One of the best parts of living in Los Angeles and being involved in the entertainment industry is the ability to sneak peak. All summer I've been sneak peaking at the fall pilots, and I'm here to tell help you sort through what to watch and what to skip. First up:Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Easily the biggest talk of the season, the show has Internet sites abuzz: Is it the triumphant return of Sorkin, or is a huge disappointment? Well, I've seen it, and I'm here to tell you that....it's a disappointment. Yes, it has some clever Sorkin-esque dialog, and yes it is a timely look at the behind the scenes at a Saturday Night Live type show, but it feels like a tiresome retread, with stock characters that, ironically, feel unknowable.
From the first scene, where Lorne Michaels, er...the executive producer, has a breakdown on air, lamenting the end of creativity on television and blah blah blah, my red flag went up. Hold on a minute. Yeah, SNL kinda sucks, and yeah, the "suits" behind the scenes may care more about the bottom line than about creativity. But I think television has vastly improved the past couple of years, so automatically this scene feels dated, and even somewhat desperate, like Aaron Sorkin trying to say "I'm hip!" Aaron, we know. Stop trying so hard.
The real problem is the cast. Or, mis-cast, I should say. There was very little casting down for this show, most parts were offered out; meaning that the casting director and producers didn't bring in unknown actors to audition, but instead offered the parts to Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, etc. It was probably considered to be a coup to get these actors, but it was a huge mistake. I kept wondering what Josh Lyman ("Danny") was doing moonlighting as a television writer, and kept expecting Matthew Perry ("Matt") to bust out with a Chandler-ism. Amanda Peet is woefully miscast as tough, smart, "I don't care what you think" television executive Jordan McDeere, (modeled after Jamie Tarses, the NBC executive who created Friends before being snatched by ABC, made President, and then tumbling in the most high-profile way.) I like Amanda Peet just fine, but she is grating in this, over accessorized, and very distracting. Frankly, she seems to be acting in a TV show. The most interesting character is Sara Paulson as Matt Perry's ex, an actress on SNL - or whatever this show within a show is called. She should have been cast as Jordan, although - irony alert! - network executives probably balked at that. ("We need a name!")
I'm not really sure where this show can go after the pilot. In the first episode, Jordan brings writers Danny and Matt back to their alma mater show in order to save it. There is some tension, there is some fighting, there is some witty banter. Ok, now what? The West Wing was about something, plus it debuted right after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, reaching a nation currently intrigued by the inner workings of politics. I'm not sure we're a nation who cares about the writers behind the scenes of a television show. And if we are, Sorkin is going to have to give us something better than this. The writing is fine, the re-treaded cast is passable, but this show's biggest problem is that it's boring. It lacks the cleverness and fun of The West Wing, and just feels tiresome. I don't care about these people. I don't even like them. I certainly don't want to spend one night a week with them.
