Episode info:
After a live taping, the “Studio 60” team become aware that they unwittingly plagiarized another comedian’s material—an act they are desperate to delete from their West Coast feed.
Should be interesting to see how the ratings look after this week.
I just saw it and it’s very, very good, except for one thing…
Get rid of the romance *angst * between Matt and Harriet. NOW. (Minor spoiler about that part.)
That whole plot line used up way too much air time (this be the spoiler, i.e. that it takes up a huge part of the show). Tat makes me wonder if Sorkin has to pad the story, becuae he soesn’t have a whole lot to say, which in turn makes me a wee bit nervous about the rest of the season, let alone a second season
However, Perry and Whitford has great chemistry, there’s a really good pedeconferencing and the dialogue is very snappy. I enjoy everything but the Matt&Harriet thing.
Not drunk, just a remote keyboard that is sluggish in responding at times. Should’ve previewed. Sorry.
Is there a rule about when we Canadians can start taunting the rest of you about each week’s new episode?
I’d just ask that you spoiler anything posted before 10 p.m. Eastern, at least for me.
If we can get a group of people together like the Lost threads, we can steal some of their rules. 
The “gift” and the pedeconference were funny.
Giving further hope to the sketch scenes: the guy who wrote the 90 seconds from the writing room is Chris Hogan, formerly of MadTV.
Hi … I’m Juliette Lewis, and this is Meet The Press.
Who works on a Juliette Lewis impression?
The same person who puts her in Tim Russert’s chair. We get it, she’s a comic genius, but really, * no one actually works on a Juliette Lewis impression*. It irritated me when she did it and then it confused me when the show itself called itself on it. Now i’m just sort of flustered.
But really, Nicolas Cage last week and Juliette Lewis this week? What for next week, Robert Downey Jr? Anne Heche? Hell, at least Heche has a series now.
We have our first reused name: another “Tillinghouse.”
Tight episode. The show’s getting funnier, and this was one time when seriousness felt appropriate along with the comedy.
The “yes we did, yes we really did, no we didn’t” business was just profoundly irritating. I was bored to tears by the Harriet/Matt nonsense and really got interested in the plagiarism (which I can’t spell) storyline and that payoff just sucked. I’m one more boring storyline away from sticking a fork in this one.
Oh look, in next week’s preview Matt and Harriet zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
I think this episode showed some of the sharpest contrast between what works and what does not. The plot device of scrambling to respond to a plagarized bit was a good one and worked to drive the episode, but the bit itself completely sucked and undermined the episode because it wasn’t anything that any staff of professional writers would have laughed at or given any respect. “ADD = stupid” jokes are stale and unoriginal and it wasn’t believable to me that any of that bit would have made it to air on a smart, cutting edge sketch show. Once again, the unfunny content of the show within a show undercuts the credibility of the drama.
My other consistent problem with the show is still the Harriet character. I think a lot of it is the actress. I don’t believe her as a Christian (a creationist, no less) and I don’t believe her as funny. The Juliette Lewis impression is kind of funny in concept (sometimes oddball impressions can work just because they’re oddball) but the execution sucked. Paulson just has no comedic chops. I think the character would be working a lot better if they had cast someone who had genuine comic ability. Imagine someone like Sarah Silverman, or Tina Fey, for that matter. Someone who can actually project wit. The show would work a lot better.
Also, the Matt/Harriet “tension” thing is a complete waste of time. I don’t care, I’m never going to care, and I don’t believe it anyway. They’re just saying lines. They don’t have any real chemistry or believable history.
The show is ALMOST pretty good but those two elements (the lack of funny on the sketch show and pretty much everything about the Harriet character) are albatrosses right now.
If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. Part of media is spending a lot of time around people you get to know a little too well, and, well, sometimes personal feelings become a larger part of work than you’re comfortable with. Just like life.
I loved tonight’s show. I’ve been watching it since the pilot and it’s really great that it’s finding its legs, as it were. I also think it’s great that Sorkin et al. are humanizing Jordan by giving her a DUI in her past. It brings her down to Danny’s level – two talented people who don’t always make smart choices, and who end up paying for those choices. The allusions to Strindberg were also pretty good. Who discusses Strindberg in casual conversation but a pair of literary geeks?
Robin
When the “stupid” routine was first proposed and Matt said it was good, I was genuinely expecting it to be some ploy on his part to deliberately let a bad sketch through just to have it bomb so he could justify getting rid of some of the writers, just because it wasn’t good. The whole bit is hackneyed and lame and if SNL had tried it for real, it’d likely get the feeble audience chuckle it deserves.
And the network chairman phoning in outrage? What’s with that? You think Rob Wright called the booth at SNL after that lip-sync thing? Jokes aren’t funny just because your characters say they are and the antics at your fictional late-night show aren’t critically important just because a character says it is.
I like this show, but don’t believe in the romance. In fact, it’s impossible for me to NOT compare this to “The West Wing”. And when I watched TWW, I could believe that those people were in the White House running the country. I don’t believe that the “Studio 60” people are putting on a weekly sketch comedy show for one minute.
On a slightly unrelated note, before this I watched “Heroes”, also on NBC, and I do believe that this is the first time in several years that I have seen two one hour dramas in which at least one of them DIDN’T have a pop song, totally unrelated to the action on screen, start to swell up at the 53 minute mark. I’m hopeful this trend continues.
Why did they have to proove they were live with the cricket (was is cricket?) score? I understand why they had to go live so as to give the apology and not repeat the bit, I just wasn’t clear why it was important to proove it was live.
It was a way for Sorkin to work in a cricket reference, which like Gilbert & Sullivan and a character named Danny is a trademark.
My guess is that proving it was live was to help convince people that it wasn’t a taped gag but was really a serious thing.
Yikes! That sucked! I mean, really, really sucked! The Matt-Harriet-bat-boot stuff was uninteresting and unfunny. Matt would run down to a show of 5 women dancing poorly on a small stage at the suggestion of an actor only to realize what a bad idea it was when he had a marker and a boot in his hand? Oh, and Harriet is so stupid, she thinks a 10 digit number is a uniform number, and doesn’t recognize that it starts with an area code! Nonsense, all of it. It seemed like the bat through the glass was supposed to be funny, too. Bzzzt!
The ADHD is a new-fangled way to say stupid bit? Damn. Awful stuff. There is absolutely no way that any writer would have found this clever, funny, innovative, or worth their one shot at 90 seconds. How do you even get 90 seconds out of that? I don’t even buy a room full of writers sitting around not even saying anything to begin with. And, by the way, how did the video of some unknown comedian surface if not from Gold himself, who apparently plagiarized the material anyway?
And I agree with so many others, who have noted that it doesn’t make any sense that people would care that much about the past history of some TV executive. Hey!Guess what? Brandon Tartekoff used to go to swinger clubs! You know - Brandon Tartekoff. Tartekoff! Never mind.
I’ll be interested to see if 30 Rock can pull off what Studio 60 is sucking so hard at.
I liked it.
I was surprised by how late in the episode it was before Danny appeared. Has anyone else noticed how sidelined Danny has become?
Jordan was less annoyingly perky then usual.
I agree that the Matt and Harriet romance is being overplayed.
I thought the plagiarism story was handled well. But how realistic was it? What would have been the real legal consequences? They were acting like the settlement was going to shut down the network which I found hard to believe. And is it believable that they would keep a writer on staff after knowing he submitted plagiarized work (even if it later turned out it was owned by the show)?
Except, 30 Rock is a half-hour sitcom, whereas Studio 60 is a one-hour drama.
Everyone knows the comparison was and is inevitable, but the simple fact of the matter is Studio 60 is not trying to be laugh-out-loud funny. It’s not a comedy; it’s a drama about a comedy show. Complaints about the show-within-a-show not being funny are valid, of course; if Sorkin is unable to convince his viewers the show-within-a-show is actually a legitimate network broadcast, it goes a long way toward the negative end of suspension of disbelief. But complaining that Studio 60, itself, the actual show is not funny misses the mark completely.
Sorkin writes drama with a touch of comedy that usually includes some form of relationship problems. He did the relationship angle on Sports Night with Dan and Dana, he did it on The West Wing with Josh and Amy and even Jed and Abby. It’s as much of a trademark of his as is the snappy dialogue. And it may not be for everybody; he does tend to take himself very seriously at times, and perhaps his sense of “gravitas” is unsuited to the subject matter here. But anyone tuning in expecting to see flat-out comedy is going to be sorely disappointed.