Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is like a dead man walking. The show’s making its last steps towards the sunset, as it wasn’t renewed and NBC is just burning the rest of the episodes that were shot in order to fill holes in the schedule. With that in mind, it’s really sad that the first episode in this final run was one of the best we’ve seen from this show. If I were Alanis Morissette, I’d say it was ironic.
The Disaster Show stood out from other episodes in that it didn’t feature Matt, Danny or Jordan, though Matt and Danny were mentioned a lot. That left Cal to carry the ball and Timothy Busfield did an excellent work. Of course it didn’t hurt that this week’s guest host was Allison Janney. That’s right – Timothy Busfield and Allison Janney reciting dialogue written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Thomas Schlamme. No, this isn’t The West Wing but it was just as good as that show was during the Sorkin era. Theis week they went back to what Studio 60 was meant to be a show about making a TV show, with relationships in the background, and not a relationship show with the TV stuff in the background.
The main story this week dealt with the prop masters and cue card guys going on strike 10 minutes before the live show starts, causing everything to go down quick. While the regular cast members take it easy, knowing full well it’s going to be one of the “disaster shows” they have once in a while (Hence the title of the episode), the guest host, Janney, freaks out about it and takes every screw-up, and there are lots of them, to heart. Allison Janney was brilliant this week, not afraid to poke fun at herself and appear nervous, tenses, perhaps a bit melodramatic until her breakdown at the end. It was up to Cal to calm her down and lead her through the process of hosting a disaster show (and a fake bomb threat), and while Cal may not have been doing so well, seeing Busfield and Janney together again was really worth it.
Other than the strike, Simon was going through his own disaster, as his girlfriend broke up with him between the dress rehearsal and the show. Having already booked a couples’ vacation in Hawaii with Tom and Lucy, he scrambles to find someone to take with him and runs across an old flame in the green room. Things of course can’t go his way, as at onme pont he ends up with two girls, one of them his GF who just dumped him, and then he ends up with neither. It was a nice little story to cut away from the tension that also helped to establish Simon as a ladies’ man, in case it wasn’t clear by now. It was weird to see Simon accept dating advice from Tom, considering everything we’ve seen in the season so far, but eventually it made sense, since Tom’s advice backfired on Simon.
It was good to see Matt and Harriet’s relationship take a backseat this week. I’ve written numerous times about how this relationship was dragging the show down and it’s better not to make it the main story of the show. In fact, the rest of the cast backstage said it’s best – Matt and Harriet can date, break up or do whatever they want, just stop taking up everyone’s time with this relationship. This week proved it, as I didn’t mind to have it the topic of backstage talk but not dominate the episode. I’d love to see it continue like this for the rest of the series, but I’m skeptical that I’ll get my way.
All in all, this was one of the strongest episodes we’ve seen so far. The fact that Matt, Danny and Jordan weren’t featured didn’t hurt it at all. Watching Busfield and Janney together brought back great memories of C.J Cregg and Danny Concannon and the days when The West Wing was the best written show on TV. Steven Webber as drunken Jack was also excellent and the rest of the cast were really on. It’s sad to see show present such a great episode on its way out, knowing it’s all for nothing. I believe that if we had more episodes like this one earlier in the season the faith of Studio 60 could have been different. But since it’s just spilled milk by now, all that’s left is to sit back and enjoy the show.
