Well, that’s it folks. Nothing more to see here, move along.
So what could have been done better last night? Seems that the rescue of Tom’s brother was a little rushed, and that Matt and Harriet are just doing what they always do (break up, get together, break up, lather, rinse, repeat).
But I really liked the exchanges between Simon and Jack. Don’t really think that the race card should have been played, but I liked how in the end Jack agreed with Simon, only to have Simon say he intended to apologize all along, but only for the right reasons.
BTW: Remember last year when we were thinking of things that this show would have in it just because it was a Sorkin vehicle? I remember picking that one of the shows would be titled “What Kind Of Day This Has Been.” (I tried looking for that thread last night, but my search-fu is weak.)
All I felt was that everything was a little absurdly tied up in a lovely llittle gift-wrapped bundle of “I’m done with this shit - what’s next?” I regret having invested so much in this show, but at least it’s finally over. Whew.
Maybe it’s for the new play Sorkin wrote that’s opening soon on Broadway. I can easily see him writing a part for her in it. Past romantic involvement aside, she does bring a lot of cache to a play.
I’m disappointed that they didn’t provide closure on the all-night vinyl record store story thread after teasing me with it last week. Does Tom reveal the location of the nearby Stax of Wax outlet so the major can pick up his vintage Sinatra recording?
I thought it was satisfactory for a finale, with some especially good scenes. Mainly the stuff with Jack and Simon. Steven Weber always struck me as an adequate light comedian, but he was so good in this role, the most interesting character on the show (thought that’s not saying much). Being able to portray drunk without going over-the-top is tough, and he did it really well.
I was impressed that they used an actually very young baby for little Rebecca. Usually newborns on TV are played by 3 month-olds. It really was a beautiful baby, too.
Still couldn’t care less about Matt and Harriet, though.
And so at last, we come here to bury the late semi-lamented Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.
Given the exceedingly decent quality (how’s that for a low bar?) of the most recent episodes, I was tempted to reassess the show as ‘underrated.’
Then, doing an unrelated search (surprising how many Studio 60 threads get returned when searching Cafe Society for ‘Buffy’), I stumbled upon the thread for Studio 60 1/29/2007.
You remember?
Matt and Harry do sitcom plot #23 (locked out on the roof)
And inexplicably, in the heart of L.A., on the roof, there’s no cell phone coverage.
And there are venomous snakes loose in the building. And they’re sending in a ferret after them. And later, a coyote.
And Tom does sitcom plot #47 (wants to go out with so-and-so, but for plot-related purposes must appear interested in what’s-her-mug).
Ugh. I had more (West Wing blah blah blah, Sports Night yadda yadda yadda, Alberto Fedregotti etc etc), but the hell with it. I’ll just close with a fervent wish that Mr. Sorkin might stop reading his own press releases and figure out how to write well again.
It sort of seems like they were setting up a season-ending with multiple cliff-hangers, and then found out that the show was cancelled so they just wrapped up all the scary plot lines in a nice neat ending with everybody living happily ever after.
I’m one of the last holdouts…I really wanted this show to succeed. It had so many good actors and it had such a strong promise. I will miss what this show could have done.
I cried when Tom realized his brother was safe. I rewound the tape, watched it again, and cried again.
What exactly happened with this show? I still maintain running it after Heroes was the wrong time slot…they should have put it on the old L&O time slot, Wednesdays at 10pm.
Isn’t if funny you would say that? Because that’s not what they did. They took the “guaranteed Sorkin hit” and put on after this other new show they were gambling on to help boost its ratings.
Not every moment was good, and that january show would have been WAY better if they’d actually shown the ferret. I live with two of them, and they can brighten up anything.
The end was saccharine, but the acting was terrific. I appreciated that they took the time to wrap it up, not just give us another show and leave it all hanging. In a way, it was gutsy to not kill somebody, which would most likely have been somebody unexpected just for the irony.
Anita Loos has her brunette in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (the book) say about the blonde something like, she’s like the radio: you listen and listen, and just when you’re about to throw it out the window, a masterpiece comes on. This show felt like that to me: not all good, and sometimes I was ready to bail, and then it would give me an absolutely perfect moment.
That’s not how scheduling works. If they were operating under your premise, they would have put Studio 60 as a lead-in to Heroes. There was a reason Friends anchored Thursdays at 8p forever.
I maintain the audiences were widely different (although I watched both) and Mondays after *Heroes *was not a good time slot for Studio 60.