The greatest tv show never completed.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – The greatest tv series never made to its fullest promise.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was a tv show that could have gone to become one of the greatest tvs shows of all time, if it wasn’t for the retard-brigade that controls entertainment. It was one of the few attempts at creating an tv show about the making of a tv show, with clever humour, great writing and some fabulous actors. It showed us what a tv show can be like when blending comedy with drama (termed – dramedy). It was a show about making of a sketch comedy show,and was canceled after just one season, citing many ridiculous reasons.
Basic premise: A show about a live comedy sketch show, with a number of back stories. It begins with a grand tribute to Network’s Peter Finch monologue (video below), and the show went on to cover the lives of the people behind Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – two wonderfully funny characters played by Matt Perry & Bradley Whitford, the varius actors on the show, and the smartest and sexiest character of them all – Jordan McDeere – President of Entertainment Programming of the fictional National Broadcasting Systems (NBS) played by Amanda Peet. In her entire career, Amanda Peet hasn’t done anything significant apart from her nude scene in Whole Nine Yards, or ‘A Lot Like Love’, but her role in S60 is the best of her career.
Aaron Sorkin – The Writer God
However, the highlight of the show is really Alan Sorkin’s writing. Alan Sorkin has proven his mettle with the screenplay for A Few Good Men ( You can’t handle the truth), and now of course the famous – Social Network. For me his best work had been on “West Wing”. His speciality is writng great characters , great set piece conversations and gripping scenes. He creates the conversations based on the assumptions that the viewer is intelligent. Viewers are generally treated like we are intellectuallly challenges and we will swallow any horse shit that is served to us ( which isn’t far from the truth, it’s just that we can’t handle the truth!)
The series goes from describing the tussle between “art and commerce”, then moves onto the hypocritical approach by the the conservatives in USA against sketch comedy, to an obvious parody of the the various Christian rights groups, to the role of black writers in American comedy, to an unorthodox stand on the War on Terror and finally ends with a long commentary on the retardedness of the media.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip seemed like a magnum opus of Aaorn Sorkin, much before he achieved acclaim for Social Network. He appeared to have been laying the foundation of back stories for future use, and it felt like it was going to a grand tv show headed for greater things. Unfortunately television wanted to dumb itself down to comedy shows that are trying to so damn hard to be funny, that they just continue to be on television just for the sake of the effort (little as it is) that they seem to put in. ( take HIMYM or Two and a Half Men for example – b-grade tv shows that have nothing funny written in them, just using gags and extensions of jokes from FRIENDS or any other comedy show that ever existed.) Coming back to Studio 60, since the show largely comprises of characters involved in making a comedy show, the lines are clever, very amusing and many a time, cockey.
I searched for reasons why this show was canceled. All I could come with was that there were multiple reasons, all of them were cockshit reasons. One reason was that it pissed off the media, since it showed them to be mindless morons, after the latest scoop and catfight, even in the state of a horrific kidnapping of a soldier, or covering the success of a woman heading a entertainment network.
Another reason stated was the that the characters were “too smart”, or that it was a show for yuppies who wanted to watch other cool yuppies. Oh right, the viewers suffer. We suffer from retarded movies and tv shows that seem to suggest the viewer is a intellectually deficient moron who doesn’t care what you serve him as long the food is not too expensive or just looks good on the menu card. We are instead stuck watching mentally challenged tv shows that show obnoxious characters with pathetic, absolutely gutter-shit writing, and they become hit tv shows.
The last and most acceptable reason for canceling the show, was that the premise was too close to 30 Rock. So fucking what? You have tens of shows that similar to each other. They didn’t continue it because it was going to set a bad precedent. The show was outrageously vindictive of the politics and media and entertainment in USA, and that is probably what scared them off the show. Of course, financially it was not going to be easy supporting the cost of the all star cast, adding to the numerous guest appearances.
But Studio 60 on the the Sunset Strip was a great tv show. It should have continued. It sometimes shocks me that even in the USA, good stories don’t get through. In India, it is not surprising that we see a sad demise to great things that should have been – the most critical example that comes to mind is Star Bestsellers. This is was god-level tv show. Even if it was made in Hollywood. This was a show where some of the most impressive people in Bollywood today has showcased their talent – KK Menon, Anurag Kashyap, Imtiaz Ali, Irfan Khan are the names that come to mind. It was bold tv show that showed a different story every week. Each story had a unconventional story set in India , each of one hour, showcasing number of rising stars , in unusual stories , sometimes shocking stories that seems straight out of a Stephen King story.
Thankfully all of Studio 60’s episodes are available on youtube. Go watch everyone of the episodes. It will amaze you with great episodes, characters you will never forget, jokes that you will wish you could pull off in real life, and shows you what an almost-perfect tv show can be like – a dramedy.
a desi fanboy 
