The very model

[scarfman]

When the new tv season started, I set the DVR for Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip in order to finally experience for myself the magic everyone on the internet and my mother attaches to the name Aaron Sorkin. We just watched the second episode, in which the protagonists, the writer-producer team Danny and Matt, have to mount a live 90-minute tv show from scratch in a week. This isn't the first time they've done it - hell, they used to work this series - but during the four years they were gone, someone got the bright idea to put a clock in the main office where Matt now works that continuously counts down seven days till the next show starts, and the entire episode's tension is built from Matt and Danny having to write and produce a segment of their series while that clock flashes its deadline in Matt's eyes in big red unfriendly numbers every moment.

I do that every flicking day.

(And I once aspired to a television acting career.)

I am so never missing this show.

Comments

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Ah... So I take it you've never anything by Sorkin before? In any case, if you like Studio 60, I recommend Sports Night, the show that got me and my father hooked on Sorkin's patter style -- a half-hour dramedy about putting on a cable sports show that was doomed from the start because TV execs didn't know how to pigeonhole it, or promote it.

And yeah, how can you not love the ending Sorkin came up with for that episode?

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

someone got the bright idea to put a clock in the main office where Matt now works that continuously counts down seven days till the next show starts,

They're just setting us up for a thrilling "No! Cut the BLUE wire!" scene later in the season.