Episode preview:
The “Studio 60” cast and crew rehearse with host Lauren Graham and musical guest Sting; Matt and Harriet get questioned about their personal history by a reporter (Christine Lahti); and Jordan receives a pitch for a potential hit reality TV series but deems it too tasteless.
West Wing callback #1 of the night: Christine Lahti’s on dangling modifier patrol.
Did anyone else catch Jordan’s “bad crack in the schoolyard” line? Very clever, Mr. Sorkin.
Bad: The “Cover of FHM” remark
Real bad: The college girl from Vermont. Is Sorkin tone-deaf to sensitivity, or just timing?
Good: I haven’t bought a Sting album in 20 years, but if this one is real, I think I’ll snag it!
Real good: I don’t think we’ll have to wait until the series finale for the two lovebirds to get it on.
Is there something going on with Vermont college coeds I missed?
Good episode, if for no other reason then Harriet became relatable thanks to the wonder of character development.
The guy pitching the reality show was pretty clearly Mark Burnett, and the young writer with a drama about the United Nations struck me as a young Aaron Sorkin pitching “The West Wing.”
I would’ve gone and stared at Sting, too. And that’s one of my favorite songs, so there’s no way I’m complaining.
I thought the cell phone sketch was the funniest thing they’ve done in the show-within…
I liked this one. I liked the story line about rejecting the “reality” show. I didn’t like that it took an absolute strawman of a show that was so over the top almost nobody would feel good about it (Search and Destroy???), but I liked the idealism of trying to make network broadcasting better.
I thought the reporter part of it was not very interesting dramatically, and kind of a cheap and transparent way to introduce backstory. I also thought that trying to fit a metaphoric coming together of the divisions in America on top of the Matt and Harriet relationship was a huge stretch.
Most surprising: The comedy was funny! I liked the Jenny doesn’t have a baby bit (even though it’s hard to see what more could be made of it). The bits I could make out from the news piece were funny. I liked the Nicolas Cage marriage counselor bit. The Nancy Grace bit - well, not outrageously funny, but I could see it as an SNL type piece. (I did find it amusing that Matt saw that as the best bit and wanted to cut the Jenny doesn’t have a baby bit.)
Just drop the Matt and Harriet thing, send Christine Lahti on her way (not that I don’t like Christine Lahti a lot), and perhaps this thing is not headed for the shitter.
Actually, it was probably the best comedy skit so far. It’s a send up of Nancy Grace of CNN, who runs sensationalist reports whenever a woman goes missing. She overdramatizes everything, makes pointed implications implying the guilt of people who have nothing to do with it, and generally takes a bad situation and makes it a circus. The skit was a dead-on parody of her overheated style, and probably could have run on SNL.
The episode was overall pretty good.
Yes. I may have overestimated how big a storey this is outside of Vermont and northern Virginia, though, where it’s as big as the Natalee Holloway story.
The real SNL just did a Nancy Grace sketch that was way funnier than this one.
I was flipping back and forth between the football game (the Cardinals are shocking the Bears!) and I missed the reality show pitch. Could someone fill me in asto what was supposed to be so appalling about it?
No, I got the sketch. In fact, I was impressed with how dead-on it nailed that shrill harpy of a woman.
It couldn’t have been more offensive. It was called “Search and Destroy” and the idea was that they would take six or twelve engaged couples and do background checks and have detectives hunt up information that the partners in the couple hadn’t shared with the other. they would reveal this information, and the couple that remains together throughout gets a lavish wedding. They would do this in a more current, week to week fashion than filming everything before the show airs, so that they could maximize the media coverage and talk about each episode. Or some such.
Yes, its’ real. I heard about it on NPR this morning. I’m definitely tempted.
As for the missing girl in Vermont I’m fairly certain that it was supposed to be a send-up of the Natalee Hollaway case, what with the Arubian police officer and all. If the girl you mentioned had gone missing in the Caribbean you might have something.
This was my favorite one yet. No laugh out loud moments, but I was entertained for the full 60 minutes. How can you go wrong with Sting (present tense!) playing his old hits on a lute?
Pretty good episode… started a little slow and heavy but definitely got better as it went along. I’m actually starting to buy the Matt-and-Harriet chemistry a bit. As a character development type episode, and probably a needed one, definite thumbs up.
I want more Lauren Graham, but apparently we’ll get it next week. Also, I could totally see a show like the proposed one on FOX or CBS 2-3 years ago, and I could totally see any number of people watching it (it’s easy to forget because it’s calmed down a bit, but the whole reality thing hit definitely got to a point where that show wouldn’t have been the worst of the bunch).
Err, remove the word “hit” like I should have done while editing, and that last sentence will even be readable.
The show seems to be gelling a bit better than it had previously. I still can’t quite bring myself to care about Harriet and Matt, which since they’ve now been firmly planted as the central metaphor of the show may not bode well.
The S.W.A.S. still wasn’t very funny. The Nancy Grace sketch was the best bit (I don’t watch SNL so I didn’t see their sketch) and I’m beginning to wonder if the Nicolas Cage thing is some deeply inside joke that I don’t have the background for. I’m kind of bothered by the fact that he wears a Sailor-style snakeskin jacket since I know that Cage doesn’t actually own the jacket, but that may be just too dorky of a critique.
Right at the end, after Harriet walks off, was that supposed to be her standing off in the distance? She gives her “you knock my socks off” line and leaves, then there’s a fuzzy figure in the distance in a red dress which if she wasn’t supposed to be Harriet shouldn’t have been in the shot. Distracting.
I missed the Nancy Grace sketch. The audio was blotted out by an AMBER Alert. I didn’t know they broadcast those over television. I’m only used to seeing the big freeway signs.
We missed about 30 seconds of video and audio due to the Amber Alert, and WLEX kept a crawl going the entire time. I’m not entirely sure why it had to run the entire time, when they didn’t really learn anything new (they’re not even sure if the parents are driving the social worker’s car or not.)
I want to know where I can get the version of “Fields of Gold” Sting did at the end. Definitely not my favorite Sting/Police song, but that version was awesome…
I just bought the album from iTunes. They offer that song as a single for 99 cents.