Studio 60 (mostly a rant)

[mamadeb]

I have no intentions of watching next week's episode, of course, since I never watch Christmas-themed episodes in December, but I wonder if I'm going to watch any other episode. Surely my time would be better spent just watching Heroes in its entirety. After all, Heroes is actually good.

There was so much bad about this last episode. Just so much.

1. If there's a virus epidemic going on in the building, why would the network allow them to go on and infect a live audience?
2. If a hostage situation has just ended in blood and bullets, why wasn't the show pre-empted for, oh, NEWS?
3. A sketch about hostages is in very bad taste while there is an ongoing hostage situation, even if it didn't end in blood and bullets.
4. Harriet is supposedly a talented comedian. If she weren't, she wouldn't be allowed in the Falstaff Society (one assumes.) She can tell jokes with set-ups and punchlines. We know that because she does thenews, which is essentially a series of set-ups and punchlines. No matter how much Sorkin dislikes Kristin Chenoweth (who does not do that sort of humor, I assume), there's only so much he can graft onto Harriet.
4b. There is a rule about ethnic humor. This rule is that only members of an ethnic group can tell ethnic jokes. Harriet telling a Jewish joke breaks that rule. Yes, there are exceptions - mainly comedians like Mencia, because ethnic jokes are his entire shtick - plus he makes fun of his own group as much or more, he makes fun of stupid people even more than that *and* he stears clear of religion. And that is NOT Harriet's shtick. And then she tells it badly, which makes it either a joke against women or about whitebread comics, which makes it offensive on an entirely different level.
5. Jordan's pregnancy makes very little sense, but Jordan makes very little sense. And, wow. Pregnant women are hormonal so they can't make good choices when they talk to interviewers. If she can't do that, then she surely can't run a network.
6.Spitting at the only healthy member of the cast? Mean, much?

This show is getting less and less watchable. As I said, next week is already gone. TVland is getting pretty darn annoying as it is without me voluntarily watching the programming that tells me something is wrong with me because I lack "Christmas spirit". The question remains about the weeks that follow that.

Comments

[amireal.livejournal.com]

okay honestly? The show must go on. I'm serious, live shows are rarely cancelled even in the event of pnuemonia. And letting a live audience into the studio for 2 hours isn't all that much of a thing considering they're mostly seperated from the cast by at least 20 feet (judging by the setup they have).

But seriously, I've put on shows with people standing around reading from a script, too much money and time is involved to just scrap it.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I understand the show must go on mentality. I'll grant you that.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Jordan is pregnant because the actress that plays her is pregnant, and they decided not to have her hide behind potted plants for the rest of the season.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

And Sorkin couldn't figure out a way to set it up that doesn't make her look stupid?

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. I was just sooooo pissed that Sorkin wrote her as attributing her interview to "hormones."

And that it took Danny to tell her that, in fact, some guys out there found it funny, so it's okay after all, only to have her then faint.

The whole thing just made me so annoyed. Sorkin's misogyny knows no bounds.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

But where does this misogyny come from? Remember, this is Sorkin, who created a whole string of strong women characters for West Wing, none of whom let "female troubles" get in their way. And it's not just one show, there were the women on Sports Night.

Suddenly he writes a show where the women are idiots who don't even have the vershtant to understand their own characters. All right, he doesn't like Chenoweth, and puts that into Harriet, but where does Jordan's incompetence come from? It can't just be "the beautiful woman must be incompetent", because she's THE PRESIDENT OF A NETWORK. By definition not incompetent. None of this makes any sense.

Did Sorkin have a stroke last year? Could explain his absence from the writing of West Wing, combined with the apparent personality change that makes these characters so unbelievable.

[rachel-wilder.livejournal.com]

Actually, Sorkin has been treating women as idiots for years. My favorite example--that horrible "B" storyline that had Donna losing her underwear at a party--with her name sewn in them. He did the same things with Ainsley at times and he even went out of his way to make Dana look like a fool on Sports Night at times.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

Now I didn't watch The West Wing, but I did watch SportsNight, and at first, I liked it a lot, and I was especially impressed with Felicity Huffman. But it was not long (a season?) before Sorkin had Dana doing the "I've lost my mind" thing, going from competent, smart producer in charge to ditzy woman with panty problems. Actually, there's a site (http://westwing.bewarne.com/overlaps/sports_misc.html#panties) that looks at how Sorkin borrows from himself that discusses how that plot was used in TWW as well.

So I don't see Studio 60 as a departure for him. I think that, deep down, he's never been comfortable with competent women, and so he has to sexualize them and, when that doesn't work, he has to embarrass them in sexual ways to undercut their authority and ease his own anxiety.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Well, I liked Sports Night and TWW and I hate Studio 60, but really, your Sorkin-haztes-women theory? Doesn't begin to account for CJ.

[girly-curl-3.livejournal.com]

I'm still loving this show, but I agree with a lot of what you said about this week.

I don't know why they were still going to do the hostage skit--you're totally right, it's bad taste no matter how it ends. That was lame.

Jordan being pregnant--you know, last week I kept looking at Amanda Peet and thinking that she was pregnant and I wondered how they were going to work that in. Guess we know now. Also, could they have made it any more obvious with the Matt/Danny pregnant thing? As soon as they said it the first time, I knew what Jordan's "bombshell" was going to be.

Anyway, I'll still keep watching, but, yeah, Heroes is much better.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I didn't notice that, but I'm knitting a lot, so I tned to miss stuff.

There are ways of showing a woman is pregnant without her becoming irrational. Really.

[brak666.livejournal.com]

So many things annoyed me about this episode. Once again we treated to Sorkin's internet snobbery which is always fun. Matt should've known better than to give Harriet that joke. Not just because he should've been aware of the issues it would generate if she actually told it in public, but because he knew she couldn't tell it. Also, Jordan couldn't take the B-12 shot because she's pregnant but drinking hard liquor right out the bottle a moment before was ok?

You know, I never noticed the similarities between Harriet and Krisin Chenoweth until you said that, but it is now completely obvious. Do I want to know why Sorkin doesn't like her?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Sorkin and Chenoweth dated for awhile.

BTW, why would B-12 be bad for pregnant women? Would it hurt the fetus?

And, yes, there's the internet snobbery.

I kept yelling - you have Dilbert27's email. Email him.

[brak666.livejournal.com]

Sorkin and Chenoweth dated for awhile.

Wow. That makes even less sense than Matt and Harry.

Anyway. I can't think of any reason why a pregnant woman couldn't take a B12 shot (aka Folic Acid). The injectable preparation contains a minute amount of Cyanide so really paranoid pregnant women might not want to take it. I checked some sites on the web since I mostly deal with the elderly and don't have to consider pregnancy when giving out shots. All the sites I could find either said that pregnant women could use the product as directed or to check with their doctor first.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I did some googling, too and I found sites that recommended B12 shots for pregnant women with anemia or who were vegans. Which says that this entire episode makes no sense.

They apparently had a bad breakup - and no kidding.

[brak666.livejournal.com]

So am I supposed to not be liking Harriet then? Because honestly she's one of the few characters I actually enjoy.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I'm... not sure. She's usually smart and funny, unless she's stupidly out of character for some reason.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

>dilbert27's email

Not necessarily. Most blogs don't force you to leave a publicly-visible email address. Which means it's up to the blog owner, if even he leaves a publicly-visible email address, to allow you to know who it is. And even then, people can post anonymously, with only an IP address logged. With multi-user systems, firewalls, dynamic IP assignment, etc. it can be very difficult to link the IP address back to a physical user.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

I also assumed she was drinking vodka at first, but then it seemed the bottle was actually a bottle of water.

Not, obv., that that makes the rest of the episode better. I'm just sayin. :-)

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

since I never watch Christmas-themed episodes in December,

My curiosity is piqued. Why? Is it just because of the incessant pushing of the holiday on us this time of year? Does this mean you wouldn't watch something like Doctor Who's The Christmas Invasion, which had pretty much nothing to do with the holiday?

(By the way, Aaron Sorkin's Christmas-themed episodes tend to be pretty good. Because they're usually focused on other things, not Christmas.)

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

Look at the first two Xmas episodes on West Wing. The first one focuses on Toby arranging a burial for the homeless veteran (meit mitzvah - the duty to bury an unclaimed body), which is a Jewish value.

The second one, is about Toby reconciling with his father, with all the Xmas music going constantly, and Xmas decorations heavy in the sets, and Toby's father the ex-gangster being moved by "Oh Holy Night". I have to figure Sorkin was told off for not making his Xmas episode Xmassy enough.

Surely this one will be all full of the Christmas Spirit, given the general obnoxiousness of Harriet's wearing her faith on her sleeve.

On an unrelated note, we then watched the Daily Show, where Jon interviewed Rahm Emanuel. Curious about his name, I looked up his bio on Wikipedia. Israeli parents, brothers named Ari & Ezekiel, children named Zechariah, Ilana and Leah, he & his wife active in a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Chicago. Funny how we didn't hear about his being a Jew, much less observant, unlike how Lieberman trumpeted his own observance six years ago.

I then went to Debbie and chanted "One of us! One of us!"

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

You skipped the Christmas episode "Noel," or as some like to call it, "Josh Lyman's Very Special Christmas Breakdown."

Rep. Emanuel, like many of us, tends to consider his religious observance a private matter. As for Lieberman's trumpeting of his observance, well, when you run for Vice-President, you have a slightly higher profile than when you're simply one of many in Congress.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

Oh, that just makes my point stronger. I just skimmed the script. The Xmas concert gives Josh flashbacks to the shooting. Xmas as actively evil. The only good thing to come out of the episode was returning the painting to the Holocaust survivor - again a Jewish value, returning lost property. Go Jews! Down with the evil Xmas!

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how that makes your point stronger. If I understand correctly, your point is that Sorkin had to give up with his usual Jewish-themed episodes at Christmas time, and write that special episode about Toby's father. My point is that Sorkin has a track record of writing non-Christmasy episodes at Christmas time. So citing "Noel" is in favor of my point, but I don't see how it necessarily leads to the idea that the Studio 60 episode will be "all full of the Christmas Spirit." (It may very well be so, but I'd like to see that for myself.)

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

No, not "non-christmassy", but "anti-christmassy". Now, promos can distort the real intent of the episode, but still, it seems to show a pro-xmas bent, unlike the meit-mitzvah (Toby the Jew showing the Xtians what real "goodwill toward all men" means, chesed shel emet and all that) and Noel (Josh the Jew being cast into a flashback by a Xmas concert).

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I think we've reached a point of agreement here.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I think we're actually agreeing with each other here.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Oh, the points we were making weren't in opposition. If anything, they were orthogonal.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

How many sides does an orthogon have? Two is nonsensical. I'd submit six, since that's the shape of Lincoln Square Synagogue - nonstandard shape, yet still orthodox.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Aaron Sorkin has let me down a lot lately, and I don't trust him. And while I know promos lie, the coming attractions pretty said, "A Very Special Christmas Episode", and I really hate those. Many do seem to revolve around the "True Meaning of Christmas" or "reforming" someone who doesn't care to celebrate in the accepted manner.

I've watched the Dr. Who episode already, after I was assured that it was necessary and not very obnoxious in those aspects (and they were right about that.) I also watched months ago, so it was separated from all the annoyingness now. I did make a point that I won't watch these episodes in *December*.