Yeah… but it’s on the borderline of being a shticky affectation at this point.
At least we got to get some idea of the sketches this time. A montage was a good way to do it. You sort f quickly get the premise of each sketch without risking having them drag on and not be funny. They still weren’t piss your pants funny but they were believable as typical SNL fare.
The bear joke was still really lame, though, and I’m not buying Harret as “talented” at all. What was that horrible Tennessee Williams accent she was doing near the end? Was that supposed to be a quote from something?
Whatever, it wasn’t funny and that character is a real detriment to the show.
It was better than last week but the bear joke was beyond cheesy.
Yeah, and, oddly enough, it just made me feel sorry for Alec, because I would’ve felt the same way.
I love Aaron Sorokin. Love him.
I will watch “The American President,” even though it’s hokey. Will watch “A Few Good Men,” even though it has Tom Cruise and Demi Moore. I love even the bad Sports Night episodes, and his seasons of the West Wing go without saying.
But the man cannot write sketch comedy to save his life or more importantly this show. The show around the show is lovely, witty, fun, and funny. The show within the show sucks. Not a single gag from the show within the show worked at all. They all sucked. And while it was possible for the ideas to have gone somewhere that humor lived, he didn’t take them there.
Is there somewhere we can petition him to let someone with some success at sketch comedy write the sketches so he can stick to the real show? Everything else works, and then you see the sketches and they just fall flatter than anything.
Wow, my opinion sure diverges from everyone else’s. I thought this was by far the weakest episode so far (although still several cuts above everything else on TV not named The Office or The Wire, but not because I didn’t think the bear joke was funny (it was hilarious) or because I didn’t like the sketches (I thought many parts of Science Schmience were funny, and it also was believable as good sketch comedy that was funny but not flawlessly gemlike perfection).
My problems were:
(1) 109%? Oh come ON. Matt (or was it Danny?) was exactly right early in the show that the previous week was a fake number. It had massive publicity. Lots and lots of people would turn in just because of the news and the meltdown. How could viewership POSSIBLY increase the next week, even if the show was absolutely brilliant? That was way too happy-happy.
(2) The montage at the end. What is this, Lost? Aaron Sorkin is better than that
(3) The interactions between the “big three” seemed (for the most part) forced and artificial. I really like Matt and Danny, and the network people, but I’m not sold on the cast yet. I like Harriet as a character, but agree that we really need to see her being hilarious.
(4) An irritating continuity goof. While they were discussing how there was only one political sketch, you could see the big board behind them, and in the top left corner, presumably the cold open, was “presidential address”.
(5) I’m confused by Danny putting the question in the focus group to “keep the same thing that happened four years ago from happening again”. The question in the focus group made Matt want to write MORE political humor, which seems MORE likely to cause controversy. I must be missing a subtlety.
Also, either the network feed was awful or our stupid Comcast DVR sucked, because there was massive static and hiccups throughout most of the show, which was VERY irritating.
I think I’ll give it two more tries and then I’m likely out.
I don’t find it compelling. I don’t find it interesting. I really can’t get to caring about the characters. I loved Sports Night and can’t put my finger on what’s missing here. I hate it when I can “see the lines” and in this case I am distracted all the time by “seeing the Sorkin”.
Remember at the readthrough for “Science Schmience” she was going to talk like Holly Hunter for the rest of the day? So, Holly Hunter.
Harriet’s whole “they’re tiny and poor so don’t make fun of them” routine pissed me off. Shouldn’t they be able to raise their kids as they see fit without being ridiculed? Well, Harriet, no, not if their actions are deserving of ridicule and not if they’re raising their children to be ignorant twits. Shut it.
Liked it; didn’t love it. I’ll certainly keep watching.
I’ve aways said Matthew Perry was the most talented of the male Friends, though admittedly, that’s a very backhanded compliment. Amanda Peet . . . Nothing against her, but she is too young and soft for the role (anyone notice that most of the male leads are schlubby middle-aged guys, and the female are all young hotties?). There are any number of 40-something actresses in L.A. who could play that role and make it more realistic. Donna Murphy and Wendie Malick come to mind right off.
And the sketch montage was the perfect illustration as to why not one nanosecond of “Crazy Christians” should ever have been shown. Tom Cruise jokes? Played out. Nicholas Cage? Does anyone even remember him? “Pimp my Trike” was somewhat amusing but something similar’s been done on Robot Chicken and probably other sketch shows, and better. I would’ve loved to have seen something more of the Comedia Dell’arte (sp?) sketch but, like “Crazy Christians” it’s not important to actually see it.
Um. I can only assume that you weren’t paying attention to the surrounding dialogue, because it was quite clearly her take on the Missouri school doing Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Holly Hunter Holly Hunter Holly Hunter . . .
I didn’t get that sense. Given that the school actually was in Missouri, an accent somewhat similar to that would have been appropriate. So while she may have been doing her Holly Hunter, she was doing her Holly-Hunter-as-a-Missouri-high-schooler-putting-on-Midsummer.
I think the problem I’m having with the show is that there is an overwhelming sense of importance surrounding the characters and what they’re trying to accomplish each week. I’m sure that what they do is difficult, but Sorkin seems to be bringing the same level of intensity to sketch comedy as he brought to the White House. On *The West Wing * it worked because, well, they were running the country. This is sketch comedy. The more minor characters- basically all except for Matt, Danny, Jordan and Jack- are almost too well-spoken, too smart, too intense.
I didn’t mind that with TWW because I expect, and want, the employees at the White House to be intense and smart and take things seriously. But some of the dialogue of the minor characters just doesn’t really ring true to me. They’re very “Sorkinized”.
I want to like this show, because I like what Sorkin’s done (well, except for An American President. Drivel.), but it’s not grabbing me yet. Maybe it’s because it’s still early in the season, or maybe it’s because I missed the first 15 minutes last night. I’ll be hoping that the show clicks with me in the next few weeks, lest it suffer the same fate in my house that Heros did last night (we turned it off after 30 minutes for some hanky panky. Which is why I missed the first 15 minutes of Studio 60) and I doubt we’ll be watching it again.
Add me to the group who really wanted to like this show, but remains underwhelmed. Most of my reasons have been expressed already. The show montage was bad for a number of reasons - not only because it invites you to judge the actual product (and find it lacking) but also because it seemed a cheap time filler, and the repeated scenes of the audience laughing uproariously seemed - I don’t know - too obvious.
The sense of filling time was magnified when there was a 2d montage scene less than 10 or so minutes later.
I really don’t like the Harriet character, Amanda Peet’s character, or the guy from Wings, and the 2 male leads are still Josh and Chandler to me.
I think they are going to get away from the show itself soon - make the show about the characters, rather than just the making of a weekly show. Show them in their personal lives.
I know this is only the 3d ep, but it sure hasn’t wowed me yet. I’ll probably keep watching - at least for a while, but primarily just because I’m a lazy shit and there is little else on TV.
Somebody said they wanted to see her character being hilarious… that was it.
And we know Donna Murphy was available; she was in the pilot. Although Sorkin has said that he’s based the character off of somebody who really was network president at 30, so he needs a 30-year-old.
I’m kind of confused by the final party scene. Jordan got caught on a DWI once eight years ago. She got out of anything being on her record by going to an alcohol abuse workshop. Now, eight years later, she can’t have a single glass of champagne? Or afford a taxi? WTF? They didn’t portray her as being any kind of alcoholic, but now, Demon Alcohol must not touch her lips?
Sure, sure, it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea for her to get drunk at that party, given all the news, but christ. It’s just one drink.
And what was up with the pensive confusedness which was Matt Perry’s last scene? I don’t get what he was trying to convey there. Any help from the psychics in the audience?
Yes. Exactly.
Recall the earlier scene in which a recent photo of her was labeled as having been taken at the party where she’d been before the arrest. She certainly had no intention of getting drunk at the after-show party but she absolutely did not want any new pictures of her with a drink in her hand making the media.
Wow, I didn’t get that at all. Didn’t she offer to do the “Science Schmience” skit in a Holly Hunter voice before the Missouri high school conversation? I agree with Eve, it was simply a comedic actress being silly and cute by doing a Holly Hunter impression to get her ex to crack a smile.
Which brings me to what I did like about the episode: it addressed my three main concerns from the last two weeks.
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Harriet was finally cute and funny, and I got a glimmer of why she’s a lead actress. She wasn’t knee-slapping HI-larious, but I see a little of what they see, so it’s getting there.
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The sketches - good call in doing in montage. I believe it’s at least a moderately funny show, probably better than SNL (though I think cold soup is better than SNL), and by not showing me all of the sketch, I wasn’t disillusioned by how not-funny they were. Anyone can come up with a funny pitch. “Pimp My Trike” was funny for 3 seconds - 3 minutes would have me scratching my eyes out with a Bic pen.
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Jordan finally has a fault. Whoopee! The girl ain’t made of bone china and cotton candy! I’m not talking about the DUI, I’m talking about how she was thrown for a loop seeing her mugshot, she got nervous, she didn’t immediately know what to do or how to handle it. She made a dumb call to Matt and Danny (why the hell would they want to write a sketch about her?) who shot her down 'cause they realized it was dumb. THOSE are the kind of Sorkin faults I want to see in his characters. Peet was finally not playing it as Miss Perfect, and that felt really, really good.
It’s still no Sports Night, but I’m liking it more.
Ok, thanks. (I was flipping back and forth between Monday Night Football and I missed the walkthrough scene).
So now we know that Paulson can’t do impressions. Why couldn’t they have hired an actress with some real comedic chops to play that role? Tina Fey is funnier in a 15 second promo for 30 Rock than Paulson has been in three hours.
Whatever.