This week hasn't been a good one for Studio 60 — sure, they were picked up for three more episodes but Monday kicked off with Roger Freidman announcing they'd already been cancelled, taking the opportunity to review the show and declare it earnest, and worse for Sorkin the self-styled savior, trifling. NBC quickly denied the rumor, but they can't deny the numbers, or the subsequent flurry of speculation. Besides, the point has been made again and again of course, because it's true: Studio 60 is uncomfortably, self-righteously earnest and thinks its important with a capital 'I'. For a show that's supposed to be about a bunch of hilarious, brilliant writers and performers making hilarious, brilliant comedy, they are — to a man — remarkably unfunny. And oh, so damn earnest — here's little Nate Corddry, biting off his TV mom's head for an error of nomenclature:
We don't do skits, Mom. Skits are when the football team dresses up at the cheerleaders and thinks it's wit. Sketches are when some of the best minds in comedy come together and put on a national television show that's watched and talked about by millions of people.Yowsers, way to kill the joke. Perhaps if Sorkin and co. focus less on dropping look-at-me-I'm-smart references to Strindberg and Commedia Dell'Arte and more on making the show more fun to watch — and for God's sake, less talky — they would really have a winning show on their hands. Or at least a funny one — I've never seen a group of comedians less inclined to actually laugh.
As the WSJ points out, the share may be small but the viewers are primo, and hey, they've got nowhere to go but up. The argument that it's harder to care about a sketch comedy show as opposed to, say, an emergency room is moot; there are stakes in every environment (and Studio 60 has certainly milked its stakes for all the drama they're worth, and probably more). But if it's true that, as Sorkin says, the show is "a workplace drama with elements of romantic comedy," then there is no reason why an engaging cast and well-executed storyline shouldn't draw viewers in (and by the way, they have grossly underused the potential of the writer's room - one guy sitting in an office trying to write 90 minutes of brilliant TV has only so much angst; a roomful of people sweating to be noticed in an environment of shifting political allegiances and clashing comedic styles has plenty of potential, for conflict and also for romantic subplots laced with the pithy one-liners Sorkin so loves). In order to have a shot, though, Studio 60 has to fall a little bit out of love with itself and remember that taking comedy seriously doesn't mean taking themselves seriously.
Okay, no more comedy writing for me this week. And now, I take my own advice.
Can a TV Show With Dream Viewers But Low Ratings Survive? Stay Tuned [WSJ]
Trade Viewers Prefer Texas High School Football To Overly Serious Sketch Comedy [Defamer]
