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Asking for the butter
I finally watched the second episode of Studio 60, and I've been trying to come to terms with my disappointment. The show isn't bad, it's just not good enough. I was expecting better - maybe too much, but better.
I feel like I barely know the characters, and what I know so far I don't especially like. The only person I like so far is Cal, to be honest: he stood up for something he believed in, and took a risk out of loyalty, out of love. On the other hand, I don't know *why* Matt, Danny, and the others are fighting for the show. So far, all they seem to love is being a fountain of sarcasm about the world at large. With Sports Night and The West Wing, there was a deep passion that drove all the characters, and they may be cynical but it was all in the course of working on something they loved.
Matt and Danny are classic Sorkin buddy boys, and I can't *get* them. There's obvious affection and chemistry, but they barely talked in this one and I'm missing something. Maybe it's a lack of history; same thing with Matt and Harry. I don't know what happened - I believed in Dan and Casey from the beginning, in Sam and Josh, in Leo and Bartlet. Am I jaded? Seeing the past pairs instead of these guys?
The timing of the humor is driving me nuts, too. That idiotic laugh track on SN S1 was so bad because the humor didn't expect a laugh - it was conversation, it was flowing, it was continuous. The funny didn't show up in chunks - it wandered through the length of the show. Anyone remember Natalie and her water glasses and poor Dan's writer's block? Or Donna's crusades? Or anytime Toby really got a hair up his butt?
In Studio 60, the opposite is true. Half the jokes are so obvious that I chuckle, but don't laugh: the scene in the writing room, when Matt gives the speech about professionalism and Harry comes storming in; most of Jordan's lines (is she supposed to be this bad at jokes? because hers keep falling flat); the whole Matt's-on-drugs stuff in the pilot. I feel like they're so used to playing to an audience, all their humor is waiting for approval, instead of simply being witty. To paraphrase Matt himself, they're asking for the laugh when they should be asking for the butter.
For the love of God, Sorkin, start asking for the butter again. I'll be here, waiting.
I feel like I barely know the characters, and what I know so far I don't especially like. The only person I like so far is Cal, to be honest: he stood up for something he believed in, and took a risk out of loyalty, out of love. On the other hand, I don't know *why* Matt, Danny, and the others are fighting for the show. So far, all they seem to love is being a fountain of sarcasm about the world at large. With Sports Night and The West Wing, there was a deep passion that drove all the characters, and they may be cynical but it was all in the course of working on something they loved.
Matt and Danny are classic Sorkin buddy boys, and I can't *get* them. There's obvious affection and chemistry, but they barely talked in this one and I'm missing something. Maybe it's a lack of history; same thing with Matt and Harry. I don't know what happened - I believed in Dan and Casey from the beginning, in Sam and Josh, in Leo and Bartlet. Am I jaded? Seeing the past pairs instead of these guys?
The timing of the humor is driving me nuts, too. That idiotic laugh track on SN S1 was so bad because the humor didn't expect a laugh - it was conversation, it was flowing, it was continuous. The funny didn't show up in chunks - it wandered through the length of the show. Anyone remember Natalie and her water glasses and poor Dan's writer's block? Or Donna's crusades? Or anytime Toby really got a hair up his butt?
In Studio 60, the opposite is true. Half the jokes are so obvious that I chuckle, but don't laugh: the scene in the writing room, when Matt gives the speech about professionalism and Harry comes storming in; most of Jordan's lines (is she supposed to be this bad at jokes? because hers keep falling flat); the whole Matt's-on-drugs stuff in the pilot. I feel like they're so used to playing to an audience, all their humor is waiting for approval, instead of simply being witty. To paraphrase Matt himself, they're asking for the laugh when they should be asking for the butter.
For the love of God, Sorkin, start asking for the butter again. I'll be here, waiting.