I may be wrong, I hope I am, but I think Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip may have jumped the shark last night. Aaron Sorkin's new show has always been a problem for me. It's wonderfully written in a technical sense (great dialogue, inventive ideas), wonderfully acted and just as wonderfully filmed. Unfortunately, I couldn't care less about any of the characters or the situations. I don't care what their problems are, no more than I'd care if it were a drama about Income Tax Preparers and the stories were all about the minutiae of the 1096-AAA carbon-based life form. I care about characters, and last night's episode, purportedly about the characters, was just an awful embarrassing episode of I Love Lucy. Without Lucy. Or comedy. Or heaven help us, without even William Frawley.

I won't go into all the problematic storylines. I'll just center my complaint on the one that bothered me the most. So I won't talk about the possible lovers who get stuck on the roof along with every other sitcom character and his girl friend who have done just that, or that there are snakes loose in the studio, or that Matt is so jealous he's secretly bidding in an auction to go with the woman he loves to an awards dinner that's for her. I won't talk about those. Oh, one last thing: Just remember, this is a drama and not a sitcom. Got that?

For those who don't follow Studio 60, and judging by the ratings very few do, Nate Cordry's Tom Jeter actor-character cares for a British writer on the show and finally asks her out on a date. Unfortunately, Jack Rudolph, the Chairman of the network, needs Tom to take a young Japanese girl to an awards dinner on the same night as Tom's date. The whys are unimportant.

So what does Tom do? Instead of straight forwardly telling the object of his desire that his boss needs him to take a young girl to the awards dinner in order to talk her out of giving up the cello and becoming a comedy writer (remember: drama. not sitcom) he does what Lucy does every episode. He lies. Makes up a story. Now, he does state somewhere that the truth would be best, but he still lies. And his reason is ridiculous; his fellow writer would resent him going out with another woman. Before their first ever date. Of course since since the woman he wanted to go out with is a writer on the show she would know Jack Rudolph and realize Tom couldn't get out of it. Or she'd be sympathetic with him. Or any number of real possibilities. But he lies. And guess what? Just like Lucy, the female writer turns up at the award's show, too and sees Tom with the Japanese girl. And hilarity doesn't ensue.

Now, I have problems with characters being stupid and lying for no reason. There are reasons one lies, "No, you're not fat." "Of course you look wonderful." Etc. But I have a real problem with people who lie because they decide to lie. I used to know someone whose default is lying. About anything and everything. Can't deal with it. There was absolutely no reason for Tom to lie except that the writer needed a plot complication. If you really need a character to lie, you need to give him a real reason to do so. But Tom lied and he got caught. And Matt acted like an idiot and he got caught. And the roof door is still locked and there's still snakes on the plane.

As a writer I simply hate characters who do things for stupid reasons. One can always find a logical reason for them to do something wrong, but it takes time, like maybe an extra few seconds, to come up with something that would make a reasonable person act like Lucy. In this episode of Studio 60, nobody took that time and everybody came out looking like idiots. Whereas with Lucy it was acceptable (early 50s and an out-and-out sitcom) it's not acceptable in 2007 in a drama, even one about making a comedy show.

So tell me if you agree. Shark bait anyone?

Labels: Jumping The Shark, Studio 60