Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip: The Pilot Episode
Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip is a new TV show currently in production set to air on NBC for its 2006-2007 season. It was created by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) and Thomas Schlamme and according to Wikipedia, it has a thirteen episodes order with a cost of around $2.5 to $3 million per episode to produce. The show has an all star cast including Friend’s Matthew Perry of which I’m a huge fan, Bradley Whitford who’s won an Emmy for his West Wing performances in 2001, Amanda Peet which is just extremely hot and talented (loved her on The Whole Ten Yards) and Sarah Paulson who’s also hot and played Dr. Caron on Serenity. I had the chance to watch the Pilot, and I’m going to review it here, if you don’t want any spoilers, stop reading now.
Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip: ad on NBC.com.
The outline of the pilot is “When the Executive Producer of sketch show ‘Studio 60′ has an on-air meltdown, new network president Jordan McDeere (Peet) hires Danny Tripp (Whitford) and Matt Albie (Perry) to replace him and save the show.”.
Now it’s a bit hard to describe as there has never been a TV show like this one, but picture a show with all these amazing actors playing roles of TV execs, recording crew, actors, etc. all working on a TV show which is a lot like SNL. Basically the show is a behind the scenes look at the making of Studio 60, with more drama than Desperate Housewives (and that’s saying a lot). At the start of the pilot, the current executive producer stops a sketch which is being broadcasted live and starts talking about all the wrong things with TV right now. That causes a huge crisis on the entire network (NBS) and the just hired president of it (played by Amanda Peet) needs to act quick to avoid or turn the media attention positively on the cut sketch. She has a meeting with all the network execs and her call is to hire two well known writers and let them run “Studio 60″. These two guys have a long history with one of the execs (he fired them 4 years ago), and they’re now big shots having just won on the same night a Writers Guild Award. Jordan (Amanda Peet) manages to bring Matt and Danny (the writers, played by Perry and Whitford) to the set. She talks to Danny first, it’s worth noting that Danny and Matt are working on a movie, or are just about to start making one, but Danny just failed a drug test (for cocaine use) and won’t be able to direct it, and he hasn’t told Matt about it yet. Anyhow, Jordan mentions this and Danny thinks she’s blackmailing him so he goes after Matt and tells him about it. Matt is pissed about it and thinks everyone knows but him and literally runs upstairs where the network execs are and tells everyone about it, then Danny walks in, with a lot of stress on the air they talk to the execs, no agreements are made and both walk out, however Matt comes back in and says they’ll take the job and he’ll convince Danny to do it. Danny ends up agreeing with Matt so they’re now going to run “Studio 60″. It’s worth mentioning that one of the girls working on the set is Matt’s ex girlfriend and obviously they still have issues and will have to struggle now that they’re working together. The final scene has Matt and Danny coming on the set to talk to the cast, everyone’s excited.
Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip: opening credits.
Great pilot and great show. But don’t let my poor review help you decide whether watch it or not though. Check out the first episode (which is set to air september 18th). It’s impressive, it’s got comedy, drama and great writing. I have to say I absolutely love it and I cannot wait for it to go on the air. When the pilot ended the excitement was unbelievable, my blood was running through my veins extremely fast and my heart was beating like a million times per second. You simply can’t miss this show, it’s going to be the next Lost.
Want to see 100 snapshots of the pilot?. Here’s my flickr set with 100 snapshots.
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I saw the pilot and the second episode and that was enough for me. There is not enough of an interesting storyline to hold my interest. Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford play the same characters as they did on their previous shows. There is no real character development to the show. I will be surprised if this show lasts past this year. It is boring.
Nigel Morris on October 16th, 2006 11:11 pm
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I’ve just seen the first two shows. You can tell it was written by the same guy who did West Wing. The script is funny and intelligent, and there is plenty of character development in the first two shows.
Nigel is right that Perry and Whitfords characters are similar to the ones from their previous shows.
The first two shows are HBO quality. If you enjoy the top HBO shows you will probably like this too.
dan on December 14th, 2006 7:10 pm