Studio 60 - 11/13 (Nevada Day, Part II)

Late on starting this, I know.

Funny so far. It’s better than part 1.

It’s just not realistic that he would bring the paintball gun into the diner. It’s typical of what’s wrong with this show.

Who gives a hoot in hell if it was realistic, when it was funny?

On a show like this, the comedy should spring from realistic situations. It’s not the Three Stooges.

Who knew black people have only been black for 400 years?

I thought that was actually a passable episode until that last idiotic speech by Harriet.

Seriously? This is a major issue for you?

shrugs

Yeah, I’m not sure where exactly she was going with that one.

I’m trying to figure out what they’re doing with Jordan. It’s pretty obvious that they’re gonna make her Danny’s girlfriend, but will that come after she loses her job at the network?

If they do fire her from NBS, I think Steven Weber will be shuffling off to Mandyville at the end of the season.

No, it’s not a major issue, but it is, as I said in the very next sentence, typical of what’s wrong with the show. And there were only two sentences in the post, so…

By the way, did anyone understand exactly why Tom got out of the speeding ticket? The baby was hollering and I didn’t quite get what it had to do with his brother.

I also wrote the OP during a commercial break.

I was also a little fuzzy on why Tom was rushing to the base.

i heard John Goodmna say “you didn’t want your little brother’s last act to be getting you out of a speeding ticket,” and got that it had something to do with his brother being in Afghanistan, but I didn’t get how those dots were connected.

The judge was impressed that Tom didn’t want to use his brother as a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card.

I still don’t understand why didn’t he just pay the ticket in the first place.

I still don’t understand HOW he could have used his brother. Was his brother in the car?

Another good question.

He could have said “I was speeding so I could visit my little brother who is a soldier” but he didn’t want him to be an excuse.

What I’m trying to say is that too many things in too many episodes just don’t ring true and when they pop up they take me out of the reality of the drama that the writer is trying to build. Too often I just can’t suspend my disbelief. People are saying and doing things left and right that just don’t seem like things real people would do or say. I’m too aware that I’m watching actors recite rapid fire witticisms at each other and I don’t feel like it’s the actors’ fault. And the heavy-handed morality lectures flying back and forth aren’t helping either. Maybe a behind-the-scenes at a late night sketch show just isn’t the forum for what the creators are trying to do.

I think he did pay the ticket, and that was the point. He could have played the “brother of servicemember on his way to a war zone” card, but that might have made his “little brother’s last act getting his big brother out of a speeding ticket.” As opposed to some more noble last act, I suppose. The whole situation seemed poorly-thought-out.

And I had the exact same thought as randwill. The ADA’s car doesn’t have a trunk? He hitched a ride? All the possible reasons why he might have to bring his paintball, helmet, goggles, and armor into the diner with him took my attention right off the story. It was a cheap, situational gag, not a character-based one, and I felt insulted by it.

I did love seeing Lucy Davis get featured screen time.

No no, they’ve only been openly black for that long.

:rolleyes:

Once again, Weber gets the best speech, when he lectures the Chinese guy on honor. And for some reason I found it bizarrely interesting that the writers made sure to set things up to have the paintball gun go off, but then decided not to have the paintball actually hit anyone.

Still some problems, though. Well, many problems. Jeeziz, is the writing ever a mess on this thing. Entertaining as John Goodman was, in the end, I didn’t buy pretty much anything about his judge, and the flippin’ earnestness leaking out of every scene still bugs the hell out of me.

Another thing I don’t get, after the show itself went way out its way to paint Tom’s parents as clueless midwesterners so ignorant they never even heard of Abbott and Costello, this ep they have characters in the real show lecturing the cast of the fake show about how unfairly they paint clueless midwesterners on their show. Er, what?

Anyway, the payoff wasn’t up to the level of the setup, IMO, but I’m still watchin’.