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Lights out on Studio 60?

I hate to say I told you so, but...

This Monday, in the usual timeslot of one much-maligned drama about a faux LA sketch comedy show was a much-less-maligned drama about a faux Texas football team. While the showing of Friday Night Lights was intended to test the ratings waters for a potential move, it portends the soon-to-be end of Studio 60.

While the football serial didn't exactly score a touchdown, it did pull in more viewers than the Aaron Sorkin team. According to Marc Berman of the Media Insider, "Friday Night Lights increased from the most recent performance of regularly scheduled occupant Studio 60 (Overnights: 6.3/10; Viewers: 7.72 million; A18-49: 3.2/ 8 on Oct. 23) by 570,000 viewers and 9 percent among adults 18-49." Astute readers might notice that the number of viewers for Studio is now down to almost half of its premiere audience. You don't have to resurrect the late NBC programming genius Brandon Tartikoff to figure out the pattern there.

The day before, FoxNews.com let rumors fly that the show was already on its death bed, proclaiming "Cancellation Iminent" (sic) which sent the media world into a tizzy. Its Newscorp sibling, The New York Post ran with the ball, declaring giddily, "'STUDIO' DOOMED." MediaPost threw in the other direction: announcing that "FoxNews.com Columnist Gets It Wrong." Its own unnamed source, an "NBC representative" emailed that the Studio is still on the air, because "It is profitable at this point" and "the network has ordered three more episodes of the show." A ringing endorsement, if ever I heard one. Actually, MediaPost got it wrong: NBC ordered three more script-- but no word of actual filming.

The New York Sun poked fun at Fox's misspelled "imminent" but took no issue with its analysis, laying into the series with its own political metaphor, "[Y]ou have to wonder whether the high-IQ show of the season isn't one of the dumbest things you've ever witnessed... Studio 60 is the John Kerry of TV shows: It looks intelligent, it sounds intelligent, but your gut keeps telling you it's a pompous windbag."

Last week, USA Today's inimitable Robert Bianco offered up a five point renovation plan for the Studio's problems-- perhaps too late. In particular, Bianco decries Aaron Sorkin's writing,

The background notes of self-righteousness and self-reference that were present in the pilot have become the dominant tone, to the extent that too much of the show comes across as a giant ego stroke.

Likewise, Aaron Barnhart of TVBarn.com and the Kansas City Star pegged the show for its failings, laying the blame for the show's demise squarely on Sorkin's shoulders,

And good riddance. Despite claims by some that the Christian right tuned out this show for its relentless mocking of their faith, that's not why "Studio 60" is dying.

It's because a network that wanted to be in business with Sorkin and his partner Thomas Schlamme was willing to look past the fact that Sorkin isn't really a comedy writer and had few big ideas after the pilot's opening rant by guest star Judd Hirsch.

In a more tongue-in-cheek treatment, Idolator.com's Brian Raferty announced that the end was nigh when Sting appeared on the October 23 episode: "People still don't realize that Sting is 100 percent, undeniably, certifiably jinxed. Employing him not only proves how out-of-touch you are with the listening public, but dooms your project to failure." Canada's Edmonton Journal picked up on the "Sting curse" and discounted it, "Even if there is a curse, it seems to have little effect on Sting himself. Variety reports this week that the singer's new album of 17th-century music by John Dowland, Songs From the Labyrinth, saw an 8,000-unit spike shortly after his Studio 60 performance." Wow -- appearing on a national TV series supposedly watched by over seven million people managed to sell 8000 albums; that certainly doesn't sound like a curse!