Aaron Sorkin's Return to Television

I don't care what anyone says - ANYONE!  The West Wing of today is a pale comparison of what it was when Aaron Sorkin was in charge.  Go back to the shows on Bravo or A&E or whatever channel it's syndicated on, and I dare you to peel your eyes and ears away from the set.  It's electric, it's hypnotic, it was the best show on TV bar none.  It wasn't even close.  It's not an opinion... there are scientific facts in a laboratory somewhere to back this up.

Anyway, Bill Simmons dropped this bomb on his blog today, and I haven't stopped salivating since.

I received a copy of Aaron Sorkin's spec script, Studio 7 -- his secret project that caused near-chaos in Hollywood when he suddenly started shopping it a few weeks ago. Everyone loved it, everyone said great things, and after reading it ... I couldn't agree more. It's already my new favorite show even though they haven't started casting it yet -- like Larry Sanders, only if it was about SNL. In a viciously clever way, Sorkin's pilot script pretty much obliterates SNL and everything that happened to the show over the past few years, as well as TV networks and the post-Janet Jackson/FCC Era in general. It's a masterpiece. It's perfect. I can't say enough about it. When this show debuts next year (or whenever), it will be impossible to take SNL seriously anymore. I'm telling you.

Good god - just reading this again I'm freaking out in anticipation, but maybe that's because I'm losing my love for Lost and Alias this year.

Comments

[AT]

I used to look forward to West Wing with eager anticipation; couldn't wait; best written show on television. As soon as Sorkin left it was like the pod people had replaced all my favorite characters. I couldn't watch it anymore. I dropped it. Every so often a show wears out its welcome, usually several years in. I've also given up on CSI, Alias, Survivor..Still rabidly happy with Lost and Rome. Although that one's got a bit of decadent kinkiness for kinkiness' sake.

[Craig]

Hi AT - I couldn't agree with you more about The West Wing. I have to say, however, that I'm slowly losing patience with Lost.

A friend of mine has a theory (which I love) about how the show's writers are making fun of all of us viewers with the 108 minute countdown. The whole idea of having to push a button every 108 minutes with the hope that something will or won't happen... that's us. Every week we tune in for 60 minutes, hoping that something will happen, and they give us a crumb, and we all go away happy until the next 60 minutes... when really nothing is happening.

I have a theory that all the backstories are fake or imagined. Go through each of the characters, and their stories are so ludicrous, I'm wondering if any of them are real. Hurley won the lottery, Charlie's a rockstar, Jack made a woman walk again whose spine was crushed (then married her), Locke was paralyzed and had his liver stolen by his lost father, Kate's a bank robber and got her boyhood love killed, Shannon was 1 in 4000 that got into that exclusive dance school, Jin is a hired heavy for his father-in-law, Sawyer's dad killed his mother and himself but then he killed the wrong guy in revenge... I mean, come on! The list goes on and on...

They've always talked about how there's going to be some giant twist that no one is expecting - the above is my guess.