I think rather than start my own thread, I’m gonna revive this one.
So, about this whole “pilot” thing. It’s good. It’s very good. Aaron’s writing seems as crisp as ever, and Perry and Whitford banter like it’s their job. …Which it is.
And it’s available for viewing on YouTube right now in five parts.
Our TV critic (who I typically agree with) has said that 30 Rock is the best new sitcom this year - and he’s pretty tough in his praise. I don’t know if he’s seen more than the pilot, but he was pretty impressed with it.
I’ve got “Studio 60” in my Netflix queue, but I’m sure the demand is fairly high, so I won’t expect the pilot to ship the day it opens. Maybe I’ll check it out through YouTube.
E.
WOW. Just watched the pilot. It was up there with the early West Wing episodes. Very snappy dialogue, and not once did I think “I’m watching Josh Lyman and Chandler Bing.”
Thanks for this! I have it in my “favorites” folder, and will probably watch in a little while.
At first I wasn’t jazzed at all about 30 Rock, but I recently started reading Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live and now I’m looking forward to it almost as much as Studio 60. Glad to hear that at least one critic likes it. 
Watched the pilot this morning, and am very intrigued. I want to see more of this show. I like that Sorkin stuck with his ‘showing what happens the five minutes before someone goes onstage’ It’s still very captivating. And Perry and Whitford work very well together. They must’ve hit it off when Perry was on The West Wing.
One note:
Usually Sorkin’s main group is all together on something but this show has everyone starting at odds with each other, so that’s what I’m interested in seeing get sresolved.
I don’t want to watch it until it’s presented to me during NBC fall premiere week …
but the commercials have sucked. They’re one liners - and while typing this I realize that Sorokin doesn’t do one liners that aren’t heavily character or context based.
“You told the press I have a secret plan to fight inflation?” and
“By day, they churn butter and worship according to their own beliefs, and by night they solve crimes” and “There can’t possibly be nuclear weapons in Kyrgyzstan” and “Well, I haven’t shot one as much as I’ve seen others shot one in the movies” make me giggle like an idiot - but they totally fail on their own, and NBC seems to be promoting similar quotes on their own merit.
Is the pilot better than they’re making it appear to be?
Much.
It’s also a bit less dizzily banter-y than were Sports Night or The West Wing.
Just a pre-emptive reminder to please use spoiler tags if the discussion turns to anything specific about the pilot episode. Thanks. 
Also, I can’t believe that Sorkin actually killed off Brad Whitford’s character at the end of the third act.
…Whoops.
I just saw an ad for this the other day, and hubby and I are thrilled. We loved WW (until Sorkin left) and can’t wait for this one.
If I were a guy, and had the kind of glove that guys used to smack other guys across the face with, I would smack you across the face with it while saying something like “Pistols at dawn on the morrow!” Instead, I’ll just say, “Beers at sunset on Saturday!”
The pilot on DVD arrived from Netflix today and I just finished watching it. I’m not a fancy schmancy reviewer so I won’t be writing a big analysis of what elements I liked or how the story flowed or anything. But I liked it a lot. I’m a big fan of Sports Night, and of the West Wing (up until Sorkin left), and Studio 60 is very much like the melding of those two shows.
As a pilot it pretty much is kicking the series off. We’ll have to wait for a few more episodes to air to get to know what many of the characters are about, and what direction the series takes. But I’m looking forward to the show to start airing, and since it’s on NBC and created by a successful writer, I’m hopeful it’ll make it past four or five episodes, unlike most of the series I’ve been jazzed about in the past…
Santos gives the pilot: two thumbs up
It might be Victoria Jackson. She’s kind of a hyper-fundie Christian who’s on shows like the 700 Club a lot.
It’s not supposed to be an SNL castmember, actually. She’s Kristin Chenoweth, who,
like Harriet Hayes, recorded a CD of spiritual songs and appeared on The 700 Club to promote it while dating Aaron Sorkin (who is the basis for Matt Albie, although Sorkin’s drug problems are part of Danny Tripp, who is Tommy Schlamme.)
Is every character supposed to be identifiable as a real-life person? I don’t like that somehow; It makes the show seem almost unoriginal.
That said, I received it from Netflix on Saturday and liked it. (BTW, offering the pilot through Netflix was a clever idea I think. I hope the networks do it again.)
Not all of them are, Dewey, but the three I mentioned aren’t disguised all that well. Plus, Kristin was offered that role but turned it down.
The copyright infringement caught up with the pilot on YouTube before I got around to watching it, so now I have it at the top of my Netflix queue – there’s a “short wait.” Hopefully I’ll get it before it airs. 
And I agree that releasing the pilot on DVD before the season starts is a great idea.
So, anyone else seen it?
I saw it a couple nights ago. I thought the following things about it:
Pleasant suprise: Brad Whitford didn’t just make me think of Josh Lyman the whole time. It’s subtle, but, his face moves a little differently, he speaks a little differently. He’s a new character. I find this rare in TV actors.
Matthew Perry is just “Matthew Perry,” but IMO there’s nothing wrong with that. He fits the part.
The portrayal of the Christian character seemed off to me. She didn’t seem to be saying things that I found realistic to the concept of her character. The performance was fine, (not great,) but for the most part I’m talking about the actual written dialogue. No examples come to mind at the moment, though.
Whoever is in charge of deciding which shades of which colors should be on screen at what times is doing something very interesting and pleasing to the eye. I’m not sure how it integrates into the work as a whole, except that I suspect it somehow adds to the “its all a veneer” theme that runs through the show. I’d have to watch one or two more times to confirm that intuition. But what I’m thinking is, the shiny and interesting colors jump out at you in this kind of “glitzy” way which seems to attempt to hide the perfectly ordinary objects giving rise to them. Hard to explain.
There’s a scene at the very end comments about which I need to spoiler box: The actors and the director have done a very nice job of transforming Whitford and Perry’s characters before the viewers’ eyes from semi-successful semi-losers to the “big men in charge.” The scene where they inform the producer that he’ll be keeping his job is where this really happens. Somehow, their faces look more adult, their suits look more shiny, they look bigger in relation to their environment. It’s just a really nice effect. It indicates promising things, I think, for the series.
Dialogue was a little stilted at points, but it seemed compatible with the “Pilot Episode Effect” IMO.
Amanda Peet does a no-good job, unfortunately! I didn’t believe her as a high-powered Exec. She was trying to be the rational, soft-spoken high-power exec, which is fine, but somehow she didn’t pull it off right.
-FrL-
The only problem I had with the pilot is that the plot didn’t seem very “tight”. It seemed to me that the episode could have been a half hour. Of course, it’s just the pilot, it’s introducing the characters (or at least some of them), and I expect the show will get better.
Kidnapped, on the other hand, I really liked.
Saw it last week. Twice. Loved it.
I really liked Kidnapped, too. I hadn’t heard much about it and probably wouldn’t have bothered to watch the series, but I was impressed with the pilot. I’m not sure how they’ll do with that storyline for the whole season, but I’m willing to find out.
This is the only comment of yours that I disagree with: I thought she was great. She impressed me, actually, because I wasn’t expecting to like her. I didn’t get “rational, soft-spoken” at all: I got that she’s trying to be the one who actually cares about the quality of the show, and who isn’t afraid to walk out of meetings or call people on a Friday night to get the job done. I liked her, and I liked her character.