Slowly Going Bald

Over at Pajiba, I take a look at the second season of "The West Wing."

I watched a few episodes from that season again in preparation for writing the piece, and I'm not at all ashamed to say that I choked back tears several times during "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen." I always do.

EXT. — HOUSE IN THE VALLEY

The bright sun beats down on a completely average house somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. A few black cords are visible snaking from the front door and into a white panel truck parked in the driveway. The sprinklers kick on. It's hot.

INT. — HOUSE IN THE VALLEY

The buxom TERRA FIRMA stands before a bathroom mirror, idly brushing her hair, naked.

In walks JOHNNY COXSWAIN, wearing only a towel around his waist and carrying a small cup of frozen yogurt that he's eating with a spoon.

They walk off screen, as the music rises.

So, today marks my first column for the Willamette Week. I'll be writing about TV, which makes me happy, since some of the best conversations I've ever had have been about season-long character arcs for people who don't exist. Anyway:

Click here for the column.

P.S. When I was a freshman in college, I stubbed my toe on the bookshelf (or something) in my dorm room, and uttered a barking "Dammit!" Immediately, my roommate said, "Janet," and then we turned to each other and sang "I love you" in a rough harmony. I don't even like that movie that much, but you have to admit, that's a pretty awesome moment.

P.P.S. My apologies to any residents of Willamette or the greater Portland area who don't like the fact that I don't actually live in Oregon. But I've been assured by my editors that the TV shows broadcast in Los Angeles are almost exactly the same as the ones shown in the Pacific Northwest, so I think everything will work out.

• It's a little weird trying to objectively write about "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," which has been cancelled and will end its life after only one year on the air. It wasn't a great show, and most of the time it was only decent, but I think a large part of this is that Aaron Sorkin spent so many years writing White House dramas that were only peppered with jokes that he forgot what it was to write a comedy-drama set in a newsroom. "Studio 60" isn't even a comedy at all, as the endless series of bad sketches and awful fake-news segments make abundantly clear; but it is a passable workplace romantic drama, albeit one whose moments of emotional truth are hampered by Sorkin's self-indulgent nature and willingness to let his personal battles play out on screen.

• Matt and Harriet argued in a recent episode, "K&R: Part I," about (I think) the existence of God. The nature of their argument wasn't very clear, but they seemed to go back and forth throughout the episode about whether or not faith was rationally acceptable, and there was a montage at the end that traced them having the same fight constantly through the various stages of their on-off relationship. But they will never stop fighting, for two reasons (well, three, if you count the fact that they're fictional and that their conflict has been manufactured for dramatic interest): (1) they are pretty stubborn characters, and (2) they don't even agree about why they're fighting.

• They will never stop fighting because they both stubbornly cling to one of a pair of extreme views, and the very premises of their arguments are so different it makes agreement pretty much impossible. This is why conservative Christians and gays will never party together: One side views being gay as a natural character trait, while the other views it as a flaw and temptation to be overcome. The argument isn't about whether it's bad or not to be gay; it's over whether being gay is a choice, and the two sides are so violently apart on where the base their positions that they will never find a middle ground. It's like staging a debate between someone who believes in a heliocentric solar system and someone who thinks green is the best possible color. The two theses aren't even in the same ballpark. That's why Matt and Harriet, if they continue their current course, will never stop fighting. He's not saying her specific beliefs are irrational; he's saying that any kind of belief at all is irrational. She likes the sun, and he wants to color it green.

• However, most of the time I found myself either unmoved completely by either side or deferring to Matt, mainly because Harriet bugs the hell out of me. When Matt breaks the news to Harriet about Tom Jeter's brother being kidnapped — so much for just standing in the middle of Afghanistan — she drops to her knees in the writers' room, surrounded by her colleagues, and begins to pray. Later, she explains to Matt that she believes what Jesus said when he instructed his followers to ask things in his name, going so far as to quote 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (Leave aside for a moment the fact that Harriet is surprisingly conversant in the Old Testament, when most evangelicals only know Genesis 1:1 and Jeremiah 29:11, the latter of which has been printed on so many mugs and cards and shirts it would make you puke.) But Harriet's piety is relentlessly annoying, mainly because someone clearly so familiar with the gospels would (one assumes) be familiar with Jesus' exhortation in the Semon on the Mount, detailed in Matthew's (ha) gospel, in which he specifically tells people not to pray like Harriet does. Matthew 6:5-8 reads in part:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (emphasis added)

If Harriet legitimately believed with even a fraction of the fervor she claims to have and with which Sorkin has supposedly imbued her, she would have bolted from the room and found some place she could have been alone, where she could have more honestly acted out her faith to petition God. I know it's a small point to some and likely nonexistent to others, but the way her faith became a public performance was unsettling. I was grateful the scene ended there, instead of having her pray on camera; moments of genuine spiritual connection are notoriously difficult to capture on camera, and I have a feeling hers would have felt horribly phony.

• That's actually what made the episode's closing moments so intriguing. Harriet offered to teach Matt how to pray, and he brushed her off, but as they were leaving the building, he hung back and spent one brief moment on the edge of frustrated tears: He gave his chest one quick tap over the heart and lifted up a hand and pleaded, "Show me something." This is one of the most honest prayers I've probably ever seen on TV, and certainly more refreshing and compelling than Harriet's acts of public sanctimony. Matt's doubt is a key ingredient to the maturation of any kind of belief system, whether it's political or religious or anything else, and instead of statically coasting like Harriet, he's actually willing to concede in his moments of desperation a need for help. And who can't relate to that?

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" has by now established itself as perhaps Aaron Sorkin's weakest work (well, except for Malice). But it's certainly the weakest of his TV series, falling well behind "Sports Night" and "The West Wing" in terms of character development, creativity, storylines, and everything else. Sorkin is even up to his old tricks when it comes to dropping storylines whenever they begin to bore him; wasn't the "Studio 60" set supposed to be redesigned, like, months ago?

But the biggest change is perhaps in Sorkin's newfound cynicism for his characters that believe in God. Of course, Sorkin's distaste for zealots is hardly new; the pilot episode of "The West Wing" revolved around Josh almost getting fired for pissing off the religious right, and when the smug representatives of that movement came to the White House, the president smacked them down by quoting the Ten Commandments. This set two important precedents for the show: First, the religious right was going to be a pretty standard whipping boy for Sorkin's idealistic Bartlet administration. Second, Bartlet would be a man of well-reasoned, compassionate faith.

Sorkin's diatribes against narrow-minded religious extremists first appeared on "Sports Night," as in (for one of many instances) Casey McCall's on-air insults aimed at Jerry Falwell. Attacking the right-wing nutbars that are destroying the public faith of a lot of Americans is fine and dandy, it really is. However, the important thing on "The West Wing" wasn't just Bartlet's strong stance against the religious right, but his balancing that with his own yearning, personal faith. In the show's mythology, Bartlet minored in theology at Notre Dame, and his struggle to reconcile his faith in God with the horrible choices he faces as president added tremendous depth to the first few seasons of "The West Wing." The first season's "Take This Sabbath Day" shows Bartlet's spiritual vulnerability as he debates the commutation of a convict's death sentence, decides to let the sentence stand, and ultimately talks to his boyhood priest and asks forgiveness for his acts. Bartlet's spiritual vulnerability came to a head in Season 2's "Two Cathedrals," in which Bartlet curses and shouts at God as he reels from the death of Mrs. Landingham. Bartlet's soliloquy in Latin is heartrending, but he's not abandoning his faith: He's reasoning with it. There's never a sense that Bartlet is turning his back on his beliefs.

Which is what makes Sorkin's newfound bitterness toward Christianity in general so perplexing. He's got a track record of respecting characters of honest faith, yet Matt Albie is becoming an increasingly bitter spokesman for what one can only assume is Sorkin's developing animosity for people who believe in God. Entire episodes have revolved around the fact that Matt doesn't respect Harriet for having faith. The pilot episode revolved around a sketch called "Crazy Christians." And yes, both the sketch and Matt's mockery of Harriet are related to the religious right. But there is no Bartlet on "Studio 60," no man or woman who seems to represent the non-insane swath of believers out there. Sorkin keeps mounting attacks, but there's no one to respond with apologetics. I'd thought Sorkin respected people more than that, but I'm starting to think I was wrong.

So I leave you with this:

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I know, I know: Most of you think I should lay off "Studio 60." But let me reiterate that I'm not out to bash the show, which I still think is better than most other programs on the air (it certainly beats people yelling at briefcases). It's just disappointing that the show is having trouble finding its voice. Granted, it could likely find it in time; "Seinfeld" wasn't even "Seinfeld" until its third season or so, all Chinese restaurant trips aside. But TV is a horribly numbers-oriented business, and I'm afraid NBC execs aren't willing to let shows grow anymore. But anyway:

Somebody a lot smarter than I am figured out that all great dramas have three players. Whether it's two men and the woman between them, or any one of a dozen other stories, the three players can ultimately be boiled down to two opposing forces and the conflict that defines their relationship. That conflict is a vital thing, since it drives the characters to interact and influences their decisions, while also acting as its own storytelling element. Aaron Sorkin's first show about TV, "Sports Night," has this in spades, and it's another in the list of things missing from the new "Studio 60" that, if things continue unabated, will keep the latter show from reaching the heights of the former.

"Sports Night" dealt with a sports news show on a third-rate cable net that was constantly trailing Fox Sports and ESPN in the ratings. From the get go, the producers and anchors struggled to do their show while putting up with interference from their corporate owners. Sorkin set the tone in the show's second episode, "The Apology," in which Dan Rydell gets a slap on the wrist from corporate after supporting the legalization of marijuana in an interview with Esquire. Sorkin's druggy moralizing aside (and believe me, I'll get to that another time), the episode highlighted the opposition between the heartfelt aims of the creatives and the ratings-oriented world of the corporate chiefs, and the role that executive producer Isaac Jaffe played in mediating the demands of both. For his public misstep, Dan is forced to issue an on-air apology to his viewers, and in the process reveals crucial elements of his emotional backstory. In a series full of great episodes, this one's still one of the best.

The second season upped the stakes, thanks to Sorkin's willingness to let the show reflect some of the offscreen struggles he was having with ABC. The fictional world of "Sports Night" had to deal with a ratings expert, played by William H. Macy, who was hired by the show's corporate owners to shake up the program and bring in more viewers. It was a great story arc precisely because it drove home the conflict that had been brewing since the show's inception. The resulting drama worked because the consequences felt real and immediate.

But "Studio 60" exists in a world without these consequences. The pilot episode dealt with executive producer Wes Mendell's on-air breakdown, and the subsequent hiring of Matt and Danny to turn the show around. Yet after that, things seemed to settle down at the show-within-a-show. Steven Weber's appearances as network exec Jack Rudolph have been sparse at best, and his threats have been rendered toothless by the show's apparent ratings growth (though how a cold open featuring a horrible Gilbert and Sullivan rip-off is supposed to bring in viewers is beyond me). That's the problem: The fictional "Studio 60" is having too much success. There's no conflict, no battle to overcome small odds and big foe to achieve something great. That's not to say "Studio 60" can't or won't change. But with nothing to fight for or struggle against, the show will have nothing to do except revel in its own apparent glories. I'd rather see a good fight than an easy victory.

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I think I should point out that I don't hate "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," despite my previous observations of its flaws. It's still one of the better shows on TV, despite the fact that the old Sorkin spark seems to have gone missing. These periodic posts about the show aren't meant to disparage it, but to take a closer look at just where things started to go wrong, to pull it apart in the hopes of putting it back together.

"Studio 60" does have its strengths, chief among them the interplay between Matt and Danny. Sorkin writes good dialogue because he understands how friends relate to each other and is gifted at creating a quicker, wittier, more coversationally nimble way of communicating than the fumbling half-sentences and vocalized pauses that most people use. Like the post-grads of Kicking and Screaming, Sorkin captures the way we wish we talked. This is nowhere clearer than in the endless banter between the men on Sorkin's shows.

On "The West Wing," Sorkin relied heavily on the interplay between Josh, Sam, and Toby, whose rapidly paced conversations lent the show a boys' club air, as if these guys got really carried away at pretending one day and wound up running the country. (Even C.J., for all her intellect and skill, was forever the outsider, and not because she wasn't smart, but because men on their own revel in the strong clique-ish vibe they naturally produce. It's a long story.) But it was Sorkin's first show, "Sports Night," where he had the most success exploring the ups and downs of modern male friendship.

In the truest sense, Casey McCall and Dan Rydell were that show's anchors, giving the stories an emotional center and resonance. Their relationship was the driving force for the show, whether it was dealing with interference from the corporate level, counseling each other about women, or acting as the protective older brothers for everyone else at the show. I could go on about the amazing ways these guys played off each other and dealt with their own faults and strengths with love and humor — the "hip-deep in pie" exchange at the end of "Dana and the Deep Blue Sea" is never less than moving — but the best example was the story arc in Season 2 where Dan struggled with depression and a personal breakdown. Dan and Casey's strained relationship was the most powerful way to upset the balance of the show, to underscore just how high the stakes had gotten. When Dan begins his atonement by leading a seder and apologizing to Casey in "April Is the Cruelest Month," the sense of healing is palpable.

So why bring all that up? Because "Studio 60" is missing some serious man love. Matt's position as head writer and Danny's role as executive producer means they will inherently spend more time apart than any other male pairing in Sorkin's history, and that's bad news. They work at the same place, but they rarely work together. There are precious few opportunities for Matt and Danny to be around each other and riff back and forth on the palpable fun of just being themselves, and that's going to take a toll on the show's chemistry. Casey and Dan wrote together, and the Josh-Sam-Toby team were constantly in each other's offices and feeding off the energy of the group, but Matt and Danny are by their nature separated for most of each episode of "Studio 60," and that will only have negative effects for the show in the long run. Sorkin's men need to be around each other, or else it just won't work.

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This was, perhaps, inevitable. I had quite a bit of emotional investment in this season's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," having fallen violently in love with "Sports Night" when it aired and having been a similar fan of "The West Wing." I even stuck with "West Wing" through seasons 5-7, or what is better known as The Years That Didn't Happen. Sorkin's latest behind-the-scenes venture, this time at a late-night sketch-comedy show, was supposed to be a return to greatness, a chance for phenomenal programming to once again take to the airwaves, and another show for me to take to my heart. (This season there are only two other shows like that, so it would have been nice to have a third.)

And, well, despite the many issues with the show that I will no doubt address in the future, the show has a major problem: Sorkin can write good, humorous dialogue between characters, but he can't write a funny sketch to sace his life.

Apparently, the fact that Mark McKinney ("The Kids in the Hall") is working on the sketches isn't helping at all. Last week's episode revolved around a purportedly stolen monologue that turned out to be NBS property after all, but no one stopped to think that the speech, which included a bit about dropping Hot Pockets along with bombs, wasn't funny in the first place. Last night's episode featured a cruelly, blatantly, powerfully unfunny Nancy Grace sketch, which (a) you have to really suck to miss the natural humor of an idiot like Grace, and (b) it made the recent Nancy Grace sketch on "SNL" look funny by comparison, which is a startling accomplishment. Still, the worst offense came in the second episode of "Studio 60," when the show-within-a-show's cold open was an abysmal rip-off of Gilbert and Sullivan. More than just typical Sorkinian recycling (cf. "And It's Surely to Their Credit" for a much better use of the music), the sketch was just stupid. Hearing the fictional studio audience laugh and applaud the lame song was almost painful. I sat and watched, unmoved, realizing that Sorkin is still a talented writer-producer, but his best work may well be behind him.

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From the moment it started, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" pretty much had me. Everything old was new again: The show had the same look and feel of the fourth season of "The West Wing," the last year Sorkin worked on that show. The credits even used the same typeface, which is extremely satisfying to person like me. But "Studio 60" is about a weekly sketch comedy show, and as such bears more similarity to Sorkin's first show, "Sports Night."

Sorkin even uses the same phrases, like he always does. Having someone say "I hate his breathing guts" or that they'll do "whatever I damn well please" isn't so much a line of dialogue as it is a tried and true Sorkin standby. Half the reason I watch now is not see what's new but to see how he'll use the stuff he's said before. In this way, Sorkin is one of the most consistent writers in modern television: He will always return to the same themes, the same ideas, and examine them through the same worldview.

Even the names get recycled from show to show. Matt Albie and Jordan McDeere echo Albie Duncan and Jordan Kendall, and Danny Tripp is Danny Concannon is Dan Rydell. And I'd bet all the money in my pockets that "Studio 60" will make good use of Lisa and Simon in the future, whoeever they might wind up being.

Granted, the pilot episode wasn't perfect; it lacked Martin Sheen's sheer screen presence or Peter Krause's ill-advised 7th-grade skater 'do. But it had enough pop to see it through an hour, which is more than you can say for most shows.

It's just too soon to tell where this thing will head: whether it will sink, succumb to its own sense of importance, or manage to walk the high road and provide some genuinely good TV. No matter what, I'll be with it all the way.

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What else can I say?

It's finally here.

You constant readers, all seven of you, will likely see my reactions to the show soon enough. I'm just glad Sorkin's back on the air.

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I don't think at this point that I need to remind anyone of my geek-level fandom/love for Aaron Sorkin. There are already other clips up for his new show, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," which has received a 13-episode pickup for NBC this fall, but this one's the longest. It's worth putting up with the crappy video and out-of-sync audio to get a glimpse of the show.

It's good to see Judd Hirsch as the angry producer, since Sorkin actually pictured Hirsch playing the role of Leo McGarry, who was originally called Leo Jacoby. And of course Bradley Whitford and Timothy Busfield are practically contract players for the guy at this point; Busfield even directed a few episodes of "Sports Night." All that to say that it looks like Sorkin is at least playing to his strengths. It's also my sincere hope that one of the characters is a Jew from New England who sees a therapist about dealing with the death of a sibling. That's pretty much a Sorkinian standard.

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After seven years on the air — three stellar, one amazing, one horrible, one tolerable, and one not bad — "The West Wing" took its final bow Sunday night on NBC, and I, for one, am glad to see it finally go.

The show has had its fair share of ups and downs, not to mention the most flagrant disregard for dramatic continuity in recent TV memory. Major characters disappeared without a mention: Emily Procter as Ainsley Hayes was slowly phased out in Season 2; John Larroquette as the White House counsel made only a brief appearance early on, and Oliver Platt took over the job and actually stuck around for a few story arcs; but the biggest vanishing act was easily Moira Kelly as Mandy the Annoying PR Woman, whose character was poorly defined to begin with and served no purpose during Season 1 except to help the viewer realize just how much Kelly as an actress was dragging the show down. So without a word, between the first and second seasons, she disappeared. The first year ended in an assassination attempt cliffhanger, and when the second year picked up in the middle of the action, Mandy was gone, never to be mentioned again. I can understand the showrunners' willingness to eliminate her, but come on, at least toss out a line about why she left.

And yeah, sure, the series played pretty fast and loose with time, flowing pretty steadily during its first few seasons but somehow skipping a year to get to the next presidential election, as if the producers knew they'd have to wrap things up soon. But that's just a minor symptom of the bigger problem: When creator Aaron Sorkin departed after the show's fourth season, the series suffered a dramatic drop in quality. Under the guiding hand of producer John Wells, "West Wing" started to soon look like Wells' "ER," which is to say poorly lit, full of film-student camera work, and heavy to the point of being soporific. Sorkin took the show's heart and soul when he left, and it showed.

No great show can ever sustain its momentum, and on the heels of the recent death of "Arrested Development," which still stings a little, I'm reminded of how I would have been happy if "The West Wing" had ended after Sorkin left. Actually, I would have preferred it if NBC had just looked the other way when it came to Sorkin's substantial coke habits and just let him keep running the show. Come on guys, just pretend he's an athlete. You let them get away with anything.

All that to say that I'm glad Sorkin is returning to the air with this fall's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." It's set to air on Thursday nights, right against the newly moved "Grey's Anatomy," and it's my hope that "Studio 60" is either amazing for its entire run or canceled before it gets too old. Two great seasons is preferable to five mediocre ones.

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