"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" The Cold Open (2006)

User Rating:

8.5/10   

Director:

Thomas Schlamme

Writers:

Aaron Sorkin (creator)
Aaron Sorkin (written by)

TV Series:

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (2006)

Original Air Date:

24 September 2006 (Season 1, Episode 2)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

It's the week of Matt and Danny's first show. A Christian group is threatening to protest and boycott the show, the musical guest suddenly becomes unavailable, and Matt is obsessing over the show's opening skit. |

Plot Keywords:

Musical Number | Press Conference | Gilbert And Sullivan | Television Flop | Television

Cast

Matthew Perry	...	Matt Albie
Amanda Peet	...	Jordan McDeere
Bradley Whitford	...	Danny Tripp
Steven Weber	...	Jack Rudolph
D.L. Hughley	...	Simon Stiles
Sarah Paulson	...	Harriet Hayes
Nathan Corddry	...	Tom Jeter (as Nate Corddry)
Timothy Busfield	...	Cal Shanley
Evan Handler	...	Ricky Tahoe
Carlos Jacott	...	Ron Oswald
Ayda Field	...	Jeannie Whatley
Simon Helberg	...	Alex Dwyer
Wendy Phillips	...	Shelley Green
Diana-Maria Riva	...	Lilly Rodriguez
Merritt Wever	...	Suzanne

Company:

Shoe Money Productions

Trivia:

The Guest Host, not appearing on screen, was Mark Wahlberg. The Guest Musical Acts, appearing on screen, were the West Coast Philarmonic Orchestra with the Los Angeles Light Opera Chorus.

Goofs:

Continuity: At the end of the episode, we get a great countdown to the start of the show-within-the-show, including the "countdown clock" dropping from :06 to :05. The show runs through the "Modern Major-General" parody, finally cutting back to Matt as he turns to see the countdown clock drop from 6:23:57:54 to :53, a total of 2:12 from the previous shot. However, a real-time clock (such as the video clip timer on NBC's web site as it runs the episode) ticks off 2:27 for this interval, a 15-second discrepancy.

Quotes:

[Danny turns on the countdown clock]
Matt Albie: How did it know?
Danny Tripp: How did it know what?
Matt Albie: Exactly how much time was left in the week.
Danny Tripp: Yeah, it's a miracle of technology that we've invented an electronic device that can count backwards from seven.
Matt Albie: But it was off.
Danny Tripp: It has a battery.
Matt Albie: [in horror] So it always knows?
Danny Tripp: Don't endow the thing with special powers Matt - it's a clock.

Movie Connections:

References "Saturday Night Live" (1975)

Pilot=good, Cold Open=brilliant

The premiere of Studio 60 was pretty good, but there were a lot of things we've seen before from Aaron Sorkin. The Cold Open, however, was brilliant from start to finish. Perhaps it's because we didn't need the setup or the characters introduced and Sorkin could concentrate on character development and plot. In any case, it was tightly written and very clever. The writing quality was especially noticeable following the premiere of Heroes which, in comparison, felt heavy-handed, cliché-ridden, and forced. Sorkin has a formidable challenge with Studio 60. Not only does he have to write for his own characters, he also has to write comedy for the show-within-a-show. And if he keeps it up as well as he did here, we will be highly entertained. If only SNL could have clever (and funny) writing like this.