TV: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

The Void takes a critical look at the latest American series trying its luck in the UK.

Like all good ideas, it started out so well. With a pedigree on television that included the acclaimed West Wing and Sports Night, the anticipation surrounding writer Aaron Sorkin’s latest project, a backstage drama about a live, Saturday night sketch show (comparisons with NBC’s long-running Saturday Night Live are entirely justified) reached a fever pitch. Collaborating with long-time Sorkin alums such as producer Thomas Schlamme, Bradley Whitford, Matthew Perry and Timothy Busfield, expectations were so high that American networks NBC and CBS entered into a bidding war that saw Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip head to the latter for a vast sum of money that was not only virtually unheard but guaranteed that there would be an unhealthy interest in the level of success the show would achieve.

From July More4 begins showing Studio 60 but it’s small wonder you’re going to see it at all. Make no mistake, the pilot episode is essential. An incendiary firework, crackling with smart dialogue and the kind of production values that most shows would kill for (estimates put the price per episode somewhere between $2-3m, not least for the impressive ‘studio within a studio’ set). Studio 60 is the kind of show you can simply wallow in, feeling rather good about yourself.

The show begins innocuously enough until Studio 60 executive producer Wes (Judd Hirsch) goes onstage and delivers a blistering monologue that attacks the sorry state he believes television has fallen into. West is predictably fired shortly afterwards, leading to the recall of Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) and Matt Albie (Matthew Perry), former executive producer and head writer of the previous administration who themselves were originally let go in circumstances that are revealed as the series progresses.

The show’s locale naturally lends itself to tense drama, with the staff of Studio 60 facing the unenviable task of coming up with 90 minutes of fresh material each week while avoiding day-to-day internal conflicts between staff members and increasing pressure from the network, keen to sanitise the product since Wes’ departure. It’s fair to say that while the second episode drastically loses the irreverent momentum of the pilot, it still maintains some semblance of urgency that makes the other early episodes such compulsive viewing. The cast is charismatic enough to propel the witty scripts along at a reasonably slick pace (almost too slick), the only rather obvious weak link being cast member Harriet Hayes (played by Sarah Paulson), one of the three central Studio 60 players and on-off love interest for Matt. Unfortunately the pair are so devoid of any chemistry that not even Perry’s natural timing can save their interactions and Paulson is dreadfully wooden. That future episodes go on to push her character front and centre ring the death knell for Studio 60 and you’ll be forgiven for wondering what on earth Perry’s character sees in her.

In the States ratings tailed off spectacularly following the showing of the second episode and by episode five, the show had lost nearly half its audience. What worked in Studio 60’s favour was the fact that it still managed to retain a large percentage of vital ABC1 viewers, the high net-worth, cash-rich cross-section of American society. As Studio 60’s network president Jordan McDeere (the alluring Amanda Peet) echoes eerily as the ratings honeymoon appears to be over, though the ratings might be falling, the audience being retained is the kind that spend more than the average viewer. Regardless of ratings, as long as the show remains attractive to advertisers, it will still have a future.

As the series progresses, it becomes clear that there is only so much drama that can be wrung from Studio 60’s chief catalyst (‘the show’) and Sorkin decides to enliven proceedings by shifting the focus away from the production and towards the inter-personal relationships between the cast members, inventing increasingly outlandish and supposedly comedic sub-plots to drive the hour along. The seeds for this are sown midway through the first half of the season, and by the time Studio 60 reaches its twelfth episode all bets are off. What was previously a fizzing beacon of quality television has become an insidious melodrama full of haphazard romance and very little of what made the previous eleven episodes so electric.

Studio 60’s descent is a sad indictment of what happens when a show finally realises that it doesn’t know where it’s going or what it wants to be. The addition of such barely funny plot machinations was intended as a vehicle to resuscitate the ailing serial but it pushed viewers away, making the show a tepid shadow of its former self. While Studio 60 had a clear direction to begin with, when the panic button got pushed, it seems that no one quite knew what to make of it. Comedy? Drama? Both? With the crucial tension gone, Studio 60 simply wasn’t as compelling.

Our advice? Just don’t get too attached. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip begins strong out of the gate but struggles halfway through the race. It is a show worth making a start with and the Christmas episode near enough halfway through doesn’t necessarily tie everything up but it could easily serve as a last episode for a show cut off in its prime. Everything else just spoils what might have otherwise really been something.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip starts 10pm 26 July 2007 on More4