Tenspeed & Brownshoe

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

God Bless You Aaron Sorkin.

Last night I did something I have not done maybe ever, at least not in recent memory.

I planned my evening around a television show. I declined offers to go out with friends and also took a rain check on a friends roof deck; because I wanted to catch the first episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

And I was reminded that TV doesn't have to suck. Sorkin's unmistakable verbal acrobatics were in top form and Thomas Schlame's direction was still fluid and hypnotic. What a perfect subject for the geniuses behind West Wing, for what besides Live TV serves up all the life and death urgency of life in the Oval Office - with none of the relevance.
Judd Hirsche's monologue at the beginning says what I and maybe one or two other people have been thinking about TV for years now... "Wake up it doesn't have to be this way." Fear of what sponsors may think has made the television landscape safe copies of copies - And Hircsh's character tears reality TV a fresh one and sticks a finger in the eye of SNL itself... (Why NBC went along with it I don't know, but wow... oh and there's a 'fuck you' to that asshole who responded to my complaints about SNL several months ago! - Gee, Looks like Aaron Sorkin and NBC agree with me!)

What a ballsy way to start a series! Indictinig television itself then showing how it can be done.
What Sorkin does so well is show extremely smart and important people making HUGE decisions who are breaking apart on the inside and doing it with a sense of humor.

The rest of you can have your Idol and Top Model and Wild N Out... Truth may be STRANGER than fiction... but fiction is still better.

I am Brownshoe. Today is my birthday.