth, who is a Christian and who released an album of spiritual music and then promoted it on Pat Robertson's show. They broke up shortly after.
And don't be put off by my poor screencaps. It is beautifully shot.
As the audience is being warmed up, we cut to Wes Mendell (Judd Hirsch) the executive producer of Studio 60 who is arguing with a Standards and Practices guy about one of the sketches.
Wes wants to keep the sketch, S&P guy wants to cut it because it will offend people.
S & P guy points out to Wes that he no longer has the power to say what goes or stays. He tells Wes to play a really boring sketch in its place.
The control room director is Cal Shanley played by Timothy Busfield. Already I adore his character. It's very different from Danny Concannon, the reporter he played on The West Wing. He's very quiet, calm and assured.
The first sketch starts, and it's a lame parody of George W. Bush. It sucks, Wes knows it sucks and he can't take it anymore. He walks onto the set, tells the actors to leave and begins this wonderful rant.
You should change the channel right now, or better yet turn off the TV.
No, I know it seems like this is supposed to be funny, but tomorrow you're gonna find out it wasn't and I'll have been fired by then. This isn't supposed--this isn't a sketch.
This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it's gotten lobotomized by a candy-ass broadcast network hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience.
We were about to do a sketch you've already seen 500 times. Yes, no one's gonna confuse George Bush with George Plimpton, we get it. We're all being lobotomized by the country's most influential industry which has thrown in the towel on any endeavor that does not include the courting of 12-year-old boys.
And not event the smart 12-year-olds, the stupid ones, the idiots, of which there are plenty thanks in no small part to this network. So change the channel, turn off the TV. Do it right now.
...and there's always been a struggle between art and commerce, but now I'm telling you art is getting is ass kicked, and it's making us mean, and it's making us bitchy, and it's making us cheap punks and that's not who we are.
...We're eating works for money, "Who Wants to Screw My Sister", guys are getting killed in a war that's got theme music and a logo. That remote in your hand is a crack pipe...
..and it's not even good pornography. They're just this side of snuff films, and friends, that's what's next 'cause that's all that's left.
And the two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and every psycho-religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott.
These are the people they're afraid of, this prissy, feckless, off-the-charts greed-filled whorehouse of a network you're watching. This thoroughly unpatriotic--
The whole time, there has been a fight going on in the control room between Cal and the S & P guy.
S & P guy want s Cal to cut the feed; Cal out of loyalty to Wes, lets him go on for 53 seconds before they cut away to this:
Created by Aaron Sorkin.
I start clapping because it makes me just so damn happy to read those words.
We go to a beautifully designed house. It's a dinner party for Jordan McDeere who has been named the new president of the National Broadcasting System (NBS).
Who is being played by Amanda Peet. Her special skill seems to be headband wearing. She does it well.
Hosting the dinner party is the chairman of NBS, Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber).
Everyone is happy and toasting Jordan. She thanks Jack and his wife for hosting and then thanks the caterers. And then she recieves a message about Studio 60. Suddenly, everyone's phones start ringing. There is a crisis to be handled people!
At Studio 60, Jack quickly fires Wes. They then head to the office. Jack's worried about getting sued. Jordan's worried that people will say that Wes was right. She convinces Jack to let her hire Danny Tripp and Matt Albie to take over the show. Jack fired Danny and Matt from Studio 60 four years ago and since then, they've gone on to write and direct movies together. They've got class and that is what NBS needs right now. The fact that they hate Jack works in their favour - it's a daring move and will establish creditability.
Who are Danny and Matt?
DANNY IS PLAYED BY BRADLEY WHITFORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ahem.
He's a famed director and right now he is at the Writer's Guild Awards to support his BFF, Matt Albie.
Who just fell off his chair.
MATT IS PLAYED BY MATTHEW PERRY!!!!! WHO IS CLEAN!!!!
Ironically, Matt is high as he just had back surgery and took to much Vicodin. Mania is a side effect of the meds he is happy to report. He also tells the story of how he didn't break up with Harriet Hayes whom he broke up with recently.
Matt wins the award. They hug.
Sigh. This fandom is going to be so slashy.
As Matt goes up to receive his award, Danny gets the call about Studio 60.
Which brings us to the Big Three. The Big Three are the lead performers on Studio 60 and the ones the press are focusing on.
Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson) is Matt's ex-girlfriend and on of the B3.
At the wrap party she takes a moment to talk to Cal who is worried about his job.
Before going on to talk with her fellow B3ers, Simon Stiles(D.L. Hughley).
And Tom Jeter (Nathan Corddry).
When Harriet is confronted by a drunken minor cast mate, we discover that she is a Christian. She remarks that all week people have been aksing her if she was offended by the sketch. She was offended she wasn't in the sketch. They are all then called back to the studio.
Danny is in a hotel room, watching Wes' rant.
Danny/glasses = OTP. I love a man in specs.
Jordan shows up and offers him and Matt the job on Studio 60. Danny says they can't because they are going to be making a movie.
Jordan knows that they won't be because Danny recently failed a drug test and now he can't get insured for 18 months.
Danny thinks she's blackmailing him. She says it is just how she knows he's available. Danny heads off to Studio 60, where Matt is waiting, to tell him about his relapse.
Matt's immediate reaction is concern for Danny; it's really quite touching. I can't wait to see this friendship develop.
Then Matt also starts thinking that Jordan is blackmailing them. He runs (seriously, he runs and it is so funny) off to confront her, bursting into the office a spilling about Danny's relapse to an entire room full of people including Jack. Jordan had been keeping that information to herself.
Jack grills them for a bit causing Danny to leave. Matt realises that they have to take the job. He accepts the deal with Jack and then goes to talk to Danny.
On the way he runs into Suzanne who is the cute PA.
She asks: "Are you coming to save us?"
The next Donna Moss maybe?
Then he runs into Harriet and they fight. We discover the reason they broke up. She released an album of spiritual music and went on Pat Robertson to promote it. He doesn't like it that she sang for a bigot, she's mad he didn't support her the way she did him. They aren't going to get past it apparently.
He finds Danny sitting in one of the sets, a taxi with the front cut off. They talk and it is a really great scene.
They talk to Jordan. She asks Matt what he thinks of the sketch that was cut. He doesn't need to read it because he wrote it four years ago, right before he was fired. It was called "Crazy Christians". Jordan tells them to open with it next episode.
Matt and Danny are impressed.
And THAT'S where Queen and Bowie's "Under Pressure" kicks in and you know you've entered some kind of TV nirvana. Because it the perfect song choice and it just works. Sorkin's amazing like that.
They talk to Cal and tell him he still has a job and that if he'd let Wes rant for 54 seconds they'd have given Cal a raise.
They pause back stage. This is where they live now and then they walk out to thunderous applause.
And finally the six most beautiful words in all of creation:
A lot of you worship Joss Whedon, others Rob Thomas. Some haven't woken up to the fact that J.J. Abrams is an ADD afflicted hack. But for me, in TV land, it's Sorkin and Schlamme. Welcome back boys. Stick around for a while.
Things of interested to the Sorkin uninitiated
A lot of this is based on Sorkin's own experiences. Danny is like Schlamme, Matt is like Sorkin. As Sorkin relys on Schlamme so does Matt rely on Danny. What is interesting is that in this case is that Danny is the one with the drug problem when it was Sorkin with the drug problem a few years ago. Sorkin has said that with Matt and Danny, it's like Schlamme stuffing up instead of him.
Also, Sorkin dated actor Kristin Chenoweth, who is a Christian and who released an album of spiritual music and then promoted it on Pat Robertson's show. They broke up shortly after.
And don't be put off by my poor screencaps. It is beautifully shot.