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(S01E08) After seeing this episode (which just confirmed something I thought anyway), I'm not quite sure while people are so annoyed by the show's supposed liberalism and "east and west coast" mentality. This show is doing two things. One, it's sparking debate about a lot of serious issues (religion, gay rights, tolerance, politics), and two, it makes sure it dumps on liberals and Democrats and Hollywood just as much as much as they do flyover country, religious people, and Pahrump, Nevada. There's enough to go around on both sides.
I think a lot of viewers who don't like the show (and I truly don't understand why they're watching it week after week if they can't stand it) don't get the fact that just because the show dares to bring up the above topics, that it dares to even suggest that these topics are a hot-button issues and there might be a way to actually get along, doesn't mean that it's "against" anything.
While Tom and the gang are still in Nevada, waiting for the Assistant D.A. to arrive to the judge's office, Matt and Harriet argue about her comments to the NY Post, Jordan is having problems of her own about her "I don't want children" comments, and Dylan doesn't want to fill in for Simon on the news segment if he doesn't want make it back in time.
I'm not quite sure I'm really into this whole plot about Jordan and her ex-husband writing the tell-all about the sex. Seems like the cast has enough tension and pressure and scandal to deal with. Maybe this will be like the first season story of The West Wing where Sam dated the hooker. It was a fairly major plot in several eps that first year then never mentioned again. Maybe they put this plot in just to get the Macau father and dad into the plot, for a connection to Mr. White and a big deal for NBS?
Matt and Harriet are arguing about her comments to the Post, and it has gotten to the point where Jordan wants her to sit out her 6 week concert tour. But she doesn't have to, as the concert organizers cancel the gigs anyway, because of the publicity.
Lucy and Darius get to know each other while writing a sketch (oddly, none of the others are even around). The whole scene with Lucy crying to Matt about her ex-boyfriend was the worst scene in the whole show so far, but hopefully it's going somewhere.
There's a nice moment (a couple, actually) between Jack and Danny. Danny is trying to convince Jack to stick up for Jordan and stand behind her. When the daugther of the Macau businessman alerts him to the gossip about Jordan (on her Blackberry, of course), he wants to end the deal. This pushes Jack into a rant about how the man should go with Time-Warner instead of NBS. He sticks up for Jordan, Tom, even Danny. Steven Weber is doing nice work here, playing a business exec who sometimes can't help to someone also want to do the moral, right thing, even when he's trying to please his bosses and make money for the studio.
Back to my point at the beginning of this review: after the Assistant D.A. finds out that the reason Tom was speeding was because he was coming from Nellis AFB, where his younger brother was deployed from (he's on his third tour in Afghanistan - nice nod to the episode where Tom's parents visited the studio), the judge has sympathy for what Tom did, maybe even admires it a little, and shows that the guy wasn't just going to follow some typical stereotype and throw the cast in jail just because he doesn't like Studio 60. And Sorkin throws in a nice line from the judge about how they have to stop thinking that everyone between Fifth Avenue and Hollywood Blvd. is out of Hee Haw.
And as for Harriet and her comments, she actually defends herself really well to Matt at the end. I think the show is trying to say there's more middle ground than we think. Whatever it's trying to say, it's just great that a show like this is actually talking about the issues. This show could have been just a really predictable, by the numbers show about a late night variety show, showing sketches, having the typical set up-joke-set up-joke-resolution structure we see in a lot of comedies, or the one dimensional characters we see in too many dramas. It's doing something different.
And doing it really well.
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