Studio 60 Fa la la la la

It's been proven time and time again that competition is good, so long as it's fair. In fact, competition makes creative people better. No Revolver, no Pet Sounds and all that.

And so the teeter-totter between the great competing "behind the scenes of a comedy show" series.

In response to my post of a couple weeks back, where I reluctantly admitted that maybe 30 Rock was the show with momentum, commenter Robyn posted this question, and link:

What do you think about this piece, which basically says Studio 60 fails because it talks too little about comedy writing?

Well. I think that piece is pretty much dead on the money. But wait, sports fans...let's go to the tape.

Studio 60 is coming up at the three-quarter turn...precisely because they've decided that maybe, just maybe, the comedy is the way to go.

It's always interesting to see shows adjust their ground game -- once they get past the inital panic of "are we going to get pulled," "are we going to get picked up?" Dramas, especially, take some time to find their feet. There's tons of examples to cite, so I'm going to punt and not cite any, but trust me when I say if you love a show that ran a while, it's not on the strength of Episodes 1 through 6. Even if Episode 1 was pretty good.

I thought Episode 1 of Studio 60 was pretty good. I stuck with it. I stuck with it even when it started to trough. But along about the time that second John Goodman episode aired, I was starting to seriously lose my religion.

But judging by the last two weeks, the ship has more than righted itself. It's more like Sorkin has gotten a clearer idea of what he wants the show to be. And Hallejuhah, apparently he wants it to be funny.

Last night's episode (which airs Monday night if you're south of the 49) managed, in parts, to approximate some rat-a-tat Front Page sensibility. There's a lightness that works when smacked against the ponderous stuff, which, of course you're never going to get rid of -- it's still Sorkin.

But like a lot of shows when they find their feet, Studio 60 is starting to make some key adjustments. As the article linked above demonstrates, the addition of Mark McKinney, writer and now performer, as the sardonic, doesn't find anything funny writer -- is a masterstroke. And slowly, they're fleshing out the personalities of the new writers -- and connecting them to the larger cast.

Add to that one of the big problems from the pilot: that P.A. character who seemed like she was important and never went anywhere? Well, now she's Matt's assistant. So Matt has a foil. Check. This time, it's not Bradley Whitford who gets a Donna. Time will tell if the chemistry between Perry and the actress playing his assistant reaches or even attempts to reach that level -- but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

The cynicysm that underlies the writers' attempts to torpedo Matt's Christmas spirit was well handled. And the nice thing is that for once, Mr. Smartypants Sorkin didn't bust out his usual textbook kid who knows all the answers thing, and tie a bow on the cliche that it's ALWAYS been Jews in Hollywood who've been most into pushing the Christmas spirit. Irving Berlin? White Christmas? Hello?

And don't even get me started on Nazi Claus.

The gold standard of behind the scenes shows was always Larry Sanders, which turned on Larry's self importance, meanness and self-absorption. That was never a formula that was going to work for Studio 60. But with the lightness of the latest episode, they finally found the way to counterpoint the heavy stuff; it's cause of the joyful fast moving bits, that the spectacle of the New Orleans tribute really, truly landed.

And as an added bonus: the Canadian TV writing tip. When they introduced Mark McKinney's character in the last ep, they told you off the top that he's a former writer for the show whose wife and son were killed in a car accident.

As the hostage taking story played out in the B.G., never once did they make that text again. They'd told you what his history was -- you were expected to infer into all the subsequent discussions how he might just be looking at the unfolding action a little differently than anyone else...

In Canada, you would have gotten the note: "remind people why he's feeling what he's feeling" And that would have killed it. But unless you were particularly vicious, persuasive, or foolhardy, you would not have been able to talk a Canadian gatekeeper out of that note. Lesson one.

Studio 60 is back, baby. It's back.

and in an unrelated note...this week's Battlestar Galactica looks like it has the Sci-Fi fans saying "ho hum" -- but I thought it was one of the best uses of flashback and non linear structure I'd ever seen. The contrast between the gritty hardness of the present of the Galactica crew -- and the element that we haven't seen before -- the time when New Caprica still offered hope...was sublime. And the revelation of all that had been hinted at in the subtext was pretty satisfying, too. Great writing. This is one I'm going to go back and watch again the next time I need to tackle flashback structure.

But I fear the gulf between BSG's "genre" fans and its "drama" fans is going to grow ever wider. It's clear that Ron Moore isn't interested in pandering to the tropes of the genre. And sci-fi fans love their tropes.