Bradley Whitford as Danny Tripp and Matthew Perry as Matt Albie in NBC's Studio 60
Here's a cultural conundrum: how does a TV show depict a struggling TV show without becoming a struggling TV show?
The solution, if there is one, seems to have eluded Aaron Sorkin, the man who gave us The West Wing but now appears to have fallen flat on his face with the follow-up, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Studio 60 with the Very Long Title is set in the hilariously gag-filled world of the late-night live TV comedy show. For American audiences, that means Saturday Night Live, part of the Television DNA of the boomers. Studio 60 takes us behind the scenes of a fictionalised SNL to witness the drama, the agony, and all the other icky stuff that goes on backstage.
And frankly, nobody cares. At least in the West Wing the walking-talking actors were grappling with Important Events. In Studio 60 many of those same actors are grappling with the running order of a TV comedy show. Studio 60 may have Matthew Perry from Friends, it may have Amanda Peet as a thoroughly unlikely network boss, it may have Bradley Whitford from The West Wing, but put them all together and if you don't have something to engage an audience, nobody's going to watch.
And as the fictional programme tries desperately to retain its ratings and save itself from the axe, so the real programme edges closer and closer to an early demise. Which makes the whole thing fascinating in its own way, just not for very long.
Although there was a flurry of speculation that the series had been pulled when it was absent from its regular slot two weeks ago, that was all put down to a long-standing agreement to make way for a crucial football game. The programme returned to deliver its most dreadful episodes yet, a two-parter following the nail-biting, buttock-clenching story of one of the cast members of the fictional programme (are you following this?) being arrested for assault and taken to Hicksville, Nevada where local judge John Goodman hammed away for all he was worth.
Even Goodman couldn't save the leaden storyline. Rumour has it that Sorkin got a guarantee from the struggling NBC network behind the show to run the whole of the first series. Let's hope, for everyone's sake, that NBC have a get-out clause.
