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

[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.