I feel kind of stupid posting a blog in favor of supporting a TV show - especially since I myself am not a huge TV watcher
HOWEVER!
If you haven't had a chance to see Studio 60, GO CHECK IT OUT!
If you saw an episode and it just didn't entertain you, GIVE IT ANOTHER CHANCE.
The show was created by Aaron Sorkin and is produced by Thomas Schlamme, these are the two guys that brought us West Wing and more notably from a comedic stand point, Sports Night.
If you never saw Sports Night you missed out. It was hands down one of the tightest written show in recent history. The reason for it's failure..."it was too smart"
Sadly, this seems to be the path for Studio 60.
"It's too smart" An insulting comment to us viewers, but unfortunately in the same breath people just aren't getting it.
Aside from being "too smart", I personally think, the late timeslot compounded by the unexpected resurgence of Monday Night Football has hurt it.
Regardless of the competition, past AND present, Studio 60 is currently one of the best written, best acted and best directed shows on television.
Warner Brothers, (the studio) and CBS (the network) have already reneged on their initial offering of a 22 episode first season. Last month however, they made an intelligent decision and extended the current running of 9 episodes and adding 3 more.
I happened to run across some junk on the internet Monday night that sparked the need to write this blog.
I found a few mentions of the studio and the network not satisfied with the Nielson ratings. They had become increasingly more concerned with the number of viewers....
The show started off strong with 13.5 million viewers and over the past few of episodes has fallen off to a "meager" 7.7 million viewers and an additional decline seems to occur in the second half hour of the show.
Why are people leaving?
Who truly knows...I really do attribute a lot to a start time of 10 pm EST and a few Monday Night Football games that have been better than years past.
One thing I know, it's not poor writing, or poor acting or a bad story. The show has gotten better and better each week. Again, it all seems to point towards the notion that the writting is "too smart".
For those who have not heard of the show or that don't know much about it - let me grab some text from Wikipedia to fill you in....
"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is an American dramatic television series that takes place behind the scenes of a fictional live sketch comedy show (which is called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), whose format is similar to NBC's Saturday Night Live. The fictional show-within-a-show is run by head writer Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) and producer/director Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford)."
Pretty simple explanation in my opinion...No rocket science, no brain surgery, no undecipherable doctor, military, or forentic jargon. It's based on a TV show! Something EVERYONE knows, loves and understands.
There have been plenty of TV shows and movies that have proven a cast full of big names doesn't always work, historically it rarely does... Granted some of these actors aren't BIG names, but they are people you are familiar with.
Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet)
Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson)
Tom Jeter (Nate Corddry)
Simon Stiles (D.L. Hugley)
Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber)
Cal Shanley (Timothy Busfield)
Martha O'Dell (Christine Lahti)
Jeannie Whatley (Ayda Field)
Alex Dwyer (Simon Helburg)
Dylan Killington (Nate Torrence)
Samantha Li (Camille Chen)
Ricky Tahoe (Evan Handler)
Ron Oswald (Carlos Jascott)
Wilson White (Ed Asner)
Lucy Kenwright (Lusy Davis)
Darius Hawthorne (Columbus Short)
Andy Mackinaw (Mark McKinney)
IT'S GOOD TV PEOPLE :)
Well, that's all I got in me right now...the work days coming to a close and I need to work. I'm sure I'll be posting again as it moves closer to January 8th.
Go check out this show. It's great, but I think you know I feel that way already....
GO!
~Snack