I thought the second episode was pretty good. The acting’s solid, the camera work and set design and lighting and all the technical stuff is artful and smooth, and the writing is getting there (I think it’ll be a few more episodes before Sorkin gets back his sense of what works and what is just quirky garbage, but it had its moments). And I love the fact that the goofball from Wings is playing the heavy.
But I think there’s a major problem built into the show’s premise, a problem that will keep coming up over and over again: it’s about contemporary pop culture. The stuff about the White Stripes would have been pretty clever at some point but the “are they married or brother and sister” quandry really peaked 5 years ago. Sorkin sort of acknowledges this point with Danny’s dated comment assuming the continuing existence of the Stone Temple Pilots, but acknowledging a problem isn’t the same thing as fixing it (see also all the references to NBC, as if to make perfectly clear that Studio 60 isn’t on NBC, even though we all know perfectly well that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is in fact on NBC–I’m not ever going to write the whole name of the show again, incidentally).
On a related note: Someone’s going to have to break it to Aaron Sorkin that nobody knows or cares about Gilbert & Sullivan anymore. I mean, it was believable that nerds like Sam Seaborn and Ainsley Hayes would have a familiarity with the comic operettas of G&S, but the idea that an SNL kind of show would ever do a parody of a song from The Pirates of Penzance is laughable, and not in the good way. So that was awkward and brings me to another concern I have: are they going to make a habit of showing skits from the show-within-the-show? Because, best case scenario, they’re funny but jarring (since they will of course not match the tone of the rest of the show); worst case scenario, they’re not funny, which a) makes it hard to take seriously the premise that Matt and Danny and their performers are the best in the business and b) just means there’s five minutes of the show that are awkward and unenjoyable. For example, I’d describe the song last night as somewhat amusing. Not a total disaster, but certainly not ROFLHOUSE hilarious. And I spent most of the time that it was on my screen thinking about how dumb it was to parody Gilbert and Sullivan and wondering how Sorkin managed to get NBC to okay a reacharound joke.
So how to fix this (not the Gilbert and Sullivan part–if there’s any justice we won’t have to deal with that again)? Man, I dunno. When was the last time that a network show of any kind (including, appropriately enough, SNL) referenced pop culture without it seeming forced and stupid? And yet, how can you write a show about a variety show without making constant references to current events and pop culture? Obviously, you can’t, so they’re just going to have to keep a steady stream of metahumor about stunt-casting and corporate trend-chasing coming down the pike. And as much as I love the postmodern condition, I think that’s going to get old real fast.
I just hope that by the middle of this season there’ll be a rumor that NBS is going to get bought out by Quo Vadimus and they will probably scrap all the programming. I mean, if you’re going to stunt cast, why not go all out and have a full-on crossover with Sports Night? Danny vs. Danny for all the marbles! Or what the hell, why not throw in the West Wing and make it Danny3?
Bonus link: The Studio 60 drinking game. This is genius. [Defamer]
Follow me on Twitter