It might well be that I'm the only person who still cares about this, in which case, forgive me, but I think we have to note this. Last night marked an untimely end for Studio 60, ripped from the schedules with unseemly haste to make way for February sweeps and something (anything) that would rate higher for its troubled network home, NBC.
Paul (Crash) Haggis' The Black Donnellys will take Studio 60's Monday night 10pm slot for the foreseeable future. Studio 60, which still has six or seven unaired episodes from its ordered run, is not currently scheduled to return to the network. Fans speculate that NBC might "burn" the remaining episodes over the summer, or show them on NBC.com, or release them to iTunes, or all of the above. (As an aside, isn't it lovely that new technology offers us so many new ways to not waste anything? Gone are the days when you had to write endless letters to BBC2 asking what happened to Larry Sanders and if they're not going to show it, can't they just send me a tape please?)
It was launched with such fanfare. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip attracted more pre-season press than any other newbie of the US network season. Why? Well mostly because writer Aaron Sorkin scored such a huge hit with the West Wing. Few series (and I really mean "few") have attracted such big audience numbers and such critical acclaim. Plenty of shows (House, Grey's Anatomy) attract big numbers and the critics and awards guilds kind of like them. A handful do the other thing and seem to be propped up till their inevitable cancellation by a Writers Guild gong and an Emmy (Arrested Development?). West Wing though was a credible moneyspinner and they don't come along very often.
More in sorrow than in anger, the US critics have penned their goodbyes. There's still a fairly large group of interested parties on Television without Pity, some of whom at least are clinging to a belief that the Black Donnellys will fail miserably and NBC will be forced by dint of having "absolutely nothing else" to air the remaining episodes of Studio 60. Perhaps next year's schedule will be so unutterably dire that they'll be forced to recommission it too. There's an awful lot that isn't right about Studio 60 and I don't think I can stand another six episodes focusing solely on romantic comedy in an attempt to build ratings with the Grey's Anatomy crowd. Leave it for the hospital people.
And there are all sorts of reasons why Studio 60 probably won't come back. It costs a fortune to make. The cast are high profile, expensive and have a lot to lose (though for my money, I prefer the cheaper members: Steven Weber, Nate Corddry and Timothy Busfield. Sorkin may well have become some sort of monster (though I tend to agree with his last round of interviews: you do have to keep on doing what you do and not writing for a focus group). The ratings have bubbled along at just about break-even (for a full list: click here) and that isn't really enough.
Even Channel 4, having arranged a special screening of the pilot in Edinburgh last August, has gone rather quiet on its acquisition. Ugly Betty got the fanfare January/Celebrity Big Brother slot. Studio 60, though, seems to be headed for a peaktime slot on Channel 4 in June, possibly around the weekend. A source at Channel 4 said this morning: "Anything from Aaron Sorkin, even if it's flawed, is going to be better than most things".
And this is why I'm in the 'bring it back anyway' camp. Give it another season. You never know, they might just pull it together if Amanda Peet goes on maternity leave (I don't mean to blame her personally for the show's misfortune, but she is quite annoying). It isn't right, we all know that, but it's not so very wrong either and it could be fantastic. There's still enough writing in there each week to warrant another punt. It's like Blackadder or Men Behaving Badly or Only Fools and Horses, all of which faced the axe, but got the chance to regroup in the second season, with immense rewards.
It is in that spirit then, that I wish The Black Donnellys nothing but ill. May it crash and burn with ratings of less than seven million and a score well under 3.0 in the crucial demographic. May it squander its lead-in audience from super hit Heroes. May it prove weak and feeble against David Caruso's bravura sunglasses acting in CSI Miami. In short, I need a showbiz miracle. Or at the very least, enough public grief to warrant the issuing of an extras-laden box set.
