Harriet needs to go. (A) She and Matt still suck the good out of an episode and (B) she’s less media savvy than I am. And I have nothing to do with the media other than I watch TV. Can I trade her for Ricky and Ron?
Jordan looks really, really pregnant. During one of the walk & talks, she looked bigger than Danny.
But other than that, there were many good things about this episode. It showed promise. Why did it take 6 weeks to get there?
I only started watching the show last week, halfway through the episode, so I know nothing about Jordan (or is it just the actress) being pregnant until I read this thread. And man, I don’t know what you were looking at, but I was thinking to myself how scrawny Jordan was! Can’t even begin to see the blimp you seem to see!
Ah, perceptions!
The actress is pregnant the character is not… Yet.
And yes I think she does look very pregnant nd the show is not making any effort to hide it.
Not only are they making no effort to hide it but it looks as if they’re accentuating it. I think she was wearing the Seinfeld puffy shirt under her blazer, with the ruffles down the front. Plenty of full on frontal and side shots of her last night.
Please let Harry do something to get her kicked off the SWAS. She’s tedious and she and Matt have zero chemistry.
And now they have at least one empty chair Joshua Malina can sit in. 
This was the best episode since the pilot. I said last week that the problem with the show was that Sorkin was trying to do The West Wing when he should be doing Sports Night. This was Sports Night – it was about the show, with some personal stuff mixed in and just a touch of politics.
I’m glad Ricky and Ronnie are gone. They created conflict, but it was dumb conflict, and the idea that they going to have to create the show with two newbie writers in support of Matt makes the next episode sound interesting (though Matt was evidently writing the show himself since he took over). Further, Ricky and Ronnie should have been fired for covering for a plagiarist (the resolution of that issue was too preposterous to believed), and, under normal circumstances, they would have been fired on day one.
The “should she pose” subplot did go on too long.
But it’s beginning to look like the show is reaching its stride.
I really, really want to like Harriet, and I do like the actress. But the she’s written to be more of a charactature than character.
I thought Jordan looked very pregnant.
Overall, despite the ‘don’t do it, Harry!’ plot, this is probably my favorite episode since the pilot.
All you people who think Jordan looked pregnant have been spending too much time with supermarket tabloids screaming BUMP! SHE’S GOT A BUMP!
Really, I’m more concerned that the president of a network has to come chatting with people over a $100 option for a recurring sketch idea. Judging by how much booze they sling, not to mention flights in private jets, I can’t understand why this was even an issue worthy of discussion.
The part I liked the most about the show was the billboard solution to the product placement problem. It was a surprise to me, and yet felt perfectly believable, not a deus ex machina. And the fact that it came from Timothy Busfield’s character felt right as well, there are creative people all around that show.
Harriet’s plotline, meh. She’s so completely unaware of media and perceptions that it boarders on her growing up in a convent.
I’m glad they got rid of Ricky and Ronnie, but it would be nice if the characters still existed in the S60 universe. They are interesting as antagonists if nothing else.
I loved this episode! After I watched it with Improv Dad we looked at each other and just started babbling about how good the episode was.
I hated the ‘Anti-Harriet-Nekkid’ squad story but I was able to overlook it and enjoy the Ricky & Ron story and the Jordan story.
– IG
OK, so is this show cancelled or not?
I mean, I know it’s not cancelled, since NBC is showing new episodes and all that.
But is it true that NBC only ordered as many episodes as the contract required, and then it’s over?
I thought this was a pretty good episode (especially compared to the treacle last week and the week before). I’ll join the anti-Harry chorus, however. Nothing about that character is interesting to me, especially the relationship with Matt.
If they could stay away from the Matt/Harriet will/won’t they stuff and the whole public scandal thing around Jordan (I’m sorry, no one gives a rat’s ass what network execs are up to), we may have a decent show on our hands.
She didn’t. She came to talk about budget cuts and ad placement. The $100 wasn’t an issue for her at all: she was just mentioning the option was up to make sure they didn’t want to pick it up at the last minute. As far as it should have worked, that would have been the last of it.
It only became an issue when Matt realized Ricky and Ronny were shopping it and were planning to leave the show. He felt that would reflect badly on “Studio 60” when “Peripheral Vision Man” flopped and asked to invoke the option. Note that Jordan didn’t try to talk him out of it; she was willing to do whatever he wanted.
NBC ordered a full season on November 9. It will run through May.
The show is doing only fair in the ratings – losing to CSI: Miami and also losing a lot of the audience from Heroes. But the demographics are great:
So it’s get premium ad rates, and is making them a profit for NBC. There’s talk of moving it to a different time slot, but it’s here for the rest of the season. Expect a lot of Lexus ads.
I don’t think the cost of it was the issue. It was a creative decision, and Jordan defers those questions to Danny and Matt.
And I thought Jordan looked pregnant. I thought it was interesting that no mention of it in the show was made, and it looked like she even had a beer while talking to Danny. But in the previews, she faints. I wonder if it’s because Jordan is preganant or finds out she’s pregnant. But wouldn’t it be great if they never addressed that Amanda Peet is pregnant? Send her off on a conference or something after the baby’s birth.
It’s only noticeable because usually Amanda Peet’s figure is usually much slimmer, and I think in the early eps of this show she wore tighter fitting clothes that accentuated her slimmer waist. My wife and I don’t read tabloids but we both noticed last night that she had a bit of a pregnant look to her.
See I’m more concerned that a president of a network is hanging out all the time on the set of ONE LATE NIGHT COMEDY SHOW when she is supposed to be running a fucking network. No wonder the board doesn’t like her. She doesn’t do her job.
Realistically her only interaction with the show would be calling Danny every once in awhile and sending memos.
She definitely looked pregnant. The ruffles on her shirt front (didn’t we leave those back in the early '80s where they belonged? Blech!) really accentuated her tummy.
If I’m not mistaken, the “story by” and “written by” credits were all people other than Aaron Sorkin. Maybe that’s why it was somewhat better than previous installments. I hate feeling that way; Bravo just started running the first season of West Wing again and we’re having a blast watching it. My husband never watched the show, and it’s astonishing how well it works compared to some of the early episodes of S60.
By the way, did Sorkin have some major falling out with Jeff reno and Ron Osborn? They’ve been writers for two decades and were producers on WW, but Ricky and Ron’s names are obvious references to them. Do they all hate each other now?
Really? And what exactly is going on in the office at 9:00 (local) at night?
Eh, I don’t have much of a problem with that. She hangs out there late on a Friday night, after office hours, they apparently have a pretty decent weekly wrap party, and her character seems to like Danny a little bit. This is one case where a little unrealism doesn’t intrude particularly, and moves the story along.
Sorry, asking again: can someone summarize the last 15 minutes? I get that Ricky and Ron, and most of the writing staff, took off, but did they get to take Peripheral Vision Man with them?