This show was flat out boring. Most people don't care about what writers and producers of tv shows do behind the scenes. Trying to dramatize this stuff reminds me of Kevin Costner in the Postman, remember how great that was??

The pilot basically tells us the heroes of the show are upset that the network is too patriotic and Christian bigots have ruined TV. Mathew Perrys character wrote a skit called "Crazy Christians" which got a thumbs down from the stuffy bad guy network characters. The show is about characters like Perry being re-hired to write stuff like that since its "true".

Take The West Wing. Remove the interesting story lines. Replace hatred of Republicans with hatred of Christians. Bingo you have Studio 60 on Sunset Strip!!


This show will be lucky to last an entire season. Its the "Joey" of dramas only worse.

Studio 60's pilot is a fastball of premise and players, a blur of faces and events that's made to set the hook. On that level it succeeds.
The show begins dramatically--long-time Studio 60 head Wes Mendell (Judd Hirsch) in an utter meltdown, interrupts a sketch to rant and rave à la Network about the decline of television as an art form.
Visit TV with MeeVee's blog for the full review of the pilot!!
Cheerz!

doesn't NBC now own YouTube anyway? I liked it but it's hard not to see Josh when I look at Bradley. I'm sure that will change with time but I was such a big fan of Josh. :) I liked how Aaron Sorkin sort of made fun of himself and Matthew made fun of his chemical abuse problems too. Pilots are sometimes rough because they have to introduce you to characters, how they relate to each other and set up the whole premise for the show. I always give shows like this a few episodes to see how they turn out but it was a good solid pilot and should do well this Fall.

It's the day after and it's still on youTube. NBC's working with youTube on other things, this is probably more of the same.

mike brings up a good point. By saying "Watch the Studio 60 pilot while you can" you imply that you believe youtube doesn't have permission from NBC to be hosting these files. I'm not sure how that is any different from getting them with bit torrent, or in IRC, or from a hotline server, etc.

I'm still not convinced that youtube's 'We didn't know' defense is going to hold up when someone really goes after them. And it makes me wonder if we might not eventually see one of the big media companies trying to make youtube cough up the IP addresses for everyone that downloaded an infringed file. It sounds silly, I know. But you have to keep in mind that these are the same people that have gone after families that don't own computers, grandmothers that wouldn't know the first thing about P2P, and dead people. They're ok with silly.

Carissa: have you heard of advertising? commercials? are you that retarded?

Doesn't it seem silly to have any illegal activity in conjunction with broadcast television? I mean, the whole point of broadcast is it's "free" to viewers. That said, I think all leaked pilots are done so with complete support from the sponsor, even if they feign ignorance and "sue." NBC needs all the good vibes it can get, and getting interest in advance can only help. This is the network that actually greenlit Joey for a second season.

youtube is already being sued, but I thought there was a law preventing sites with user submitted content from being responsible for what their users post (maybe thats just for forums though.. or the law is non-existant), and youtube gets enough posts a day that they couldn't possibly keep up with the ammounts of copyrighted material, especially since i don't think theres a list of who owns what.. and how would you know that the person who uploaded wasn't the copyright owner?

second, i thought that if you dl a file, it wasn't illegal, but if you uploaded it was, which is why they wouldn't have a case if they tried to get youtube to give them the ips (and going back to my first point, how are users supposed to know who uploaded what and who owns what - and since it was in the news that nbc made a deal with youtube, a user could just assume that its up there legally)

third, if you use bittorrent, don't you have to upload as well as dl (i am sure there are clients that don't force it, but most do.. or at least make it difficult not to) and if you are uploading it (assuming that the file was not being distributed by nbc or the proper copyright owners) would be the illegal/piracy part, and isn't linking/promoting illegal activities that have to do with piracy also illegal.. or at least questionable

mike brings up a good point. By saying "Watch the Studio 60 pilot while you can" you imply that you believe youtube doesn't have permission from NBC to be hosting these files. I'm not sure how that is any different from getting them with bit torrent, or in IRC, or from a hotline server, etc.

I'm still not convinced that youtube's 'We didn't know' defense is going to hold up when someone really goes after them. And it makes me wonder if we might not eventually see one of the big media companies trying to make youtube cough up the IP addresses for everyone that downloaded an infringed file. It sounds silly, I know. But you have to keep in mind that these are the same people that have gone after families that don't own computers, grandmothers that wouldn't know the first thing about P2P, and dead people. They're ok with silly.

I enjoyed the writing and the character relationships - i hope to enjoy this one all Fall.