Mark McKinney makes an appearance in front of the camera, and Aaron Sorkin appears to be cribbing a storyline from a West Wing episode so bad that it’s no longer in continuity.
Dialogue’s still pretty snappy.
Hey, I’m giddy about McKinney. Loving how he’s playing it so low-key.
Ha!
“Stand right there another minute” ::DOORFACE:: “Metaphor.”
Damn, Mark McKinney was good! And he’s going to be back! Yay!
At last, those of us who have been waiting patiently for this show to hit its marks get rewarded big time. Great characters (McKinney was indeed wonderful), great storyline. For once, most of the cast appeared to be acting like real people rather than puppets emitting clever lines. Even Harry wasn’t particularly painful this time.
Loved it. Might have something to slag off about it fter I think a bit, but right now, to paraphrase a line from the show, a solid double up the middle.
tap dances
Great show, I loved the time transitions and their seamlessness, and yet I never got confused. Probably thanks to the gimmick of no one owning an umbrella on the show.
So who gave Jordan the baby? Any clues?
– IG
This show is such an interesting mess. 
Aaron Sorkin forgot how to write tightly somewhere between giving the presidency to John Goodman and making John Goodman a Nevada judge. The arcs aren’t tight, the dialogue isn’t tight, the scripts aren’t tight…but it’s still wonderfully entertaining.
I didn’t think this was as good as last week’s… but at the same time, I’m still a lot more curious to see where this is going than I was during those bunch of mediocre episodes in the middle. I’m with Gadarene, I think - the show just felt really messy. But also pretty interesting
This episode was pretty good. Loved that the other writers are actually getting to do something. Also thought the Howie Mandel intro with the Deal or No Deal parody was pretty funny, although they seem to have an overenthusiastic laugh track for the show. Same with The Bachelor parody- the audience laughter was way over the top.
I also liked how the characters seemed more like real people this time, rather than just caricatures. Although Harriet seems to me to be much dumber than a supposedly smart character should be. I’m not great at telling a joke, but it’s usually because I try to tell a joke that I heard a few days ago or more. She would have the joke completely messed up the second after she heard it. I’ve known several people who couldn’t tell jokes, but no one, even my dumber friends were ever that bad. Other than that though, everyone seemed like real people this episode, and I didn’t have to yell at the TV.
I’m glad I’ve stuck with the show this far. I think could find its feet and become a really good show.
Who is Mark McKinney and why is it such a big deal that he was on the show? Enlightenment is most appreciated.
I was surprised they had Jordan McDeer get pregnant on the show although she’s preggo in real life.
The spit take sketch stuff was laugh out loud funny, especially when they suggested spitting at Harry.
Comedian best known for the cult favorite Canadian troupe The Kids in The Hall. He’s the Chicken Lady! He’s also the sketch comedy advisor for the show.
Not great, but at least we’re back on track. It’s drama behind he scenes, not moralizing about how astonishing it is to find a Christian in Hollywood. Everyone getting the flu and having to change a sketch in the last minute due to tragic news is exactly the type of thing I want to see here.
Loved the My Favorite Year reference: "A guy goes into a doctor’s office with a duck on his head. The doctor says, “Can I help you?” And the duck says, “Yeah, help me get this guy off my ass!”
Ok, in MFY, it was a psychiatrist’s office, but still…
He was also on SNL for a while, increasing the amount of relevant experience.
He wasn’t especially good on SNL, but it’s a step in the right direction.
He wasn’t especially prominent on SNL, either.
I thought it was a very good show. And this is the first time that I saw the ‘show within a show’ as a viable comedy. “Spit-Take Theater” was a funny concept, the monologue with Howie looked like something that could have been on SNL. All in all, very enjoyable.
The one thing people might remember about him from SNL was that he did a pretty good Steve Forbes impression.
The only thing I didn’t like about tonight’s episode was that I thought Harriet’s inability to tell a joke was overly broad and unrealistic.
McKinney was good, though.
I thought this was definitely the best episode of the season so far. The only problem for me is that I really didn’t enjoy any of Amanda Peet’s scenes. I still don’t care about that character at all.
And any episode with no Matt/Harry Will-They!Won’t-They! automatically gets bonus points from me.
Holy crap! That was the guy from Kids in the Hall!
Nice that Mandel is able to joke about himself (“I don’t stay on the phone that long.”). That intro is probably the first sketch that I’ve really laughed at.
I think this was the best episode so far. It had a lot of good elements.
I liked the Howie/Danny opening. I liked the spit take scene (the characters are all comedians - they should get more chances to act like it). I liked the writing room plotline. I liked the flu plotline. I liked Corinne Bailey Rae.
The plotline about Harriet didn’t ring true however. We keep getting told week after week that she’s supposed to be a great comedian who makes people laugh and can make borderline material work and now we’re supposed to believe she can’t tell a joke?
A lot of the references make me suspect that Sorkin wrote this episode’s script after reading the negative comments on the show’s early episodes; Danny’s complaints about anonymous bloggers, complaints about ratings being used to define a show, Harriet supposedly not being funny, Jordan supposedly being too girly. But maybe this is a good thing - Sorkin also made a point of how writers can improve by having their work fail before the audience. Sorkin appears to be shaking off the early mistakes he made and heading in better directions.