At being clever. And clever is the antithesis of funny.
On The West Wing, the “walk and talk” tracking shots and spit-fire dialogue provided gravitas when dealing with dramatic issues like nuclear proliferation and the Middle East conflict. But when figuring out the teaser opening for a sketch comedy show, it just comes off, well, overdone.
The great weakness is that Studio 60 takes its attempts to be “funny” too seriously. Sorkin juggles too many simultaneous ideas, too many people and too many scenes to allow the humor room to breathe. And there’s the rub: the backstage show-within-a-show is an inherently pretentious conceit, one that’s darned difficult to transcend, particularly for the oxymoronic drama about a comedy. The closest parallel was the Larry Sanders Show, but what may have worked there just doesn’t play here. This is territory that series creator Aaron Sorkin has tried to mine before, in the short-lived semi-sitcom Sports Night. It didn’t click for audiences then, and I’ve got a feeling that it still isn’t an interesting enough concept to keep viewers’ attentions.
