Break's Over

Aaron Sorkin wrote up a fictional exchange between the fictional President Bartlet and the potential real President Obama for Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times. Here's an excerpt:

BARTLET: Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.

OBAMA: What would you do?

BARTLET: GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

The full column can be found here.

I recognize the absurdity of finding wisdom in a made-up conversation between the fake Bartlet and the real (but fake in this context) Obama, but it's still interesting nonetheless. And it does boggle my mind how this race can still be more or less a dead heat.

More on that later, maybe.

EDIT: It's several months after this column, and I still have no idea if Sorkin wrote that, or if it was just Dowd being creative.

Obama for America

BARTLET OBAMA FOR AMERICA

President Bartlet: You think the strike against me is, nobody likes the smartest kid in class?

Toby: Oh I don't know, sir. Being the smartest kid in class is usually a pretty good pitch. It's not a strike, unless you watch it sail by.




Toby: You're a good father. You don't have to act like it. You're a good man. You don't have to act like it.

You're not "just folks."

You're not "plain-spoken." Do not- do not - do not - act like it.

Bartlet: I don't want to be killed [in the election.]

Toby: Then make this election about smart. And not. Make it about engaged. And not. Qualified. And not.

Make it about heavyweight. You're a heavyweight.

Ducking Out Early From The Party

I've spoken of my disappointment with Studio 60 a few times already, but there's this one moment from early in the season that really stuck in my head, really felt true.

Matthew Perry's character is one of the executive producers of the show, and he's also the head writer. There's some moment at the after-party, where they're discussing the show, and how it went. Matt frets about the bits that didn't work, and everyone agrees, they'll do better next week. Just relax, have a drink, enjoy yourself.

Matt, of course, can't relax and enjoy himself. All he'll do is think about how to write better sketches and funnier jokes and how to make this thing that he's in charge of better than it was before. He bites the inside of his cheek and starts walking away.

There's this moment, outside the studio, where he dashes to his car, and his eyes are darting this way and that, maybe watching out for cars, maybe making sure no one sees him leave. Who knows what he was supposed to be thinking of, because in my head, I know what he's thinking about: he's really thinking about the show. Skits and ideas running through that writer's head, already planning next week, unable to enjoy himself at the party for all the work that still needs to be done.

Because the only real enjoyment comes from the work, from the words and the writing and the only real thing he has in his life. The only thing he has where he's not the stranger, the outsider looking in, the only thing that makes him feel at home, the only thing that's really, truly, his.

He turns the key and drives off into the night, to once again crouch over the keyboard late into the night, trying to make that thing of his into something worthwhile.

What Kind of Show Has It Been

Not a very good one, if you ask me.

This hurts me to say it, being the Aaron Sorkin nut that I am, but Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is... not that great.

It disappoints me to say it, and I've been holding out these past few weeks, hoping that the show finds its groove, its timing, and its reason for existence, but it just ain't happening.

I don't really care for the characters, and so I don't really care what happens to them. Matt and Harriet and yet another will-they-or-won't-they situation? Bleah.

The show has potential, I believe that firmly, given the talent involved in front of and behind the camera. But Sorkin just seems to be using the show as a means to start a national discussion rant on the Christian right and why it was so, so mean of NBC to fire him from The West Wing.

Now I don't really need to point out the fact that I too can come across as self-righteous and smug about the Christian Right, but I write a dinky blog that a handful of people read. I expect more from the so-called "credentialed" pros.

I guess I'm just disappointed in Aaron Sorkin. He's so much better than what Studio 60 has been. His shows, always concerned with passionate people committed to their professions, can literally inspire to you be more devoted to your job, your friends, or at least your grammar skills.

For a show that's supposed to be about a comedy show, they forgot one important element: They forgot to bring the funny. Skits about Juliette Lewis and a Wild at Heart-era Nicholas Cage would be really funny in 1993, but not now.

Maybe, if it's given enough time, Studio 60 will run out of Sorkin Grudge Topics and will become a decent show. My first suggestion would be to find a crack comedic actress that can rattle off that dialogue better than Peet and Paulson. Bring Sabrina Lloyd back from TV Limbo, hell, have her play Natalie Hurley again for that matter. She ain't no gal Friday.

She's good.

Blogger beta

Yeah, blogger beta pretty much blows. It blows worse than the graphics team on Sports Night.

How's that for a reference, eh Kate?

(Sorry, I stayed in tonight and I've been dicking around a bit too long on the ole computer.)

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Mondays, NBC
Pilot Episode Review
Written by Aaron Sorkin, Directed by Thomas Schlamme

Somehow I was able to get a copy of the pilot episode for Studio 60 through Netflix and had a chance to check it out before the general premiere next month. Many of you know that I am quite the Sorkin fan (Sports Night, The West Wing) and I was eager to check out how Studio 60 fared compared to his earlier series.

He's assembled a great cast, and a setting that should provide plenty of good storytelling, although I have a feeling we'll see the occasional plotline lifted from Sports Night, as both shows deal with the behind-the-scenes goings-on of a television series dealing with network pressure.

Many people will first know this show as "Matthew Perry's New Show" since he's arguably the main star. He plays Matt Albie, a former writer of the SNL-style Studio 60 lured back after an on-camera meltdown by the executive producer (Judd Hirsch). He's joined by his longtime creative partner, director Danny Tripp (West Wingand-Sorkin-dialogue-veteran-extraordinaire Bradley Whitford.)

This is the most autobiographical aspect to the show, as it seems Sorkin is recreating the strong writer-director bond he has shared with Tommy Schlamme for a number of years. They battle both substance abuse and meddling network heads, and to me this plotline was the weakest part of the show (aside from Amanda Peet's repeated vacant stare into the camera, which apparently is to show how much of a Young and Hot Network President Genius her character is.) We all know that lots of TV is bad and that network execs never know anything, but this time 'round it's grown a little tired.

It's my hope that Sorkin doesn't use Studio 60 as a soapbox to exorcise his personal and professional demons. It usually doesn't make for compelling drama (insert any joke about The Bonfire you want to make at this point.)

Overall, a decent start, but it doesn't grab you quite like that West Wing pilot did seven years ago. To be fair, Sports Night took a few shows to find its groove, and I look forward to where Studio 60 goes once it gets going. Hopefully Sorkin eases off his usual, and now tired, targets (network execs and the Christian Right) and creates a memorable show to rest alongside his other stellar work.