movieking

"The Long Lead Story"



This was on extremely early last night here in Canada (7 EST) for some reason, but I don't know if this will be a new timeslot or not (hope so!).

Anyway, here are my thoughts. Nothing really spoilerize, but I will spoiler for now:

Chew

NBC says the are behind this show in public, let's hope that's the case in private as well.

Groucho

Complaint I'm tired of reading: "The show-within-a-show isn't funny!"

While this complaint is indeed true, the point of the show isn't to entertain us with the skits that the performers are doing. That's why we only see snippets of them, instead of having the show stop completely so we can sit and watch the sketch.

Secondly, suspension of disbelief. Just as we must accept that within the Lord of the Rings universe there are hobbits and wizards, we must accept that within the Studio 60 universe the show is hysterically funny.

Bottom line: if you're tuning in to watch hilarious sketch comedy, this show isn't for you. Get an SNL DVD from Netflix instead.

lotsofdvds

From the Palm Beach Post this morning:

Groucho

Wow. This is pretty funny since they talked about this exact same thing in last week's episode.

lotsofdvds

I'd gladly stop complaining if they do just one thing. Only show us material that's relevant to the story. If you need some time-filler montage like they did in that one episode, set it to music and don't let us hear a second of the actual sketch dialogue.

The awfulness of the sketch material in this show then coupled with seeing our supposedly brilliant characters laughing hysterically at it is hard to just chalk up to "fantasy land".

cornflakeguy

Exactly. In Battlestar Galactica we are supposed to be caught up in the story enough to forget the the shiny silver robots aren't real and that there really aren't giant spaceships full of people out there, just like we are supposed to be caught up in Studio 60 enough to forget that the "killer" stuff Matt is writing isn't really funny.

RichC2

I still say the show-within-the-show being unfunny is more true to life. I'm sure the guys on SNL don't sit there and go "This stuff sucks!" despite the fact that it does.

lotsofdvds

I guess most of us have never been asked to accept "fantasy comedy" before. Robots, aliens, hobbits? Sure. Because THEY DON'T EXIST. But comedy does. This concept of "accept the unfunny comedy as fantasy" is just absurd. Unfunny is unfunny.

das Monkey

I disagree, not with your point but with the emphasis. I don't think it's hysterically funny in the Studio 60 universe. I think it's funnier than Ricky and Ron and good enough to hold a late-night Friday audience on a 3rd rate network, but just because it's important to the network and the point of emphasis for the show doesn't mean it claims to be the highest rated or funniest thing on television. Even with the much-maligned 90 seconds from last week, Matt's assessment of the comedy was, "it's not bad", implying that he was reaching out to "the room" per Danny's request as much as anything else. I think Jordan's desire to get these guys in the pilot and their success in feature films (including the WGA award) may have unintentionally set the bar too high for their talent, but it's still a live sketch comedy show, and even at it's peak, SNL was all over the map in terms of quality. I would agree that the show-within-the-show has not been overly funny at times, but I think the gap between how funny it is and how funny they claim it to be is not as large as many people have suggested.

All that said, it's really not that important to me. I watch to see the behind-the-scenes machinations and the interactions between the characters. As long as that's good, that's all I care about. Sports Night on CSC was never that good, and it really didn't matter. I see how and why this scenario is different (how do you screw up the reading of box scores and highlights), but I can easily look past it.

das

movieking

In tonight's episode

Brent_MN

I thought SNL did a sketch of her 2 weeks ago when Jamie Pressley was hosting? doh.

movieking

They did, but this one was better, IMO. Maybe I am just sick of the Foley jokes that SNL used.

vegasbaby

I hear Mitch and Murray from the 'Glengarry' home office will replace Ricky & Ron and have Alec Baldwin give everyone a really big pep talk.

Seriously ... last chance guys. I'm giving up unless tonight's show gives me something good.

movieking

If that is the case, I think that this will be your last episode

movieking

Just wanted to clarify that I didn't mean it was a bad episode tonight, just that I don't think you will get what you want. I liked the episode but....well, just read my spoiler for my thoughts.

DVD Josh

I want to like this show. I just don't know if I can, despite the fact I'm apparently in the group of people who support the show.

fernsita

I really hope that more people watch this show tonight, bc it is just quality television! I am also a fan of WAB, but I have put this on my priority juyst bc I don't want to see it go!

Patman

Unless you're a Nielsen household, what you watch or don't watch has little impact on whether or not a show stays on the air, so watch WAB if you want, and then watch Studio 60 later if you timeshift it (or vice-versa).

Patman

I let out the biggest laugh when

Brent_MN

yea, the lobster pen thing was good...heheh

annd...

hellooo Lorelai Gilmore.

Snowmaker

I gave up on this show tonight.

Brent_MN

that was a great Nic Cage impression.

Patman

I thought this was a pretty solid episode. I was surprised to see Lauren Graham as the host for this week, and then doubly surprised to see/hear Sting as the musical guest. Whoa!

das Monkey

Cancel all that stuff I said earlier today about the show within the show. Those sketches were awful. I adore this show, and it's painful to watch it stumble.

das