Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
It isn’t Aaron Sorkin’s finest work, but I still miss the show
Aaron Sorkin has written for the stage (A Few Good Men began as a play) and for the wide-screen (The Social Network, Moneyball, Jobs, to name just three), but he may be best known for his television work — and for his fondness for behind-the-scenes workplace settings.
For Sports Night, the setting was a sports news show; for The West Wing, the setting was a Democratic administration; and for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the setting was the goings-on behind putting on a sketch comedy show. Sports Night lasted two seasons, The West Wing lasted seven seasons (with Sorkin associated with only the first four), and Studio 60 lasted only one. Sorkin’s follow-up to Studio 60, The Newsroom, lasted three seasons. Why was Studio 60 the least successful of his four series? What went wrong?
Let’s start with what went right: Bradley Whitford as Danny Tripp and Matthew Perry as Matt Albie. When I think about what I liked most about Studio 60, I think of those two and their great chemistry (diehard Sorkin fans will recall that Perry appeared in three episodes in The West Wing; you can see the great chemistry at work here). There was just something tremendously appealing about their comfortable, easy-going banter. It’s as if the two men were born to play these roles.
Well, that’s probably not the case for Bradley Whitford. But I will say this: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was the best thing Matthew Perry ever did. No, I’m not saying the series was Perry’s most famous show or most-liked show. I’m talking about his work as an actor. If the series had run for several seasons, Perry may have been fondly remembered as Matt Albie — and maybe more so than as Chandler Bing. With Friends he had to work within the narrow (and often shticky) demands of a sitcom, but with Studio 60, Perry was able to indulge his dramatic side. Yes, Matthew Perry was a really good actor.¹
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was greeted with mixed reviews. One reviewer called the show “catastrophically smug”; The New Yorker said the show was “unfailingly enjoyable”; while another reviewer admitted, years after it was cancelled, that while the show had its problems, it needed to grow.²
However, it’s also arguable that the series was doomed from the outset because of a central structural flaw: The stakes were low. Matthew Perry agrees, and that by the fifth episode he and other cast members realized that the show wasn’t working.
In dramas, the stakes tend to be high: catching killers (cop shows), saving lives (hospital shows), administering justice (lawyer shows). But a series about putting on a weekly comedy show in the vein of Saturday Night Live? Who wants to watch that? Well, I do, frankly, because I’m going to be drawn to a show that centers on creative minds at work.
Thing is, while the stakes of putting on a weekly television show are going to be high for the people who work at the show, the demands are never going to be as urgent as catching killers and saving lives, which is to say there’s no real sense of dramatic importance behind getting a show on the air.
Another likely issue for many viewers right out of the starting gate with the first episode was Matt Albie’s relationship with Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson), specifically, Albie’s attacks on Hayes’s evangelical Christianity.³ Now, one does not have to be an evangelical Christian (said this secular humanist) to see that these attacks were not going to sit well with…well, evangelical Christians and perhaps a good deal of believers who aren’t evangelical.⁴ No doubt it was perhaps daring of Sorkin to have a character so outspoken against religion, but I’m surprised that Sorkin didn’t realize what a turnoff Albie would be for viewers in large swaths of the country.⁵
Another issue: Can a show be too literate for its own good? No, I’m not in favor of writing down to an audience, but references to Strindberg, Molière, Rudy Vallée (!), and others no doubt alienated many viewers who are not — *cough* — educated (for want of a less-offensive word). To put this plainly, there were just too many sly references to “obscure” or esoteric people and subjects. Restoration comedy, anyone? A little too “inside baseball,” one might say.⁶ Now, I can’t say I’m well-versed in Molière or Strindberg, but I always enjoyed these learned references.
And perhaps most catastrophic of all: sketches that weren’t funny. This wasn’t always the case (more on this in a moment), but a sticking point in particular for several critics was the Gilbert and Sullivan parody. I need to do a quick recap for people who haven’t seen the pilot.
Wes Mendell (Judd Hirsch), the producer of the show, has a Network-like blowup and meltdown during a live broadcast. He gets fired, and in a scramble to get him replaced, the newly hired network president of the National Broadcasting Network, Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), convinces Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber), the chairman of NBS, to bring back the former head writers, Matt Albie and Danny Tripp, who were fired years earlier, to run the show.
So Matt, as head writer, works himself into a lather about what the opening sketch should be — and with the help of some cast members they decide to do a parody of a song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penance. That Matt says G&S were the masters of “frat humor” is simply not to be believed. I can’t imagine a head writer for any comedy series making such a claim. Also, setting new words to the music of “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” is never going to be brilliant or hip, which is what one would think a “cold open” ought to be on the return of Albie and Tripp, especially with viewers (in the Studio 60 world) excited to see what the once-fired writers would do for their first sketch.⁷
However, there were some genuinely funny moments. I liked the “To Catch a Predator” sketch centered on Santa Claus, and Paulson’s imitation of Juliette Lewis was great as was Simon Helberg’s Nicholas Cage as a couples counselor. There’s also a moment that lasts only seconds that shows two golf fans at a golf course watching a game, with one of them wildly overexcited and screaming “Get in the hole!” That was funny, and it only lasts for a few seconds, which was all that we needed to see. Which brings me to an idea on how Aaron Sorkin could have conceived the show.
It’s obvious that Sorkin had Saturday Night Live as his inspiration. But you know what would have been a better wellspring? The Dick Van Dyke Show. If memory serves, we never saw a glimpse of “The Alan Brady Show” (the show that Dick Van Dyke’s Rob Petrie wrote for). That’s the premise Sorkin ought to have considered: a drama about the workings and goings-on of a sketch comedy series — but we never see any of the sketches.
Other viewers had issues with some of the drama, particularly with the storyline that involved Nate Corddry’s character Tom, whose brother gets kidnapped in Afghanistan. I rather liked the thematic contrast at play here — that is, from the perspective of Tom’s straitlaced parents who visit their son in Los Angeles (but before the brother is kidnapped): One brother pursued a patriotic line of work, while the other chose to work in comedy — and Tom’s parents thought Tom was throwing away his life because of his decision to work in a frivolous industry.⁸
Some critics thought that this brother-in-Afghanistan story would have been fine for The West Wing but that it was jarring to have it in a series about a sketch comedy show. I disagree for a reason that’s obvious for characters in all sorts of TV shows. Studio 60 was a show about putting on a TV show, but that also means the characters will have lives outside of their workplace and that stories can be derived from their various off-work activities and situations.⁹
So even with all these issues, I miss Matt Albie and Danny Tripp and the entire gang. Steven Weber was perfectly cast as a business executive, and seeing the forever-affable Timothy Busfield as Cal, who ran the control room, was always a treat. Of the many guest stars on the show, I loved John Goodman in an excellent two-parter, but perhaps the best was seeing Allison Janney in “The Disaster Show” episode where, because of a strike, everything that can go wrong on air does go wrong. But a lot went right with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but just not enough to keep the series one the air.
In a scene near the end of the last episode of the series, we see Danny turn off what appears to be a stage “ghost light.” That would be a no-no in real-life theatrical circles. But as the ratings for Studio 60 declined, I suspect that Sorkin knew that the show wouldn’t be renewed, so in preparation for that likely outcome he shot a moment that deliberately went against theatrical convention as a way to tell viewers — another “inside baseball” moment perhaps — that the show was over.
And it was.
¹. And in light of what brought about Matthew Perry’s death, this scene is one of the most powerful from the entire series.
². Not an outrageous or unheard-of suggestion. When Cheers first aired, it got awful ratings and ended up nearly getting canceled.
³. Whitford and Perry had great chemistry, but I can’t say the same for Paulson and Perry. And as for the characters they played, Matthew Perry as a staunch atheist who’s in love with an evangelical Christian? I can understand unusual hookups on screen or in real life, but putting together a hardcore believer with an outspoken nonbeliever just seems…unbelievable to me. In contrast, the growing romantic relationship between Danny and Jordan — Danny insistent, Jordan trying to shoo him away — was sweet and charming (I loved the scenes where — spoiler! — the two are are trapped on the roof of the “Studio 60” building). I also loved their sometimes feisty relationship early in the series. This back-and-forth, after Jordan has learned something about Danny but promises not to reveal it to anyone, is great: Danny: “I have no reason to trust you and every reason not to.” Jordan: “Why?” Danny: “You work in television.”
⁴. Though this montage of Matt’s rants amuses me.
⁵. Although The West Wing’s President Jed Bartlet was a religious man, this critique of religion is more nuanced.
⁶. If some viewers thought even a reference to the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s was too much, I disagree, as I thought the story that featured Eli Wallach was tremendous. This scene is beautifully written and acted.
⁷. Ironically, the scene in Matt’s office in which the idea for the Gilbert and Sullivan sketch is conceived well written. “We hope that you don’t mind that our producer was caught doing blow” is a funny line. But as delivered in the G&S sketch? Not so much. And I still don’t know what an “intellectual reach-around” is.
⁸. However, I found it hard to believe that Tom’s parents had never heard of Abbott & Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine. Okay, so Tom’s parents are deeply conservative (apparently) and may be way out of the loop, culturally speaking, but is it really believable that they could go through life not knowing about Abbott & Costello?
⁹. Think of the many episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show that didn’t take place at Rob Petrie’s office but instead took place at the Petries’ home in New Rochelle.
Barry Lyons is a freelance editor and writer in New York. He loved Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and was then moved to write an overview of all the Indiana Jones movies: “Indiana Jones and His Five Adventures.”
