Studio 60

[roly]

The much-talked-about opening sketch was super lame, but other than that this show continues to please me. Amanda Peet's still not on my nerves and I'm totally digging the tension/chemistry between Chandler (I'm not ready to call him Matt yet) and Harry(ie?). Also, his fear of the clock was adorable. As was his freakout on the writers.

Speaking of which...Harry from SatC is one of the hacks? Boo! I love him, I don't want him to suck.

One thing I really like about this show is that almost every scene is interesting to me. Even when it's about what I'd ordinarily consider the more boring aspects of the biz, the interplay between the characters makes it worth watching.

[isadora]

I liked it, too, but I had a few issues (that I'm willing to give them time to work out).

Chandler is crazy good in this. I don't know why that surprises me!

It's not funny. That's kind of a problem. Comedy writers are funny (at least up to a point) and most of these folks don't seem so funny. They have the neurotic stuff down, though. The skit, as you noted, was "eh." Of course, as they noted in the first half of the show? It's only funny the first time you hear it. So there's a point to ponder, I guess.

Which brings me back to the fact that it's well-written but almost self-consciously so. Not every one speaks with rapid fire delivery! Ease up on the clever dialogue a little bit, k? In even worse news, not every actor can deliver in that style. The scene with the performers trying to talk over each other? It was painful. They were all bad at it. The writers' room was better. Chandler & Bradley have a great natural chemistry together and the snippy back-and-forth works well with them, I think.

Also, could Aaron Sorkin please get over his blogger bitterness? Oh, okay, we should all have gone to Ha-vahd for comedy or worked for National Lampoon to have an opinion. Whatev, fuck off. I don't have 20 cats and I don't live in my pajamas. Of course Wing Cunt and SARS do so he might have a point there but still! Something about popular blogs/websites makes them popular, just like some people make TV shows that nobody watches and some people make TV shows that everybody watches. Just shut up about the fat/unqualified/cat-having Internet cunts, k? We get it. You hate us. Boo hoo. Stop being such an ego-gratifying whore and don't google yourself every five seconds. Christ.

What else? I'm still sitting on the fence with Amanda Peet. I had a few moments of flaring hatred for her but, overall, found her much more tolerable than I usually do. I wonder what her Q rating is? Hee!

[ophy]

AP was slightly more tolerable in this ep. And Matthew Perry is seriously very good in this. He's not doing Chandler at all, which is a good thing. And I'm really digging Sarah Paulson . . .can't remember noticing her in anything before, but I think she's doing a very nice job as the Sane Christian. And Matt is so in love with his Harry! It's very sweet.

I think the G&S was a good choice . . .you can't go wrong with Gilbert and Sullivan, but they should have cut what we saw in half, I think. Funnier in smaller doses.

[piggay]

We had a cable malfunction and I missed the all important last 10 min! Oh well.

You know, I'm not laughing out loud or anything but I too am entertained through out.

I was a bit skeptical of a "christian" character but I do like her and I :heart: her interactions with Chandler. Ophy - what I remember her from is that stupid Juliette Lewis/Giovanni Ribisi movie "Other Sister" where the two are mentally challenged romeo & juliet :rolleyes: :vomit: . Any who, I think she played the gay older sister. The other notable is in Serenity she was the doctor on the hologram; she gets mauled by the reapers.

[isadora]

I have the same feeling in the pit of my stomache with every episode. It's just a little too clever for its own good. The segment of the show that deals with the Live! show sucks and Matthew Perry is still brilliant in this show.

I am warming to some of the supporting cast but I think there needs to be more interpersonal stuff. We've not really moved forward in three episodes. No story arcs seem to be blooming; we're just hanging out with these people. I just want something to happen, you know? I do still like it. But I'm still feeling sort of like I expect it to be cancelled or I will give it up if it makes a misstep. Hee!

[BreezyK]

Dawn from The Office (UK) is on this!!! That thrilled me last night. Other than that, I still like it, but the "comedy" is painfully UNfunny. I'd rather not see any of it at all, or only in a montage, so you can see the images of what they're talking about, without having to see the sketches. That table read of the Science Schmience was awful.

Also, is it me, or is Simon gay? He did go to the Yale School of Drama, after all.

[Res]

And what was with the really loud applause/laughter for each and every skit? So annoying.
It would have been great if Harry did the gun joke and no one laughed.

I'm really liking MP. Although BW is still Josh Lyman.
I like how AS is able to poke fun at himself and his need to write EVERY word for the show. Although I don't think he writes women very well (other than CJ) but she was just one of the guys on WW.

[ophy]

Still digging it. It might lose mr.o, though . . . he's just not able to accept that anyone could treat making a lame sketch show this seriously. I have to agree it does seem life-or-death at times, without justification at all.

I never watched West Wing, but does it look like Jordan is going to be the Donna to Danny's Josh? I'm getting no vibe at all between AP and MP, so I'm guessing that's going to be the way of things. Steven Weber is really note perfect in his role, isn't he? Kind of impressive.

I'm wondering if just maybe Simon turns down groupies because he's secretly in love with Harry. A Harry-Matt-Simon-Jeannie quadrangle could be interesting. But he's probably just gay, and will be outed during the season. Yawn.

[isadora]

I really liked last night's episode. It seemed that the show is finally living up to its potential, if that makes sense. LOVED Matthew Perry last night. He was perfectly neurotic as Matt.I liked his interaction with Harry and got the chemistry a little bit, that was nice. And Danny was hilarious (tell her I'm not 15) (but Matt is). Hee!

One thing that was nice was that there seemed to be some fun and some actual laughs this episode. I laughed at everything MP did and said.

For some reason the fact that they had an episode about plagiarism and actually sort of blatantly swiped one of Chris Rock's famous bits was funny to me. The "what happened to crazy?" bit he did after Columbine? Very similar, though he didn't randomly jump into talking about food like they did on the show.

Really liked Amanda Peet last night! WHAT is happening to me? Loved Christine Lahti all whored up to come to the set!

Also liked the meta about the audience (since I just read yesterday that Studio 60 is not a hit but it is pulling in the most desirable audience--college educated spend thrifs, I guess--and advertisers are lining up in spite of the low ratings) and Vanity Fair magazine.

[roly]

I liked the episode a lot, too, but I'm apparently very easy to please because every other board I've been to has been slagging on the show since week two while I've continued to enjoy it. I think it helps that it's the first Sorkin show I've watched, so all of his dead horses and in-jokes and whatnot are new to me.

Christine Lahti was awesome. :luv:ed the "15" lines too!

Nate Corddry is the cutest thing evah.

All the Matt/Harry stuff was great (MP is brilliant in this - I can totally feel my Growing Pains-era crush on him coming back). I'm glad that we got to see her do something shitty to him (I don't believe for a minute she didn't know the bat had his digits on it) so we know that they're equal in their post-breakup asshattery. I really hope they don't get back together - the fighting is much more fun.

[ophy]

Nate Corrdry is fab! Loving him.

Loving MP, and Christine Lahti, and just about everybody else. And my girlcrush knows no bounds now that I've seen Sarah Paulson do a Juliette Lewis impersonation.

The actual sketch show is still lame, though.

[isadora]

The actual sketch show is still lame, though.

I'm taking this as a shout-out to nearly every sketch comedy show I've ever watched. Mostly? They're lame. It's like going to a psychic--there's a handful of hits that people remember and a great many misses that most people graciously forget.

[emmaleigh]

I think I may be done with this one. I really wanted to love it- it was the new show I was most excited about since I've long been a Sorkin fan. But the last three episodes, I've just been bored or annoyed or both.

So far as I can tell fan reaction consists of four groups:
Sorkinites who have exalted everything he's ever done and will continue to do so, Sorkin fans who expected more innovation this time out, Sorkin unfamiliars who find S60 refreshing and smart, and Sorkin haters who are (once again) staying away.
I guess I'm in the second group. LOVED Sports Night, appreciated TWW but S60 consistently feels like, "been there, done that."

AND I would be much more willing to buy Sorkin's whole "I'm the only one capable of making clever, original television" were it not for his egregious use of fluffers, Mary Sue(s), telling not showing, and recycled dialogue.

Also, despite the awesomeness of both MP and SP, I don't care about Matt/Harriet AT ALL, and that seems to be the primary story line.
I really like the supporting cast, there seems to be so much potential and yet, at the end of the hour, meh.

[isadora]

The last Studio 60 was partially disastrous and partially good stuff.

I liked the new writer, I liked Amanda Peet (again, weird), I hated the old writer, hated almost everything else. Hee.

[isadora]

Nevada Part 1 was something the show has not been so far: funny!

The whole Jesus as censor was very amusing. This show is growing on me. And me alone, clearly! Hee!

[roly]

No, I still love it too. And I thought this week's ep was the strongest since the premiere. Kristin on E! is reporting that it's received a full-season pickup in spite of the lackluster ratings, so I'm v.v. happy.

[Res]

I'm liking it too - when I remember to watch. Up here it airs Sunday night and then I can catch the U.S. airing on Monday. But between sister drama and work I've missed more eps than I've watched.
I'm getting a co-worker to burns stuff for me. :)

[roly]

This article (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15640559/from/ET/) pretty much sums up my problems with the show.

While I liked most of last night's episode, I've realized that it's not the A-plots that are holding my interest, it's stuff like Santa Suit Guy's near-anxiety attack. That's what I want to see more of - the cast jockeying for air time or stressing about stepping out of their comfort zones. I want to see the writers writing and arguing about what's funny and what isn't. I don't mind all the network stuff because I'm loving Steven Webber more every week, but there's entirely too much focus on it for my liking.

I don't know. I think what I was hoping for was a TV version of Live From New York (http://www.amazon.com/Live-New-York-Uncensored-Saturday/dp/B0007XAWS0/sr=8-1/qid=1163514377/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8648279-4020950?ie=UTF8&s=books) but what we're getting is some bizarre AU West Wing fanfic set at a comedy show.

[isadora]

I'm still a week behind but I'm really warming up to this show. I liked the Santa Suit dude's anxiety, too! I liked almost everything about this episode, actually! The Nevada Day two-parter has been the best of the series so far for me. I think the conversations are still a bit painfully contrived at times but at least they are talking about things in the real world (politics, religion, etc.). Most TV characters seem to operate in a world without politics or religion and it's sort of silly to me. TV characters are like coworkers you like but don't know much about, you know?

I think I've mentioned that I never watched The West Wing or any Sorkin show so I don't have any need to compare this show to others.

I mean, I really like Amanda Peet! HOW is this possible?

Oh, and the dialogue/skits are getting funnier. I giggled at Cheeses of Nazareth! Though it did remind me of that Will & Grace episode where the kids spent the holidays at this fancy hotel and I think it was Will that said, "Instead of the Baby Jesus, we have a plate of nuts and cheeses!"

So, for whatever reason, Jesus/Cheeses always cracks me up.

Roly, you do realize you linked to an article by Miss Alli? Hee!

[roly]

Okay, so even when they do what I want, I'm still not happy. On its face, this episode was exactly what I've been asking for. But the damn Harriet storyline really pissed me off. Isn't she supposed to be smart? And doesn't that mean she could have figured out the exploitation/fetish-izing stuff on her own? Did she really need her big strong male castmates to explain those things to her? Bleh. Aaron, why don't you just tell Kristin you're still mad at her instead of dumbing down her facsimile for the sake of a stupid plot?

On the plus side...Danny and Matt spazzing over the latter's "phone clairvoyance" was hysterical, and I was glad we finally got some sort of development on the whole "frustrated, underutilized writing staff" storyline. Also, I loved the continuity of seeing the set that (I assume) went along with Mexican Santa Guy from last week.

Is, yes! I found out after I linked it and I was mortified to share an opinion on anything with Glory, Girl Writer. Sigh.

[isadora]

I like Amanda Peet. That's so weird! Loved Danny and Matt, as usual, "SAY IT!" Hee. Dorks. I love fictional BFFs. I love Danny and Matt.

Debunking is a hobby so fun times on the debunking of Christmas!

I found the free speech debate to be nonsense. The FCC would be too embarrassed to cause a fuss over such a thing. It's a war, for chrissakes! They might pretend to put up a fight but they know military families and such would demand they drop it.

It's all about how loved a character is as to what they can get away with. Oprah can talk about a Dirty Sanchez but Howard Stern can't. It's simple Q ratings, people.

I didn't really care about Matt and Harriet, except that I like Matt. And I'm okay with Harriet but why is everyone so in love with her? It's a bit tedious.

Aww. Danny loves Jordan. *squee* LOVED him at the OB/GYN. He was hilarious. I liked that they didn't stretch it out. He's a grown-up and an assertive man: not the first choice for most women but I'm falling for you so there you have it... LOVE IT.

[Res]

Apparently I've missed too many eps because I'm not getting Danny being in love with Jordan - but they are cute in their scenes.

I thought they didn't need the fake "snow" in the big music scene. Although the coconut scenes were kind of funny.

I thought the FCC thing was a stretch too. Even when Jack was quitting I thought it rang false - he's too much of an ass to give up so easily.

[ophy]

I love Harriet! I don't know why, but I do. And I love the whole thing between Matt and Harriet- I even squeeed just a tiny bit during the kiss!

I'm also enjoying Danny and Jordan. I thought they had laid the groundwork for it by showing that she had won him over professionally, and that he had respect for her yada yada. And there were a few looks now and then. But it's been subtle until this week. AP is not even annoying me anymore, although passing her off as only 3 months pregnant is pretty funny. I'm really glad they didn't go the route of having it be Jack's baby - I had an idea that we were going to find out they had a one time fling or something. Don't know why I was afraid of that. I liked Jack's response as well- Steven Weber just keeps on impressing me.

[roly]

And I'm out. When Jordan's fight with that douchebag from Reality Programming is the only thing that remotely piques my interest, it's time to say goodbye. The fact that Danny is now a totally creepy stalker makes it a lot easier. Bleh. What a waste of a good cast/premise.

[isadora]

I'm hanging in. I didn't find Danny's stalking that endearing but, seriously, if Martin Scorcese sent me a letter on a man's behalf, I'd probably put out just because.

ot/Hans Zimmer from the Young Americans soundtrack just came on my iPod shuffle--Aww, gift from da :piggy:.

[isadora]

Okay, even I was cringing over last night's episode. WHY can't I stop watching? I don't know.

[ophy]

I'm still hanging in!

There was more cheez than usual, though.

[isadora]

That makes me feel better.

I still like tons of things about it. I'm guessing last night's episode was Sorkin's bitch at the network for asking for more relationship-centered episodes? Hee!

I did like some things about it but, damn, stuck on the roof?

Still like Amanda Peet.