Jim: Wow - I spend a coupla days drinking twelve gallons of Guinness in Dublin and return to you guys are at each other’s throats! Time to play peacemaker.

My opinion of Studio 60 is based on about four episodes, probably four of the first five. The rave reviews perked my interest, and I really liked the opening episode. Liked a lot of the second one. Third one started to lose me. By the fourth one, the flaws were clear.

Studio 60 has some strong moments, but by comparison, it’s comparably weaker and less entertaining than Sorkin’s other shows, Sports Night and The West Wing. In Sports Night, we very quickly established a connection with the main characters — particularly Jeremy, who was the living, breathing embodiment of every one of us who has gotten a big break and become desperately obsessed with not screwing it up. All of the characters loved their jobs, they were extremely driven, they mostly got along, and all of them had a particular vulnerablility. The balance between wish fulfillment (boy, I wish I worked in a place like that!) and drama (urgh, boy, it must be tough to work with someone you have a crush on, and fear acting upon it because you’ll screw up your work) was just right most episodes — plus some great soap-opera storylines and plot twists for what was arguably still a half-hour sitcom. (”You’re wearing my shirt, Gordon.”)

While the political preachiness had a much more central role in The West Wing, the drama came easy. This was the presidency, for Heaven’s sake! Assassination attempts, foreign crises, scandals brewing and breaking — we knew the stakes were high, week after week. And because these people were running our country, while we may have wanted to wipe that smug Hollywood liberal smirk off their face, we did want them to succeed in protecting Americans, and there was something I envy in the characters’ idealism, their steadfast belief that in the end, all of their struggles would be worth it because they were building a better country.

On Studio 60, the big question is, will a bunch of extremely wealthy Hollywood types put on a successful show this week? And because the stakes are much lower, viewers don’t get as emotionally invested in these characters. Also note that the show had a fascinating opening - the old executive producer having a breakdown live on television, declaring so much of modern TV crap. (Really? At least today we have complicated, drawn out dramas like 24, Lost, House; well-put-together procedurals like the CSI shows, the Law and Order family, Bones… I would have pointed to the 1970s, the 1990s era of the endless Friends wannabes, and the reality show craze as worse eras in television history) When you open with that, you’re throwing down a gauntlet. And the creative genius protagonists come up with… a parody of Rodgers and Hammerstein, with the chorus referring to “an intellectual reach around”?

Huh?

And then we never actually saw the much-discussed sketch, “Crazy Christians,” which was some sort of creative line in the sand that our heroes were standing up for; the refusal to show the sketch is seen as ipso facto evidence of the network’s closed-mindedness, prudishness, fear, etc. So let’s see it, guys. Honestly, I’m doubting that there’s much that can be mocked about Christianity that hasn’t been mocked already. Stop telling me these guys are geniuses, and start showing it.

Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford are likeable, talented actors, but I just don’t relate to their characters, who often come across as snide, condescending, prima donnas. I don’t really care if the reporter from the New York Times hears their secrets. I don’t really care if Perry and Harriet get together. (I really liked Sarah Paulson in Down With Love and her brief, but important scene in Serenity, but in Studio 60, we’re constantly being told how talented, funny, and sexy Harriet is, and I’m just not seeing it.)

I understand Studio 60’s been picked up for a full season; I hope it can work out its kinks and turn into an hour of engrossing television. I think the show where they had to keep breaking into the broadcast over the copyright to a joke was a funny one. Still, at its heart there is the question of what is at stake for each of the characters, and right now “will they do a good show, will the ratings be high enough, will the network suits be appeased” just isn’t enough.

The simplest solution? Make the sketches on the show actually funny and daring, instead of the fairly blah mush we’ve gotten to see so far. (I’m thinking of “Pimp My Trike,” the “Science Schmience” game show, and the bear joke.) When it’s not blah, it’s just bizarre – Juliette Lewis hosting Meet the Press? The Nicolas Cage show?

(Side note: Studio 60 is clearly based on Saturday Night Live, and yet SNL hasn’t been consistently funny in years, and doesn’t seem very groundbreaking or edgy. “Lazy Sunday” was funny for its innocence and light-heartedness. Where do we find edgier comedy these days? South Park, The Daily Show, the Colbert Report? Chappelle? One of the stand-up acts on Comedy Central?)

I can hear it now – “Okay, wise guy, what’s a daring sketch comedy idea?”

Well, Saturday Night Live did a funny sketch when Romanian dictator Choucheschu died – a funeral in which the assembled mourners scrounge for something nice to say about him. A similar sketch could be done for Saddam. Or maybe the Western press comes in and can come up with all sorts of nice things to say about him, appalling the Iraqis? Picture a George Galloway type: “I’ll say this for Saddam - he had no use for Neocons, and I find that quite admirable in a man.”

Or how about Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein meet in the Afterlife Waiting Room?

“I am not afraid of Allah’s judgment, American Dog. I will seek my fate first, and step ahead of you. Pardon me.”

“Oh, no. After all the grief I got for the last one, I’m not pardoning anybody.”

No? Well, Shempu is a sketch waiting to be written.