August 21, 2006

TV: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

As the show begins, we're in Studio 60, where another episode of the live sketch-comedy show Friday Night in Hollywood is about to begin. The show's head writer (a guest appearance by Judd Hirsch) is arguing with the network standards-and-practices guy, who demands that a potentially offensive sketch be pulled; Hirsch melts down completely, interrupting the opening sketch with a Network-style lecture to the audience that gets him fired. (One of the few unsubtle details in the show is that the characters repeatedly tell us how "just like Network" that was.)

The newly hired head of the NBS entertainment division, Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), is ordered by network boss Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber), to find a solution to the Friday Night problem in time for a Monday press conference. Her solution is to re-hire the writing team who oversaw the show during its glory years, Matt Albie and Danny Tripp (Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford), a team who left the show after a very visible and somewhat spectacular argument with Rudolph (details are left vague).

These four actors are very comfortable with Sorkin's style of rapid-fire dialogue, much of it delivered while walking through corridors and sets and stairways in trademark Sorkin style. Like Sports Night and The West Wing before it, Studio 60 throws you right into the action. The details of what's going on aren't always immediately explained; unlike most TV writers, who have so little faith in our ability to keep up that they force their characters (for our benefit) to explain to one another things they already know, Sorkin trusts the audience to keep up with what's happening and to figure things out as we go along.

The other principal characters spend most of the first episode in the background, but will presumably get more to do in later episodes. Timothy Busfield is Friday Night's longtime director, worried that he'll lose his own over that on-air meltdown. The three principal members of the Friday Night cast are played by Sarah Paulson, D.L. Hughley, and Nate Corddry; Paulson's character, Harriet Hayes, is a conservative Christian who's only just ended a relationship with Danny.

The first episode of Studio 60 is lots of fun, and gets the series off to a promising start; if you liked Sorkin's other shows, you're going to enjoy this one, too. His writing is just as sharp as ever, and the show is well-cast, with several of the actors playing against their usual type; Weber's never been so hissably smarmy, and while I've enjoyed Amanda Peet's movie work, Jordan is a much smarter character than she usually gets to play, and she's delightful in the role. Perry and Whitfield are a crisp comic team, with the kind of timing and interaction that makes you believe they've known one another for years.

NBC will be airing this on Monday nights at 10:00, opposite CSI: Miami and What About Brian?; even after one episode, it's clear that it's going to be the best show in its timeslot.

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