Solid episode last night (though the second half is what carried it). I'm not surprised that this show is not getting high ratings though.

Well, I haven't even watched this ep. I made it through the first 14 minutes of the previous episode last night, and I'm calling it quits. I really liked Sports Night, I liked The West Wing a lot for a while (and then it started irritating me, and then I started sort of liking it again), but this show just feels like 45 minutes of Aaron Sorkin angrily lecturing me. I tend to agree with a lot of his politics and outlook, and I enjoy a good vent myself, which makes me the freaking choir, and I don't want to sit there and be preached at. Sorkin's a smart guy, but don't think anyone but the choir is going to be tuning in for this. It's not challenging, it's not compelling, the characters really aren't all that interesting*, and worst of all it's just not turning out to be very entertaining. It's really too bad, because Sorkin at his best is very, very good. I was really looking forward to this show.

Sorry to all the folks who have been enjoying the show. I actually do wish it could stick around long enough to maybe improve (perhaps they need to try a focus group ).

(*There is one character I've liked so far. I don't know his name, but he's the director.)

This is my major complaint as well. I think the backstage stuff is way funnier than the actual 'comedy' they're producing. They build up these guys as being comedic geniuses and then they put out material that would be bad even by modern SNL standards. The best stuff could be considered, at best, 'somewhat amusing'. The 'News at 60' stuff is especially painful... listening to them come up with these long-winded, wordy 'jokes'.

And the politics/religious material to me is aggrevating simply because it's not leading to anything funny. It's mostly just coming off as self-righteous. The Daily Show/Colbert Report can get big laughs from the same sorts of topics, but here it just feels like we're supposed to laugh simply because they're making fun of the right. Hell, even SNL tries harder than this.

But I do enjoy the banter between the characters, shoe-signing weirdness aside. I like these characters, I like most of the actors and I like the concept here. I want this show to succeed. I just wish Sorkin and crew would hire some writers with better comedy chops to make me believe these people are as funny as they're supposed to be.

Ratings: households 5.8/9, #8; adults 18-49: 3.8, #6

How does that compare to last week?

Sorkin should start writing for SNL. He'd fit right in.

I've been watching this each week on the fence about the skits they have in the show within the show. I'm not a Sorkin regular, so I may be giving him too much credit, but I'm strongly under the impression that the skits are meant to be "not that funny."

Last week's "The Nicolas Cage Show" glimpse had an impression from what seemed to be 20 years ago, and added with Sciene Schmience, I was led to believe that either Sorkin can't do sketch comedy well, or he's making a reference to SNL's crappy/outdated work. This week's Juliette Lewis sketch has led me even further toward that conclusion. I'm a movie fan, so I have a general idea of her and "got" it, but c'mon... It all seems like a spoof on how crappy SNL has become and how many of the jokes are outdated (look at last week's SNL with a Total Recall skit and Peter O'Toole and Charro impressions). Meanwhile, the writers are getting praised as the greatest thing in the world, much the same way I'm sure Tina Fey was praised by her peers.

I love the witty dialogue in regular situations, I love Amanda Peet's character and the way Perry and Whitford get along, but so many other aspects of this show don't work well for me. They really need to stop showing sketches. Whether I'm right and it's a clever commentary or I'm wrong and Sorkin just can't write head-on comedy, they really take me out of it. I'll keep watching for another couple of weeks, I'm sure, but this show just isn't "working" as well as it feels like it should (and as much as I'd like it to).

Last week was a 6.0/10. It's dropped every single week. :-(

Heroes is the wrong show to pair it with, and CSI: Miami is slaughtering it.

And regarding the on-air stuff we see in each episode... unless the particular sketch is plot-centric, they really need to keep that to a bare minimum.

Although it reminds me of The Larry Sanders Show. The actual on-air show was a very tepid, lame talk show (unless something was going wrong). But the series itself is one of the funniest of all time.

Hey, at least the ratings appear to have bottomed out.

I wonder if they'll try to move the show before giving up on it. Maybe it would do better in the Friday Night Lights slot.

Timothy Busfield (Cal). He's the guy who wrote last night's episode.

I liked it. THAT was very Sports Night-y. Better than the last 2 IMO.

I really, really want to like this show, but it lacks the wit and acting of Sports Night and the plotlines of The West Wing... I don't know, I'll stick with it, but they really need to make the show revolve around Matt and Danny.

I think it's better served to switch this and L&O.

He DIRECTED IT. He didnt write it (Sorkin Co-Wrote with someone else).

*Smacks forehaed* D'oh! - I knew that. I kept thinking of him as Danny, after his West Wing character, but I knew that wasn't right. Thanks!

Ah.

I stand corrected. My bad.



And 'Studio 60' will never be as good as 'Sports Night' until they get someone as sexy as Sabrina Lloyd on as resident eye-candy.

This is how I see Sorkin adding some sexy eye candy to the show.

Scenario:

Matt and Harriet decide they still love each other. BUT, Harriet doesn't want Matt back until he gets over their intial break-up. So... she sets him up with a friend of hers named Pinsley. Pinsley turns out to be some great new comedienne and Matt actually finds her witty enough for his sophisticated comedic sensibilities. Pinsley likes Matt, too. However, Pinsley is one of Harriet's "Christian friends" and objects to almost everything Matt stands for. Matt is fascinated by this woman regardless of her backwards beliefs and wants to hire her to work with Ricky and Ron.

I thought the episode was kind of bland, and definately the most Sports Night-y episode so far. I wonder if this show would have worked better as a half hour sitcom; last night's tissue thin plot was hardly worthy of an hour of programming. I'm starting to think this show has already blown it's load of comedic and dramatic possiblities - it would have made a brilliant tv movie.
And I couldn't understand a damn thing D.L. Hughley said all night - he makes me pine for the elocutionary brilliance of Dule Hill.

'Studio 60' will never be as good as 'Sports Night." Period.

(It doesn't help that I love that show with, trite as it may come across, all my heart.)

The last episode of Studio 60 was Sports Night with a different cast and a smaller audience.

Heroes ratings get better, and Studio 60's went down anyway which means that even more people actively switched away from it. It is a bad pairing of shows. NBC should consider bringing back Surface and pairing it with Heroes on Mondays and moving Studio 60 somewhere, but I think that Studio 60 is just getting closer and closer to going away.

The cast made 'Sports Night.' Every member was perfectly cast. However, with 'Studio 60,' while there are good cast members (Perry, Whitford, Busfeld... a few others), no one is truly astounding.

Of course, it doesn't help that ESPN's Monday Night Football telecasts are taking away a good number of viewers, too.

I would not be surprised that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip gets a new timeslot within two months.

The question is which one, isn't it? Does it get the FNL timeslot? The Kidnapped timeslot? The 30/20 (W at 8) timeslot? None of those look all that promising to me. It's a tough schedule to crack these days.

What's funny is that most people thought that Sports Night would've worked if it had been a 1 hour show.

From the get-go I've thought this show should also be a 30-minute show. I'm still of that opinion.