Studio 60 Dead. Or Not.

Talk about seeing a glass half empty: TV-related blogs are buzzing today over a Fox News report that, despite ordering three new scripts of West Wing mastermind Aaron Sorkin's Saturday Night Live spoof Studio 60, castmembers are telling people cancellation is imminent.

This buzz emerges on the same day as the network pre-empts the show for an episode of its equally good and equally low-rated football drama Friday Night Lights.

My bet: somebody at Fox is playing the odds. If Friday Night Lights juices the timeslot, there's no way triggerhappy TV execs will return Studio 60 to the space, effectively canceling it. And Studio 60 has been losing half the audience of NBC's surprise Monday night hit, Heroes.

But I haven't seen any other news outlet echo Fox's reporting -- probably because everyone starring on the show knows its fate is so precarious that any extra negative buzz will just push it closer to the abyss.

Hey, it's a 50-50 chance of being correct. And if you believe Studio 60 is as awful as some critics seem to think, maybe the odds are better than that.

Personally, I've enjoyed the show -- which is basically Sorkin's eggheaded take on the TV biz. But my sneaking suspicion is that Studio 60 is suffering from a few problems:

-- Viewers have never been that interested in Hollywood satirizing itself, even when it does a really good job of it.

-- Masses of viewers don't dig TV characters that make them feel dumb; they'd much prefer watching characters who seem more dysfunctional than they are.

-- I liked it, which means it's doomed to failure.

Wow. Guess who is Mr. Glass Half Empty now?

UPDATE: I was right. Fox is full of it.

 

Comments

[Joel]

I think number 2 is the closest to the truth.

I'll admit having only watched the pilot, but Sorkin was obviously interested in airing his grievances against the a lot of groups, with censors and execs being his biggest targets. Had this show come right after Sports Night, I could stomach his bitterness. But satirizing the machine that helped make his West Wing a success seems rather petty.

It's not that he shouldn't be allowed to nibble on the hand that fed him. I just didn't really like the tone. And I think the tone hurt ratings.

Ultimately though big ideas only belong in TV shows about politics. That's what doomed Sports Night, and that's what will doom Studio 60. And because the show is probably costing NBC a lot more than Sports Night cost ABC, it will probably last less.

[Eric Deggans]

i think you're right -- Sorkin's big ideas sound even more pompous coming from the mouths of Tv producers and networks executives. At least Jed Bartlett was actually the leader of the free world and not just acting like it....