Studio 60: Better?

Spoilers for "Studio 60" just as soon as I take off my radio mic...

Wow. An episode where I didn't feel the need to yell at the TV even once -- or, at least, where Sorkin pre-empted my yelling at the last minute. Martha/Maureen delivering another speech about how Important this show is? Deftly undercut by the appearance of Tom in a lobster suit. The "Jenny Doesn't Have a Baby" sketch being the kind of thing "SNL" would dump after the second musical number? Matt admits it's not funny. The Nancy Grace sketch wasn't much better, but even there, Matt damned it with faint praise by referring to it simply as the best thing they had that week.

So with a minimum of Sorkin telling me one thing and showing me something else, I could appreciate the characters more. This was the first week, for instance, that I actually liked Harriet. And while the "Search and Destroy" subplot was another case of Aaron being way behind the curve in the TV business -- reality sleaze lost its mass appeal years ago, and all of the big current hits are about becoming rich, famous or both -- I really liked the scenes where Jordan stood up to Jack and then got Bob Wright (or whatever the character's name is) on her side. (A negative: how in the world does Jordan not know who Bill Parcells is?)

I would have liked more of Lauren Graham -- if ever there was an actress born to deliver Sorkin dialogue, it's her -- but I'm hoping she'll have a larger showcase next week.

What did everybody else think?