Sorry about that... where was I? Oh yeah, TV. More precisely the new 2006 Fall season. Well, I don't watch everything and since they put that atrocious 9/11 political propaganda "movie of the week" on, I don't watch ABC (where it counts anyway), but I have sampled a good number of shows and I thought I might quickly comment on a few. I'll start with...
Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip
Please folks, put down that CSI: Miami crackpipe and watch a show that is more than good, watch a show that is excellent. West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin has created a truly wonderful show about the making of a late-night comedy series. Oddly, NBC has two shows on its schedule this year about the making of a late-night comedy series, this one is the hour-long drama (we'll discuss the other one in a bit). The writing here is simply wonderful, some very subtle funny bits that bite quite a bit at the network hand that feeds it.
In the show, writer Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) and producer Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) are brought in by newly appointed network head Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet) to save the flagging sketch comedy series, Studio 60. I urge you to watch the show if for no other reason that to learn what an amazing actor Matthew Perry is. If your only exposure to him is Friends, you will be shocked at how good he is as head-writer Albie. I think people expect Bradley Whitford to be good, but I bevieve they will be pleasantly surprised at how good Amanda Peet is as the quirky, high-powered Jordan.Rounding out the cast are the three stars of the fictitious Studio 60, Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson), Simon Stiles (D.L. Hughley) and Tom Jeter (Nathan Corddry), the show's director, Cal Shanley (Timothy Busfield) and supreme network honcho Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber). Of these. only Paulson is a problem; I thinnk she is miscast as the "funniest woman on TV." I don't find her very amusing at all.
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