Finally I can rejoice the return of Aaron Sorkin. The return you ask? Wasn't he involved in The West Wing? Well, yes, he was originally, but over the years he wound up leaving the show and even if he hadn't, at least one of the co-stars of that show is one that makes my stomach turn badly enough to not permit me to watch the show no matter how good it may have been.
Actually, The West Wing started out as a different creature, never really intended to be focused that much on politics, more on the interactions, relationships, friendships, and dialogue between people that just happened to be employed in "The West Wing" of the White House. Sadly, for me, the show became a political show and left it's original focus behind before every really getting going.
I had great hopes for The West Wing, since it was from the creator of "Sports Night," which is one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Sadly, though it was picked as a future classic by Nick at Nite, and rated as one of the "best shows you aren't watching" by the likes of TV guide, it never really caught on and people like me that wanted quality TV were left waiting for better programming from the broadcast networks, or took the approach that I had taken and flocked over to pay channels like HBO (for great shows like Rome, Deadwood, The Sopranos, etc.)
Over many seasons West Wing ran it's course, and eventually had to surrender it's spot on the schedule due to declining viewership and a general feeling that there really weren't that many more stories to tell for that cast.
As West Wing was wrapping up though, rumors started circulating that Aaron Sorkin was on his way back with a new show that would hit the NBC schedule, a show called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Studio 60 is a show behind the show/network type dramedy that harkens back to Sports Night very easily. If you have seen any episodes of that show, especially recently (I rewatched episodes from the DVDs recently), then you can easily see the lineage and heritage that Studio 60 is bringing with it.
Studio 60 features an excellent cast of characters including D.L. Hughley, Steven Weber, Amanda Pete, Bradley Whitford, Matthew Perry, Timothy Busfield and a few others (don't want to leave anyone out, just can't remember them all currently). More importantly though, the star of the show is the writing and dialogue in the show.
How do I know about the writing and dialogue in the show? Thanks to an experiment/co-marketing deal between NBC and Netflix the pilot episode was made available on a "sampler" type DVD that Netflix customers could get as of this past Saturday (August 5, 2006).
Netflix's recommendations system kicked in based on my earlier ratings of programs like Sports Night and made me aware that the pilot disc sampler for Kidnapped (which I'm interested in, but to a lesser extent) and Studio 60 would be available for this last weekend. I immediately put that selection my rental que and got the disc promptly on Saturday past.
Sorkin still has a tendency to toss some political messages into his programs, but to a lesser and more tolerable extent in shows like Sports Night, and now in Studio 60. Yes, there is a message, but it's not one that is out there to bludgeon us with, just to make a minor point and perhaps give a plot point to exercise a lot of dialogue around.
From my watching of the pilot episode of the show, I'm very psyched for the coming season. I believe Studio 60 is slated to run on Monday nights in the 10pm time frame (eastern time). It is supposed to follow another new show called Heroes, which has gotten some pretty positive buzz as well. I hope things work out for both shows, but really hope things work out well for Studio 60. It may not have an easy road, given the competition from programming on FOX (Prison Break airs on Mondays), Monday Night Football over on ESPN, and programming on CBS with their block of Monday night Sitcoms.
I will say that there most definitely should be room on the TV schedule for quality programming like Studio 60 (I could have, and did, said (say) the same about shows like Arrested Development over on FOX in the past but that is water under the bridge now...) Hopefully the audience is smart enough to find the programming that is out there and turn off the rotten "reality" programming and other crap that is currently polluting the TV bandwidth.
