Screenhead

In the fall of 1998, while working as an entertainment reporter for the university newspaper, my editor became infatuated with the fact that ABC was launching SportsNight, a comedy ostensibly based on corporate cousin ESPN’s flagship show, SportsCenter. According to him, this was synergistic incest, Disney corporate branding gone mad. Week after week, he kept pushing me to cover the story, but as they say, there was no “there” there. Big corporation overextends a brand? So what?

As an avowed sports hater, the concept of the show held no appeal for me. Only thanks to the editor, now I had to watch. To my utter surprise, I quickly fell in love. Amidst the Full Houses and Family Matters was this smart, clever show full of twists and turns. Who was this Aaron Sorkin fellow, and where had he been all my life?

Since then, I have been an avowed Sorkinaholic. For a brief period in 1999, both SportsNight and The West Wing were on, and I had 90 minutes of his writing to revel in each week. Of course, the fates (and heads of ABC) had other ideas, and SportsNight died a premature death. Fortunately, The West Wing lived on. I still count the final three episodes of the latter’s second season as the best television ever aired.

After three long Sorkinless years, we’re in the midst of season one of his latest baby, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and all should be well again… but it’s not. The show is struggling to stay alive, and though we could blame the viewing public at large (the same public that made Wild Hogs into a runaway hit), I have a creeping feeling that they may just be right. Studio 60 needs to be put out of its misery.

When SportsNight came out, you couldn’t put a sitcom on the air without a laugh track, and single-camera comedies were unheard of. Even though Seinfeld was the top-rated show, formulaic tedium like The Single Guy and Suddenly Susan were far more common. Nearly 10 years later, SportsNight’s quirkiness has spread around the dial: Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, Arrested Development all clearly owe a debt to Sorkin. But the widespread absorption of his tricks has made the man’s own work seem tired and overdone, largely because he continues to rely on the same tricks and themes.

Yes, there’s such thing as a writer’s style, but a formula is still a formula, and repetition is really just an excuse to be lazy. Woody Allen’s continued insistence upon casting himself as, well, himself has hobbled many of his recent films. Only when he abandoned the habit in the recent, excellent Match Point (and, okay, cast Scarlett Johansson) was the audience able to look past his personality and watch the movie with fresh eyes.

Still, I’m willing to overlook a creator’s stylistic tics when the story he’s telling is well told. The problem is, Studio 60 is weighed down by a tone far too serious for the subject matter. This is supposed to be about romance behind the scenes of a hip, funny sketch comedy show. Why does it come off like The Godfather? The concept just isn’t capable of supporting the same dark gravitas of the executive branch of government. Had Sorkin returned to the half-hour sitcom format of SportsNight, he might have stood a chance. Instead, he’s getting schooled by Tina Fey.

My biggest disappointment in Studio 60 is actually that Sorkin made it contemporary. Having read several excellent, in-depth biographies of Saturday Night Live (the two best being the best-selling “Live from New York” and the sadly out-of-print, and unofficial and therefore much juicier, “Saturday Night”), it’s obvious that the true drama in that show was in its earlier years, where drug-fueled cast members swapped partners like most people change socks. Even if Sorkin had set the show just after the tumultuous years (say, in 1981) and peppered the show with flashbacks, it likely would have produced a stronger show than “angsty writer pines for the perky blond.” And think of the fun they could have with hairstyles!

None of which is to say that the show is completely without merit. When Sorkin is firing on all cylinders (as he was on the two-part “Nevada Day” episode with the fantastic John Goodman, and “The Christmas Show,” which could have made a fine finale), he is still among the best writers on TV. But history is repeating itself, and it’s clear we’re in for another long, drawn-out cancellation battle. I give Studio 60 a 50/50 shot at coming back next season… as a mid-season replacement with a half-season order. I’d much rather that he use the last five episodes of this season to make a grand finale, and pretend like he meant the show to run for a season all along. To borrow legendary SNL writer Michael O’Donoghue’s phrase, give the show a good Viking funeral.

Perhaps then Sorkin could shake off the old habits and give us something fresh…

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