Aaron Sorkin is a genius and I've enjoyed all three of his network shows: Sports Night, The West Wing, and this season's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. His real gift, however, is in developing characters. The real strength of all three of the shows was the characters who seemed both larger-than-life and intimately real at the same time. This gift was especially appreciated in West Wing, a show which made me believe that politicians might be human after all.
Sadly, Studio 60, his latest show, has been canceled and NBC has been burning off the last few episodes this June, with the finale scheduled for this coming Thursday. I liked the show quite a bit until it jumped the shark in the last few weeks. I really think one problem with it was that it was one of two shows on NBC last fall that centered around a fictional version of Saturday Night Live. The other show, 30 Rock, was a half-hour sitcom, which is usually more my speed, but the hour-long drama not only had Aaron Sorkin behind the cameras, but Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford in front of the cameras, and somehow I felt it would have been cheating to watch both, so I never did see 30 Rock, which, despite having lower ratings that Studio 60, is returning for a second season in the fall. (I think Studio 60's big downfall was that it was quite expensive to produce)
Perry and Whitford have great chemistry, and I liked Amanda Peet much more than I thoughtI would. Sarah Paulson as a born-again Christian performer is superb. The real surprises, though, were Steven Weber as the assholish network executive who you occasionally sympathized with and Nate Corddry as one of the comics. Corddry in particular was impressive; I only knew him from his comic journalism bits on Jon Stewart's Daily Show and I always thought he was cute but lightweight; however, he's excellent on Studio 60, and it's not because he's just being Daily-Show-funny, because he's not. He *is* often funny, but he also has the acting chops to develop a fully-fleshed-out character.
Sadly, in mid-season, the show changed tone to become a sort of screwball romantic comedy and that didn't quite work. In these last few weeks, it changed again to be full of Sweeps Month trauma (terrorist kidnapping, pregnant woman in mortal danger, PR disaster for the show-within-the-show) and I've totally lost interest in most of the plot lines. But with just one more week, I'll watch to the bitter end, and hope that all those great actors get good regular jobs soon.
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