Studio 60 Reviews

'Studio 60,' Sorkin
stands and delivers

'West Wing' creator challenges network television

By Andrew Lyons (Media Life)
Sep 18, 2006

Here's a challenge: Create an hour-long drama in which the first minutes are given over to a character railing over how bad television has become. Then proceed with a drama that suffers none of those qualities and in fact excels at all the qualities associated with the best of television. That's a dare and a double-dare. It's an invitation to self-immolation.

Yet that the challenge Aaron Sorkin undertakes with “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” which premieres tonight at 10 on NBC. The brilliant but sometimes troubled creator of “The West Wing” and Sports Night” is challenging himself to live up to the values articulated in the impassioned speech his new series opens with.

Damn if he doesn’t succeed.

What follows that opening speech is the antithesis of everything our character decries. “Studio 60,” about a late-night comedy show, moves at a speed reminiscent of “West Wing” in its superior early years. The writing is whip-smart, with characters speaking the way we wish we could speak on our best days.

But beyond the language, Sorkin also delivers ideas. The dialogue is about ideas. One would expect that from a show about a presidential administration, and in "West Wing" those ideas were about religion, drugs, culture wars, journalism and war. Sorkin now delivers that same level of social awareness and thoughtfulness in a series about a late-night sketch show.

It is captured in the series' very first words. Wes Mendel (Judd Hirsch), the executive producer of a sketch show called “Studio 60,” is infuriated. Network executives have cut a controversial sketch. Mendel is so infuriated that he interrupts a live broadcast to deliver a Howard Beale-style tirade. In the struggle between art and commerce, “art is getting its ass kicked.” He rails against a culture in which “people are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump.” He tells viewers, "We’re eating worms for money.” He lashes out about how “guys are getting killed in a war that's got theme music and a logo.”

It will be lost on no one, certainly not media people, that the network under attack is the real-life NBC. That gives “Studio 60” a unique sense of authenticity.

The series opens with Mendel being fired for his tirade. Just-hired network executive Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet) convinces her reluctant boss Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber) to re-hire former “Studio 60” writers Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) and Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford), who were fired themselves four years earlier. Their challenge is to revive the show.

Whitford, a "West Wing" vet, is a strong Danny and he plays off Perry well. Danny has just fallen off the wagon into a pile of cocaine. He's trying to regain his bearings and his reputation.

Perry's Matt Albie is essentially Sorkin himself, and Perry captures that intensity of commitment. He's smooth, he's agile as an actor. One immediately forgets his years on "Friends."

But the real standout is Peet, best-known for playing conniving climbers. In a scene in which a late-night emergency meeting is called, all the talk is about damage control. As Jordan she warns that if they back down, folks will say that Mendel was right in his rant over bad television. She argues for taking chances, even if it means putting her career at risk.

Staking out a high moral ground on any television show is a risk-filled undertaking, and even more so when the high moral ground is about standing up for quality television. One can see the sap beginning to run from miles away.

Yet in "Studio 60" the sap doesn't run. The heavy moral risk-taking comes off as genuine as its characters. That's a huge achievement.

"Studio" is Sorkin's most ambitious undertaking yet. His challenge will be to sustain the energy and single-mindedness of episode one. But he's certainly off to a strong start.