Or in the archives as the studio used to be a recording studio…
You seem awfully worked up over this. Is Sorkin holding a nail gun to your crotch Mondays at 9?
It’s Los Angeles. I would think there’s probably a vintage record store that keeps odd hours somewhere in town. And who knows, maybe that was his record all along?
The timeslot does have something to do with the show working, because the show has to fit the timeslot. If “The West Wing” had been on Tuesdays at 8, it would have died. If “Friends” had been Mondays at 9:30, it wouldn’t have lasted 2 seasons.
This show isn’t a Mondays at 10 kind of show, and that’s why people are leaving. Fridays at 9 would be a better slot (and Fridays are no longer the scheduling wasteland they used to be.)
While I must admit I was only half watching, I guess that means I only half-hated it.
I only looked up when the inspirational music played. And it played a lot. Thank goodness, 'cause the writing sure wasn’t making me feel a thing for Corddry’s bad dad or the old war vet and sniff that humble negro comic. I actually did like him, but his 15 seconds were hardly hilarious and if he’d had half a brain he would have turned down Matt’s ‘offer’ (demand? assumption?) that he join the writing staff. That I would have loved to see, 'cause I know a few writers and actors have done just that when asked to join SNL (and rightly so, it seems).
I’m starting to worry that this is as good as this series is going to get: watchable for sixty minutes yet forgettable five minutes later. Let’s face it, if this show didn’t have Sorkin and a famous cast, nobody would bother talking about it.
I’m on the fence about this show because I keep wanting it to surprise me – and it’s not. Maybe it’s because I watched all of Sports Night last year, maybe it’s because I watched West Wing until Sorkin left, but nothing that happens on this show takes any unpredictable turns.
Everything is perfectly crafted and finely honed, but where’s the turkey being defrosted in the stage lights? Where’s the hunting trip where Bambi gets killed? When does Benson have a stroke?
I appreciate the way the show is put together and told, but it’s past time for the show to have characters that start doing the unexpected.
Which would make him a thief, which isn’t all that sympathetic a character trait either…
Not any more he’s not.
I’m not any more worked up about this stupid plot contrivance than any of the other stupid plot contrivances, it’s just that this stupid plot contrivance is the one that someone commented on. I just don’t believe that two people of Tom’s parents’ generation would never have heard of A&C. Maybe somehow they managed to never hear of their most famous and enduring routine but never having heard the names Abbott and Costello? Balls.
And the 78 was just one more way to bash us over the head with how, what, old fashioned or crotchety or whatever Dad was. I don’t need no damn newfangled CD player in my house! Whatever Dad. My parents in Iowa have CD players, in their cars even. They even use that there internetty thing the kids are all talking about. Tom could just as easily have given them a cassette. I’d have believed a cassette a lot more easily than a freaking 78 RPM record and he could’ve given him a cassette without having to invoke the whole Luddite esthetic. Just one more irritating craplet moment coming at the end of an episode filled with them.
Otto, ditto. Which is what my generation says instead of “word” (or whatever they’re saying now to indicate hearty agreement).
Oozing smug. Starting with Tom’s mom and that awful sweater – haven’t seen one of those since the 70’s, and I live in Iowa. Poor Tom. How did he manage, with those backward parents, to become such a success? The mind boggles. Maybe Sorkin needs to spend some time in a flyover state, the ignorant prick.
I didn’t like the thing with the black comedian either. Patronizing.
If DL’s character wants to “save” black kids from a life of crime, there are better ways to go about it than hanging out at comedy clubs looking for the next Eddie Murphy.
Are there any black people in Aaron Sorkin’s world that did not come from a ghetto? Any? Not in LA.
Just way, way, way too much exposition. Busfield was just an exposition fountain- Hollywood 10, Clifford Odets, the blacklist, the invasion at Normandy, Sid Caesar…, please make it stop.
And then the total weirdness of the midwestern parents. Of course they know “Who’s on first?” His cousins might not…but anyone his parents age knows Abbott and Costello. And he doesn’t need to explain the record player to his dad. What kind of idiocy was that?
They can’t possibly order the back 9 off of this. So, I’ll watch the 13 as pennance for wanting the show in the first place. But wow, that was awful.
And it would be awful at any time slot. The idea of the show might work Fridays at 10. A well executed version of the show would be better on Fridays at 10. (And quite frankly, they could even make a push for Saturday. It’s a wasteland for 18-24 year old men, but that’s not your target. Their target is at home on Saturday nights. If they programmed to them, they could get an audience. However, tonight’s horror doesn’t deserve one.)
This show is maddeningly inconsistent. It has some characters I really like, and some moments of really fun, sparkling, and sometimes meaningful dialogue. Jack ranting about how bad a UN show would be was laught out loud funny. I also didn’t mind Jordan at all. It’s the first time we’ve seen her in a non-completely-professional setting.
On the other hand, people’s criticisms of its heavy-handedness are spot on, and it doesn’t really seem to know where it wants to go.
Otto, thank you for saying everything I was thinking. This episode was just awful, awful, awful. The bimbos were cringeworthy, the sad-eyed sympathetic (emphasis on PATHETIC) Mom and cranky Dad, the ghetto brotha - Jesus, Sorkin hit 'em all. Why doesn’t the guy just go into thereapy and try writing for entertainment, not closure? Right in the middle of Tom’s “This is the Paris opera of television!” speech, Mr. singular walked through and barked “and it’s still not funny!” at the TV. It was the most spot-on observation in my living room last night.
I flew home last night, getting in my door at 10 PM sharp, having just enough time to find a blank DVD to record this eisode, and I decided not to–this show is dead to me, Fredo. And the more I watched, the better I felt about making that call. This like being a fan of the 1919 Black Sox–the more you watch, the more disgusted you get with a talented crew of players.
Sorkin is tanking this one. It’s hopeless. There was an excellent review yesterday of the show in USA TODAY. I think I stuffed it in my suitcase–I’ll post a link if I can find one, but essentially it pointed out eight or ten things that are hopeless about S60OTSS, and it was spot-on about every single one.
Can’t find a lilnk, but it’s by Robert Bianco on page 3D of Monday’s USA TODAY–I’ll sum up his incisive points:
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Sorkin cannot write plausible comedy sketches, much less world-class ones, and needs to stop tryng.
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Stop with the thinly veiled autobigraphy already. No one cares about you, Aaron. No one.
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Harriet’s favored status (as Matt’s ex-girlfriend) would create oceans of jealousy on any TV show set in this solar system.
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Have some perspective on the importance of the world you’re writing about–it’s a fucking TV show, not the White House. Get over yourself.
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Be less earnest. “You’re not curing cancer.” This is a workplace drama, and your audience could identify with the characters, if you’d just let them.
Due to reasons beyond my control I became, er, ah, preoccupied, after Lauren “Gilmore Girl” Graham’s cameo. 
You’re right about that. The show had been losing me, but last night, I saw the first sign of life, and I’m willing to stick with it.
Besides, I have nothing else to do Monday nights at 10. They move it opposite the Amazing Race, though, and I’m gone.
Matt and Simon both saw a diamond in the rough with the new writer. “He just needs discipline.” And I thought the stuff he had to say was funny, if not laughably so. I liked that bit about comparing themselves as slaves to other slaves throughout history.
Tom getting the A&C 78: Yeah, I can see him sending Dad one the next day, but about the only place he could have got it, if not from sending out a PA to the late night record shop, is from the NBS archives. Since A&C debuted that act in the Addison, it’s not unbelievable that they’d have some kind of recording of that act in the historial archives. Of course, come Monday morning, Tom will have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do to some librarian with the network.
I don’t agree that Simon should have known about Willie Wilz. He was given the name by a friend. WW is an up-and-coming comic, one of many thousands hitting the boards in L.A. I see no reason that someone who works 80 hours a week would have a chance to go see people without some kind of recommendation.
And I noticed ads for BMW and another high-end car towards the end of the show. Maybe they (NBC0 are courting those alpha consumers we learned about last week in anticipation of the declining ratings.
Last night I was out at 9, having to pick up a kid from a practice. Got home at 9:30. Wife and other kid were watching S60. I hadn’t even considered asking them to tape it for me, and was fine watching only the last 1/2. I think I asked 2 questions about what happened in the 1st 1/2, and they answered with 2 sentences.
The show is probably better than so much else out there, but that doesn’t mean much. I’ll watch it should I feel like vegging in front of the TV at the time it is on, but I won’t tape it, arrange my schedule to catch it, or rue its passing.
It’s possible that the studio had a gift shop, which might sell historic recordings from the studio’s past and he got it from there. But would they sell a 78 record?
At the beginning of the ep when they showed the monitor on which Lauren Graham was thanking everyone at the end of the broadcast, it sounded like she thanked Matt & Danny- or was I hearing things? That seemed pretty unusual to me. It’s been years since I’ve seen SNL (and I know that they’re not portraying SNL on S60) but would the host really thank the head writer and the producer by name?
Seemed like a weird self serving plug.
McNew, given that Matt’s still writing at least 90% of the show, she would have worked with him on the script. During the rehearsals, she would have been receiving direction from Danny, so yeah, it makes sense for her to be on a first-name basis. By similar reasoning, Matt was able to ask Sting to sing “Fields of Gold” rather than one of the songs from his new album.