Sam's Backup Page

I am packed for Texas! Mostly. I always have to loop my phone charging cord through a handle on my suitcase before I go to bed, so in the morning I won't forget to pack it.

Mum keeps texting me to ask how it's going. I forget that for some people, packing is an event, with angst and fear involved. I LOVE packing, because all the stuff you need is put tidily into one tiny space, and then you get to go somewhere, and that's always exciting! So it boggles the mind that she has asked me how packing is going four times today, because the very first time she asked, I was already fully packed.

heidi8 reminded me yesterday that Studio Sixty started airing five years ago this month. It was an epic, terrible distortion of a television show by the end, but on the way there were some damn fine moments. I downloaded the first few episodes and, watching the pilot, I still love Wes Mendel's opening speech. I also have a nostalgic urge to forcibly cut Matt Perry's hair.

The sheer potential of that pilot was so great, and what happened next was a terrible misuse of forty minutes each week. It was almost glorious in its awfulness, especially the last few episodes. I've heard through various sources that the awfulness was intentional once Aaron Sorkin found out it had been cancelled, so perhaps he was going for glorious. I hope I am never so embittered, but I can't deny he committed, and commitment, of course, is what comedy is all about.

Sam's Three Things about The Show Which Has No Name:

Okay, wait.

Did that episode just happen? Because it seems like while forty minutes of episode happened, nothing actually happened. Except for one utterly gratuitous Author Self-Insert Rejects God scene.

I realise they're building to the finale, but this is ridiculous.

And yes. *sigh* I will be tuning in next week.

Sam's Three Things About Studio Sixty, Those Whores:

1. Seriously, Harrie? Seriously? You're choosing that moment to show everyone how pious you are? I mean -- I have no problem with prayer, or public prayer, or even public evangelism. I wouldn't stop it if I saw it, because that's freedom of speech and freedom of religion right there in a tidy bundle. But I do believe that getting down on your knees and praying aloud in front of your entire peer group at that precise moment is the height of self-aggrandising tackiness, and if I had any tiny shred of respect left for Harrie I would burn it. She is being demoted, something that has not happened since I took away Niki's name for being lame. Harrie, I take your name. You shall now only be known as That Chick.

1a. In addition, it's lame television. The drama would be ratcheted up several notches if That Chick simply said "okay" and sat down, and Matt asked her if she was okay or what she was doing, and she said "I'm praying."

2. "It doesn't have to be good. It just has to be on." Jack said that and the look on Matt's face is a look I'm pretty sure I learned to make myself, from my mentor, for whom medocrity is not the eighth deadly sin but rather the only one.

3. Cal continues to be awesomeness personified. Just thought I'd put that out there.

3a. One more flashback and I swear to all hell. To all hell. I don't know what I will do, but all hell will be involved.

Sam's Three Things About Studio 60.

1. Still totally uninterested in Harriet's crisis of conscience about anything, including making a film where a seventeen-year-old blows his brains out on camera. Also, Matt's total dependence on Harrie is not only disturbing but manipulative and straying into the territory where men start to think it's okay to hit women.

2. Between his geek-out over the guillotine and his exploding-baby prank, Cal is solid-gold MADE OF WIN, and we'll just forget the snake incident entirely, shall we?

3. Sigh. I'd like to do a normal three things and ignore 3a until you got there, but it's hard. Because as much as I'm going to miss not seeing Jordan and Danny hooking up and Tom wooing Lucy and Steven Webber chewing the scenery, I agree with the decision. The show's writing is in the tubes, the arcs are nonexistent or truncated halfway through their natural course, and Matt and Harrie aren't interesting. It's just a shame that if it had to be cancelled, it couldn't have had a full and thorough quality run first.

3a. From Wikipedia: As of February 17, 2007, Studio 60 had been pulled from NBC's lineup to be replaced with The Black Donnellys starting February 26. No date has been set for its return.

Well, now I can start watching Heroes like my coworkers keep saying I should.

Sam's Three Things about Studio 60:

1. ONE MORE EPISODE, SORKIN. That's all you get. If next week doesn't suck too badly, I'll give you one after that on the strength of the Danny/Jordan kiss. Which was awesome, but does not make up for the awful setup. Almost, but not quite. Especially the part about the key-hiding rock. Seriously, nobody's going to ever mistake a key-hiding rock for a real rock if they pick it up.

2. Now I see why Tom is part of the big three. I couldn't figure it out, other than that he's quite funny. I suppose that's enough, but it seems like to be a part of the inner circle's inner circle, you have to have more. His speech to Lucy about lies and the pay scale shows that he has an understanding of the way power works in relationships and the ins and outs of his business. He's by far the most interesting, at least to me, of the big three.

3. I think I've figured out what makes me nuts about Matt and Harry's innumerable and tedious arguments. It's that they say things that apparently have significance to each other, but the audience is a bit at a loss. Harry will say "You're like a tree, Matt" and Matt will be like "There are chickens in the trees" and it would clearly have some meaning that makes her decide some momentous thing. Except it doesn't, and no decision actually ever gets made, and the setup to Matt's joke was so painful that I knew to hit skip, and knew just how far to skip to escape it.

3a. I hate to say this because I do, truly, like Natalie Cole. But man, she hasn't always looked like a drag queen "doing" Natalie Cole, has she? Her face is really...long and pointy.

Sam's Three Things about Studio 60!

And before you ask, I'm not magic -- I downloaded the episode, which airs a day earlier in Canada. Our brethren to the north have more than just gay marriage and maple sugar to offer us, my friends!

1. I found Danny's remark about "at least I'm back on television" kind of ironic, since really, that's the most I can say about this episode. With a few stellar exceptions, it was terrible. It was badly-paced, drawn-out, and mainly composed of people being pointlessly nasty to each other. I understand that conflict is the root of all entertainment, but conflict is not the same thing as bitchiness. Even the non-bitchy moments -- I can't even rewatch the opening scene, it's so awful.

2. There were some stellar standouts though. That included Jack Rudolph, who is not only magnificent but magnificently the same -- still a cranky boss with his head occasionally lodged firmly up his ass. Tom's date request, which is suited to my tastes (I favour "I like you. Want to go out?") was also fantastic, as was Suzanne. Therefore I have Three Good Dialogues for you:

2a. "I don't feel like a laughingstock." "That's only because you're a moron."
2b. "Thursday night?" "Sure." "Then my work here is done."
2c. "Any choice of username?" "Make something up." "BossSexy." "Not BossSexy!" "Awh, too late."

3. HOW GREAT IS IT THAT MATT IS GIVING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO PROMOTE POLYAMORY? I'm serious! About half my friends are poly and come to think of it, so are all my roleplay characters (which I hadn't realised, and is a wee bit odd.) Plus, it ties in nicely with my idea of Matt as someone with a burning passion for Harry but a burning urge to sleep with most of the pretty faces he encounters.

3a. Why are the bad guys in Studio 60 always bald?

It's Monday, must mean it's time for Sam's Three Things About Studio Sixty!

1. Wow with the flashbacks. Um. Yeah. Wow. So much with the flashbacks. I hear Seinfeld did a sitcom episode backwards and that wasn't the most effective thing ever either. Granted this episode worked, and it's a good way to make people really focus on the show, but it could have worked better -- there were points where there weren't enough signifiers to draw the line between "then" and "now". Overall, a fun conceit that has worked in the past, but this time it was too -- noticeable? Perhaps there was just too much of it, or too much interweaving.

2. OMG YAY SUZANNE. She's my favourite. Actually Matt is my favourite, but he's Suzanne's favourite too, so it all kind of works out in some sort of cyclical fashion.

3. Seriously, how did Jordan get to be president of a network? I am totally behind most of the things she's said, but I'm also behind Jack -- there is a way to crush reporters like tiny bugs without being confrontational. There are ways to do it where the reporters don't even know they've been crushed. There's a lot of political action that goes into the life of a network executive, and there's no evidence in the writing that Jordan understands any of it or has ever played the game. So I guess either she got the job on guts, or she had a seizure between leaving one job and starting the new one at NBS, and forgot it all. I understand that the show thrives on conflict and a perfectly smooth, perfectly poised president would be boring, but her gaffes have no spacing between them at all, and they're not...they're not the right gaffes for a network president to make. Even a hormonal one.

3a. So many women to ship Danny with. I just can't pick one!

This doesn't really qualify as 3b, since it's a bit too meta, but I'll dig into it anyway...apparently in The West Wing the writers used to bash the internet a lot. I actually caught the whole Josh Versus The Internet episode, and thought it was hilariously funny because it was so true. Anyway, Studio Sixty has said some negative things about internet fandom and commentary -- some apt, some inappropriate -- but by and large I tend to agree with them, and I think this episode made some excellent points both pro and con.

Er. All of that was a leadup to say: now I'm all selfconscious about the Three Things on the off-chance that someone from the show stumbles across them and decides I am Part Of The Problem.

Sam's Three Things about Studio 60!

1. Given the teaser last week, I had a different expectation of this week's show; I expected more high interpersonal drama, rather like a grownup episode of the standard teen-drama Prom Episode where everyone's cheating on everyone else...which on paper was kinda the case, but The Wrap Party was a lot more subtle than I was expecting it to be. I also thought possibly more would happen at the wrap party rather than around it, but it's a nice touch. The episode didn't fail my expectations, it just didn't fit them.

2. This was the episode of Extras Stealing The Show. I saw it coming that the elderly man who was almost thrown out would be someone of Historical Significance. But I didn't really care, because he owned that role. He told the story about Clifford Odets so wonderfully and his voice was so full of hurt and bewilderment when he said "The next day he named names!" It was brilliant to watch.

3. I also saw it coming, at least as soon as Willy got out to do his atrocious set, that they'd uncover some other future writer in the bar. Again, though, didn't matter. The second stand-up really was terrible, he could have pulled those jokes off with more energy, and he played his acceptance of his new position with a very promising ambiguity. Nicely done.

3a. I've never been a huge fan of Amanda Peet, but I like her in this role and I think Jordan's social awkwardness outside of business hours is awfully charming.

Hokay, Sam's Three Things about Studio 60. HOORAY.

1. When I read the little blurb on NBC's website about "a frantic scramble to cover a mistake before half the country sees it" I assumed it had to be something like an on-aire gaffe or someone flashing a boobie. I didn't really see how they were going to make that work, so I think a PLAGIARISM PLOT is pure brilliance. And Matt's punching-the-filing-cabinet moment when he heard about the plagiarism actually made me say to Arsenic, "Matthew Perry is just absurdly talented." Because very few actors can go from baseball-bat-through-a-window to deep-shame-and-fury-over-plagiarism and make me believe it.

2. Okay, maybe I'm wrong about Harry being an interesting character.

3. I really am coming down to the idea that Danny is canonically gay and in love with Matt, and this week it's based solely on the LOOK he gave the hot journalist when she was introduced. That look that said "Your breasts have no power over me!" I like the journalist though, I see good things for her.

3a. I was talking about this tonight, when I mentioned YET AGAIN how much I like that the show gives airtime to the techs, particularly Wee Neurotic Tech and Cal. I was thinking that I'd like to see Wee Neurotic Tech get a nice big plotline at some point, and I realised that Studio 60 is great because I spontaneously come up with plots that I can realistically see happening on the show. And as much as I love House and have loved other shows in the past, the last show where I felt this way was The X-Files, which is the show that got me into fandom in the first place. So -- yeah. It's a good feeling.

Sam's Three Things about Studio 60:

1. Dear NBC afiliate: Thank you for fixing whatever problem there was with the sound last week. I appreciate it.

2. Dear Matthew Perry: HEY WAY TO GO. The hair is workable.

3. Dear writers: Yes, more plz about a) the writers who dress like homeless people (I was doing my WTF face during that whole scene up until Matthew Perry went off on them) and b) the black guy who is tired of doing black guy schtick.

3a. Always, always ask for the butter.

As regards the earlier poll -- interestingly enough, the two most popular names so far are the first two I came up with. Tomorrow I'll explain why I asked.