All right, if you want analysis:
The show’s failing with these scripts is that it keeps resorting to using people as Devices with a capital D.
Take the reporter from Vanity Fair. She’s a Backstory Device.
There are only so many ways to make a character have a history, something that turns a type into a person. You can start telling the story before the action begins, as in Heroes, where we’re seeing the characters first gain their powers. You can do flashbacks, which the West Wing often resorted to. You can keep the characters somewhat mysterious and just show them doing their jobs with evocative hints as to their past, as on Law and Order.
Or you can find a reason for them to tell the story directly to the audience in real time. This goes by several names in the trade, with infodump probably the most current. I like “expository lump” better, because it’s usually done badly and baldly like that, a huge digestive lump that the audience-snake has to swallow to get on with life. Telling the lump as dialog to another character to liven it up is standard writing.
Who the other character is can be of great importance. In this case the reporter is meant to be Important with a capital I. After all, she’s a Pulitzer-prize winning political reporter who’s doing an All-Access piece for Vanity Fair. This is supposed to clue us in on how Important comedy is. Never mind that in the real world, nobody outside the industry thinks of Vanity Fair as anything other than that magazine that poses actresses naked on the cover. Or that they would assign the piece to veteran entertainment reporters like Marie Brenner or Bill Carter. Or that a political reporter might take the assignment because it’s easy work - no endless travel following a candidate around - and slumming pays great money - probably up to $50,000 for a 10,000 word article.
No, she’s a Device to show Backstory and the Importance of comedy.
But she’s not a real character.
And that brings us to this week’s episode. Why was it is as bad as people have been saying?
Because every single scene and character was a Device to show Backstory and the Importance of comedy. Done so unbelievably badly that jaws could be heard dropping all over the country.
The old man? A Device so that Cal could spout off about the Importance of political comedy back in the blacklisting days to try to connect that sickening episode in the country’s history with the current political climate? (Did anyone not see it coming that he was an old writer?)
The parents? A Device so that Tom could spout off about the Importance of Studio 60 in the cultural history of the country, because cultural history is as meaningful as political history, especially when your parents are so cardboard middle-American actors-are-gay, soldiers-are-men, patriot stereotypes that they could barely say their lines. (And he took the record out of a paper bag, indicating that he went out and bought it. If he had it in his office or found it on the studio lot why put it in a paper bag to take out and throw away when he gave it to his father?)
The black comic? A Device so that Simon could spout off about the Importance of saving black men from cultural suicide by the saving grace of intelligent satire. There’s no way anybody who knew the first comic’s material would have recommended him to Simon. He was a Device to get them out of the wrap party - out of the Wrap Party! see how Important that is? - to show how Important it was to find talent who could Say Things.
Jordan and Rudolph showing up drunk to the wrap party? A Device so that the writers could spout off about studio executives. Who else cares?
The three Silly Sistas? A Device so that… Well, you got me. To show that Matt needs to find a mature partner like Harriet rather than play around? But if they’ve been following the rock world, then they already know all about the differences between writers, performers, and producers. Groupies know this stuff to the bottom of their… celebrity radar. (Read Pamela Des Barres’ books. Seriously. They’re great.) They would never ask stupid questions like those shown.
So. An entire show with no plot advancement, no true conflict, no character development, no characters. Just Devices so we in the audience could be properly impressed by how Important the show is and their lives are.
I’d rather watch the show about the UN.
Line by line, the writing is smooth and the direction is great. That may be why some of you are responding to it positively. By comparison, most of the other new shows are quite clunky. Heroes, for example, is poorly written if you use Studio 60 as your model. Heroes is getting better ratings and more critical acclaim because it is more than writing. Each episode does feature plot advancement, conflict, character development, and meaningful actions. Fine writing alone is not sufficient. When present it makes everything around it even better, but popular entertainment can work fine with adequate writing. (For some people, it can even work with awful writing.)
There’s no reason why Studio 60 cannot feature plot advancement, conflict, character development, and meaningful actions. Most of us expect that it will, which is why I think that the people who are watching and griping continue to watch. In the interim, however, it doesn’t. That’s disappointing and that’s why the audience keeps leaving. (The audience was down again last night, to a 5.1 rating.) It may all suddenly turn around if somebody can pound some sense through somebody’s thick head. West Wing took most of a season to really come together, don’t forget.
The show is off next week. I’m hoping that the extra week will be used to tweak the writing so that these first shows are put in the past - are wrapped, so to speak - and that the series can actually start with the new episodes and be what we want it to be.
If not, it will be cancelled. And rightly so.
And adios.