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 f you doubt that backstage drama at a Saturday Night Live-esque show could sustain a prime-time TV series, you have perhaps never read Live From New York, an encyclopedic oral history of the sketch-comedy juggernaut that details more feuds than all of hip-hop, and a startlingly high mortality rate to boot. Reading Live From New York made me realize that SNL has often been more successful as drama than as comedy. Hell, older brothers have been complaining that "it hasn't been good since Aykroyd/Murphy/Myers/Hartman/Ferrell left" for decades now; the fact is the comedy has been spotty all along, but the backstage stuff could be riotous. Example: A sketch where Jon Lovitz plays "Mr. Monopoly," who gets out of prison using a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, is not funny. But watching a young and frustrated Damon Wayans destroy the sketch (and get fired later that night) by playing his cop character as flamboyantly gay well, that's something to see.In recognition of this dramatic potential, two shows set backstage at SNLs-a-clef premiere this fall. Both on NBC, no less. One, 30 Rock, comes from Tina Fey, a longtime SNL veteran, and is accordingly more pitched towards comedy, at least inasmuch as Fey plays a character named "Liz Lemon." The second, until I watched it, showed significantly more potential: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip stars a cadre of big-name actors and comes from Aaron Sorkin, who has two acclaimed series under his belt (the cult favorite Sports Night and The West Wing). It would seem to write itself, no? You've got your intra-cast shenanigans, censorship battles with the network, drug abuse and the ever-present time pressure. If this concept were a cake, it'd be Betty Crocker.
So far, so good: Hirsch is a fine actor, and Timothy Busfield (whom you may remember from Sneakers or Field of Dreams) plays the conflicted control-room director with sympathy. But for all their efforts, it's acting that first gets Studio 60 in trouble, in the form of Amanda Peet, Sarah Paulson and Matthew Perry. Perry, I understand, spent some time on another popular television show whose name escapes me at this point, but despite (or perhaps because of) his experience on that show (Buddies? Chums? Attack of the Tittering Yuppies?), he seems unable to act without mugging. His performance, as Matt Albie, one half of the creative pair brought in to save the show, has some appeal, but he's constantly undercutting it with his irritating tics. In his defense, the writing's not helping him. In one cringeworthy bit, wild Matt spills the beans on his writing partner's coke addiction to a room full of network execs: Matt: Are you people using the confidential information that Danny failed a drug test to force him into taking over Studio 60 to deflect attention from what happened on the air tonight? Studio Exec: He failed a drug test? Amanda Peet: Yeah, actually, Matt, I was the only one who knew about that. Matt: [to Danny] Sorry about that. That one was all me. [To all] Ironically, I'm the one who's high as a paper kite right now . . . Stop talking now? You bet. Did Studio 60's creators have Matthew Perry in mind for this part when they wrote it? 'Cause this sure sounds like dialogue from Attack of the Tittering Yuppies. Real people do not talk like this, except in badly written sitcoms, and with Aaron Sorkin at the helm, Studio 60 is supposed to be anything but. This lazy style results in a lot of telling instead of showing; we hear a lot about how brilliant Matt and Danny are, but their actual output is, to all appearances, less than inspired. Take for example the "controversial" sketch, written by Matt, that Wes Mendell fights to keep on the air. There's a lot of build-up about how this sketch is "of a level we haven't had in years," "inspired," "smart." And what does it turn out to be called? "Crazy Christians." Sounds really hard-hitting, right? How about, I don't know, "The Pope Takes a Shit?" We never see the searing religious satire that is "Crazy Christians," but in the second episode, we do follow a sketch from conception to execution. Matt, Danny and a few cast members conceive of a bit of musical theater to apologize to the audience for the prior week's on-air rant. Besides being an aesthetic miscalculation (Studio 60 should learn from SNL — nothing is more likely to fall flat than an elaborate song-and-dance number with "wacky" lyrics), this is probably a political miscalculation as well; since the on-air meltdown was clearly the most interesting thing to happen to the show in years, there's really no point in apologizing. "We'll be the very model of a modern network TV show," to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Major General's Song"? Isn't that exactly the opposite of what Studio 60 — the fictional and non-fictional shows alike — wants to be? But never mind. The point is, dramatic law demands that the musical bit kill when it airs, and the studio audience reacts with much enthusiasm, but in my living room, it was a flop. And this disjunction is a particular problem; a studio audience that laughs on cue to something that's plainly not funny compounds the sense that Studio 60 is dramatically rigged, a show that has made its conclusions (Matt's a "creative genius," Amanda Peet's character is "instantly likeable") without ever earning them. Studio 60 still has potential, and will likely keep a fanbase even if the writing and acting fail to improve. It's slick, it's snarky and it's got buzz out its ears — two or three fan sites went up before the pilot even aired. After all, Matthew Perry's last show was written and acted pretty badly, and it lasted for ten years. But Aaron Sorkin fans and SNL fans have the right to expect more. I know I did. The damn thing hasn't been good since Wes Mendell left. n° 
©2006 Peter Smith and hooksexup.com. |
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