Now if halfway through the sketch Brooke Shields had swung down from the rafters like Tarzan and tackled Tom Cruise while he was ranting about “no such thing as post-partum depression”…
Exactly. They need to cut the show within the show entirely…we don’t actually need to see that. For example, the commedia dell’arte thing - talking about it or around it…I get to imagine a funny commedia dell’arte sketch, until they showed it and then I had no choice but to conclude that “that’s not going to be funny.” I think there’s a funny idea somewhere in the “Science Schmience” idea - but the sketch that they showed us (the one where they explained the joke to death and had audience chiming in) was stupid *and incredibly unfunny. Had they just talked about the crackpot science gameshow segment, it would have been a better choice. (My current imagined scene has something like real scientists as the contestants, the “alternative theorists” being the judges, and the host reading inane jokes off of cue cards…anyway, I get to pretend that having the audience say “science schmience” doesn’t happen.)
I expect the show within the show to be funny because they tell me it is. If they can’t deliver a funny show, they shouldn’t show me an unfunny one and tell me how great it is. They should just not show it to me and let me fill in the blanks myself.
This is somehting that worked so well in the past two Sorkin shows. They say for a time that President Bartlett is a good speaker and Sam and Toby are great writers, and they show the beginning or end of a few speeches and it becomes true. Same with Sports Night. A few lines here and there, then the beginning of the show, and everyone buys that they are great at what they do (so much so, that Josh Charles and Peter Krause are brought on to present an ESPY award!)
So to use a line from TWW, You can’t fault him for using a successful strategy.
Now if it’s not working this time, he’ll have to make a change. But I’m sticking with it for a while.
I wonder *why *it’s not working. Is it just because comedy is harder to write (and act) than sports or press conference speeches? I wouldn’t know a good sports show if it bit me in the ass, but I bought Dan and Casey as good sportscasters - maybe because I’m actually ignorant of what a good sportscaster is like. But maybe comedy is harder to fake - we ALL have ideas of what’s funny, and they often contradict one another, do it’d be literally impossible to write TEH BEST COMEDY SHOW EVAH, 'cause that’d be different for all of us.
I’m reminded of Baz Luhrman’s cheat in* Moulin Rouge*. The character of Christian was supposed to be an Orpheus - the most amazing, revolutionary, almost supernaturally gifted songwriter ever. But Baz Luhrman, the writer, isn’t, and he knows it. So he picked classic songs generally recognizable to the majority of his audience and pretended his character wrote them. He already knew they were great songs, and didn’t have to try to outwrite Elton John, Paul McCartney, et al. For some people, that cheat didn’t work at all. I thought it was brilliant.
Maybe, or maybe Sorkin is just really good at writing powerful political stuff and bad at comedy. I think that Michael Douglas’ podium speech in American President was actually very good and very powerful. It made me wish that politicians would speak like that. On the West Wing, they did often cut away from speeches and debates that were supposed to kick ass and would leave it to us to imagine how ass-kicking it was. On the other hand, there were many, many short speeches/monologs on politics from Bartlett and others that honestly did kick ass, and were powerful and moving.
I think that he just thinks very very well about politics and associated topics, and not so well about being funny with those things (e.g. Science Schmience). Toby on the West Wing could have been very dry and amusing, but also simultaneously cutting, saying the same things that Rob Corrdry’s brother was saying. As part of a comedy sketch, not so funny.
I think this is an excellent point. For all that it’s not working for some people, there are just as obviously a bunch of people for whom the show within the show is funny; my own opinion is that, while it isn’t hilarious, even what bits we’ve seen have been a marked step up from virtually anything I’ve seen on SNL in the last five years, and they complement the show as a whole rather than distract from it. There is such a natural variation in what people find funny, though (see: opinions on Everybody Loves Raymond, or that Will Ferrell has a career, or that Jackass Number Two has grossed over 50 million in about two weeks), while there are a lot more objective factors that go into what makes a great political speech. No matter how good the quality of the comedy Sorkin turns out for the sketches, he’s not going to win over his whole audience, or even necessarily most of it. I think, as a device for the show, the sketches merely have to evoke a “Hmmm, something like that on SNL has potential!” reaction, and at least for me, they do that.
The difference is, there is a general consensus on what “very tall” is, and I don’t doubt the nonsense of having a short man play someone the cast is pretending to gaze up at would be distracting to the audience. As you note, it would not only be distracting, but you could reasonably argue it should be distracting (most folks would think, as you described it, this scene was a bit of ironic comedy rather than a straightfaced presentation that’s gone horribly off the rails).
But there is no general consensus on “funny”. Perhaps it would be better to leave the proposed sketches to the imagination (some of the best horror films, for example, are ones where the monster is rarely seen). But to feel distracted because the few seconds of sketch we see don’t appear to be all that funny is a case of being too fastidious in criticism. They conform to typical SNL sketches, and the topic (e.g. “Science Schmience”) is intended as a shorthand for “edgy”. In short they fill the role the show asks for them. You may still feel personally distracted by the lack of funny, but I humbly believe its still not a fair criticism (I can’t believe I’m spending this much time defending a show that I consider mediocre, but there it is)…
Yes we do. Once. Otherwise everybody here would have complained that they never showed it. Sorkin had no choice. Besides, it would have left a huge hole if the show within a show never existed at all, the same way Sorkin had to show snippets of sports news on Sports Night.
Now that he’s done it, he can back off and not make such a point of it. But he had to do it in this episode. Dramatically he had no choice.
I thought Gwen Stefani was fabulous.
ROFL
Perhaps her best performance of late.
Yeah, but what was with that outfit?
The thing about the non-funny sketches is that they completely pull me out of the show. They go to such great pains to try to be realistic, that anything incongruous really sticks out.
That’s why the other thing that bugged me is Guest Host…Rob Reiner??? Was that because Studio 60 (the show, not the show within the show) could actually get him? Because if you’re thinking about current, trendy, hip guest hosts, Meathead would probably have a few hundred people ahead of him in the Real World.
Reiner probably was there because he directed A Few Good Men, which was Sorkin’s play. Also, Reiner hosted the third epeiode of SNL back in 1975, so it’s a subtle reference to that.
Studio 60 has lost over 30% of the premiere audience, so the odds of its sticking around for next season are shrinking. It’s got to be an expensive show to produce, and with Heroes doing quite well in the ratings it’s likely to take away the push that Studio 60 initially got.
Which is, oddly enough, what Holly Hunter’s real voice sounds like to most of the country. Are you sure you’re not thinking of Helen Hunt?
[sup]*[/sup] That cost him his job. Don’t be dense. Remember, these are people worried about their careers in a cutthroat business. It doesn’t have to be “important to the operation of the world.” Matt getting sacked was very important to him. Jordan possibly getting sacked is very important to her. I think all the West Wing grandiosity has poisoned your brain & you forget that people are hugely concerned about themselves, & quite rightly, too.
The existence of Jackass 2 does not prove the inefficacy of commedia dell’arte on TV, anymore than the existence of nudie mags proves the impossibility of serious literature.
I love this show for the Big Reason, & if you don’t know what The Big Reason is, good for you, you’re less a couch potato than am I. Sorkin spent most of the first two episodes calling out the Wildmons & the scaredy-cat affiliate groups by name, & his show is still on the air. NBC has run afoul of that sort of boycott repeatedly, & I’m sure they’ve had enough. They’ve found a way to stand up to them artistically & satirically, & I’m with 'em.
More on this later.
So how are they getting away with it? Three ways:
One, by making a show not about God or the clergy, but about, in fact, the problem of censorship.
Two, by having a character stand up sympathetically for the cultural conservative p.o.v. in the show.
Three, by having all of this done in a show by one of the highest-profile show-runners in the country.
With these elements, how can the AFA call for its cancellation?
This episode gave us an interesting twist. Harriet, iirc, said something like, “God loves me & hates you,”–not seriously, but teasingly, showing she’s not always theologically earnest, which is good. Yet it implied that she’s a bit full of herself. She may be the most religious, but she’s far from personally perfect. I hope this is dealt with deftly & honestly.
I can’t stop matching these characters to Sports Night Characters. Sarah Paulson’s character kinda reminds me of Sabrina Lloyd’s character. And of course Amanda Peet’s character kinda reminds me of Felicity Huffman’s.
I agree with eve, Sarah Paulson was doing a Midsummer Night’s Dream as played by Holly Hunter in the end. And I thought Sarah did a good Holly Hunter. (Although not nearly as good as Eve’s Bela Lugosi)
I think Peet is doing an OK job and am not hating her as some of the others are.
Over all, I’m liking the show. I suppose that means it will be canceled before Christmas.