Studio 60 Fodder

Studio 60: "The Focus Group"

"The Focus Group"

The episode opens with the focus group the episode seems to be... well... focusing on. One panelist says the show is terrific, much better than it's been in the past few seasons. Jordan, Jack, and infamous writing duo Ricky and Ron watch the proceedings from behind a one-way mirror. Jordan thinks the process is a waste -- the panel is full of uninformed LA actors and writers, and focus groups are notoriously lousy predictors of a show's success.

Jack wants the data from the group to get to Matt and Danny. Even though the show is doing well now that Matt and Danny are back, Jack is concerned that half the country -- Republicans -- feels the show is "unpatriotic," and he wants Matt and Danny tuned in to that fact.

Jordan is staring at something. At what? Her mug shot, which is emblazoned on the nearest television screen.

Cue opening credits!

We resume the action on Monday, with the Studio 60 cast busy rehearsing. Rob Reiner is on the scene; he's the host of the show this week. Matt's stressing details; he wants to get all the facts right in the sketch they're running through -- a panel talk show called "Science, Shmience."

The impressionist (whose name we haven't yet learned) is worrying about his Tom Cruise imitation. He performs his quite accurate Ben Stiller impersonation, but Matt reminds him that his Cruise needs work. The impressionist promises to improve. Rehearsal trudges along a bit more before a blackout at the studio brings things to a halt. Matt warns Harriet not to blame the power failure on an act of God (expressing his feelings about the religiously-themed sketch they were just rehearsing).

Meanwhile, Jordan is explaining to Jack and other network execs the story behind her mugshot. Seems she was tagged for DWI in NYC some time ago -- in a way that might make you LOL. See, she couldn't find the LIE -- ok, I'll stop with that! She couldn't find the Long Island Expressway, and saw a police officer, so she pulled over to ask him for directions. He gave her a Breathalyzer, and it turned out she was over the legal limit. Whoops!

Jordan wants to know how it got out. She doesn't have a record, through some fun legal handling with the judge. Jack tells her the media got it the same way Jordan had her intel on Matt and Danny -- someone talked. Jordan wants to know who it was.

Backstage at Studio 60, Harriet has resorted to lighting candles as the blackout continues. Ricky and Ron approach Simon to ask him how he's feeling about co-anchoring News 60, the "Weekend Update"-type segment of the show. Ricky rattles off a list of reasons Simon should be nervous about it (major exposure, he's the first black anchor, the segment makes or breaks the show, etc). Simon didn't need more reasons to be sweating his new role. As Ricky and Ron leave to find Matt, Harriet rolls her eyes behind them. Does anyone like these two?

Ricky and Ron find Matt in his office. They're unhappy that Matt has Tom overseeing the writing on the news; Ricky and Ron usually do that. They want Matt off his high horse and to forgive them for stuff that happened four years ago. Matt won't. "Do you want us to quit?" Ron asks. "Yes," Matt replies. But they won't.

Back downstairs, Tom, Harry, and Simon are poring over newspapers to write some jokes for the news. Tom and Simon are finding humor in a high school that suffered religious complaints over its production of Grease, and thus cancelled their next show, The Crucible. Harriet wants to leave the story alone (the show did Crazy Christians last week, and they're doing the Science, Schmience sketch this week). But Tom and Simon still see the funny.

Danny joins the meeting in Matt's office. Ricky and Ron want to share the focus group data. "Get it out of here!" Danny yells, over and over again. Ricky tells him how great everything is in the focus group, and repeats that "unpatriotic" stat we already know about. Danny again insists: "Get it out of here." "No," Matt insists. "I want to see it."

Danny doesn't think this can be good.

And, after a commercial break, we see that he's right. Matt's pissed about the patriotism stat. "It's four years ago, all over again," Matt says. We're learning that Jack was upset about something back then that he perceived or interpreted as somehow un-American. (Is that vague enough for you?) Matt says to Danny that he'd be happy to make fun of Democrats, too -- if only one of them would say or do anything.

Danny, again, encourages Matt to throw the focus group report out. But he also gets a dig in -- suggesting that Jack's/the network's attempt to get Matt to use less political humor already seems to be working: Matt's dumped the week's sole political sketch in the 12:55am "weak skit" slot. Danny pushes hard on this, insulting Matt's manhood. Whatever happened four years ago scared Matt, but Danny doesn't want Matt running scared anymore.

Danny has an effect on Matt: He moves up the political sketch and asks his assistant for various newspapers and transcripts so that he can write some more.

Backstage, Jeannie is pretty unhappy. Ricky and Ron passed her the focus group results; her one sketch from last week "flat-lined," meaning no one rated it positively. She's pretty upset, and worried about her job.

The power goes out. Again.

Danny's understandably pissed. Cal, who is fast becoming one of my favorite characters with Timothy Busfield's charming characterization, tells Danny he wants as few details on the power situation as possible.

Jordan goes to see Danny; they discuss their respective addictions (which have both now become media fodder). She's there to make sure that Studio 60 isn't planning to pull any punches in covering her drunk driving arrest that's in the headlines. Danny, however, tells her Matt likely won't be writing a sketch about it. "Tough to locate the humor in drunk driving," he tells her.

Jordan pushes past Danny and tells Matt that he can write jokes about her. Matt's still pissed about the focus group and is working on being more American.

They leave Matt's office. Danny wants to know what kind of numbers they'll need to pull in to keep Jordan out of trouble. "Don't worry about it," Jordan tells him.

When we come back from commercial, the show's in dress rehearsal -- we're seeing the polished version of Science, Schmience, and the Tom Cruise impersonation has come a long way. Ricky and Ron seek out Danny; they're mad that they don't have a single sketch on tonight.

During their heated exchange, we learn more about what the heck happened four years ago that so soured Matt on Ricky and Ron. (You mean, it goes beyond the fact that the two just aren't funny?) It seems four years ago, when Bill Maher made his (real-life) comments on his show "Politically Incorrect" and got lambasted by the press because of it, Matt spoke publicly in Bill's defense. When the press spoke with Ricky, though, he threw Matt under the bus, saying that Matt didn't speak for the cast and crew of Studio 60, whose thoughts and prayers were with the victims of 9/11.

Ouch. Danny asks the obvious: "Were Matt's thoughts and prayers not with them?"

Jack comes to visit Jordan with a "brief and courteous statement" for the shareholders, regarding her arrest. She's game, but not thrilled about the whole situation. Jack explains that Jordan's ex-husband (she was married to him for nine months) was the one who leaked the story. He's now selling a book: "Confessions of a Network Husband: My Life With Jordan McDeere." He's been taking stories to the gossip guys with the hope of scoring a book deal.

Jack wants to know if the ex's book could be worth paying for. "Yeah," Jordan says. Her ex had wanted to take her to clubs where folks could watch them have sex. She married a slug, she says, and he'll have stories to tell. Jack orders her to meet with network lawyers first things Monday.

Before leaving, Jack tells Jordan that Studio 60 has to retain 90% of its audience. That sounds like a lot.

Danny tells Matt that he's got to ease up on Ricky and Ron. Jeannie enters their conversation; she wants her skit this week cut, since it died at dress and the focus group didn't like it. Matt tells her that while two people in focus group testing liked it last week, he expects a third will like it this week. And that third person will represent another 500,000 viewers, since that's how focus groups work. And if a third person doesn't like the skit tonight, he promises Jeannie $10,000 catch. He makes a compelling argument, and a decent deal: Either her sketch kills, or she gets some extra scratch. Not bad.

Harriet still wants to cut the news joke riff on the high school in middle America with the beleaguered theater program -- a joke that Matt says killed at dress rehearsal. Harry pleads with Matt to cut the joke; it's a small town with small ways, she says, so "Why are we making fun of them?" Simon and Tom agree now; Harry's swayed them. Matt is less convinced, but agrees, in favor of a silly bear joke that Harriet wrote. ("Reached for comment, a bear said: ROAR!")

To round out the episode, we get to see much of tonight's episode of Studio 60! The show-within-the-show, that is. We see glimpses of "The Nicholas Cage show," Jeannie's sketch, the "News 60" segment, a golf skit, the aforementioned political sketch, Science Schmience, Pimp My Trike, and the "Goodnights" (whose background music is extremely similar to SNL's). It was great to see a lot more of what the show's really like.

At the after-party, Simon meets an attractive party-crasher who comes onto him pretty strongly. He walks away.

Danny arrives, and seeks out Jordan. He wants to know if the numbers are in yet for the episode; the numbers are due any minute now. They share a friendly moment -- one that shows mutual admiration between the two.

Harriet catches up with Matt inside. They have a nice moment, too. They're clearly getting along better since their pre-show talk last week. Harriet brings up the focus group, and then Matt has a moment of realization: Danny put in the question about patriotism, just to force Matt's hand in writing politically-themed sketches.

Jack comes in with the numbers: They retained 109% of last week's viewers. That is to say, they did even BETTER this week. Jack's happy. Jordan's ecstatic. Matt and Danny can't help being pleased, either!

But still, this is Matt Albie we're talking about. "There's only one direction this story can go from here," he says.

Giddy Jordan grabs a glass of champagne to celebrate… and then puts it down. That'll be an interesting plotline to monitor.

Simon introduces Tom to the forward blonde; Tom mouths "thank you" back to him.

Matt finds Jeanie and tells her that this week four people liked her skit. He's won the bet.

We see various shots of happy cast members, including Danny dancing with Harriet. Matt walks outside to get his car and greets some fans while he's waiting.

Does my description of the episode's conclusion sound odd? That was my interpretation, too. I'm not sure exactly what they were trying to convey with the hodgepodge conclusion, especially Matt's driving off to head home. Was that a reaction to seeing Danny and Harry dancing, as she foreshadowed last week? Can't say.

All in all, though, this was another excellent episode, and this time the show-within-a-show truly felt like a legitimate late-night show -- which really contributes to the realism and believability. We also got plenty of interesting character development, particularly with Jordan, who may have a tougher time with the press than with Studio 60's ratings. But has anyone else started to wonder whether Jordan has any other shows to attend to?

It was also nice to see Harriet actually be funny. Some have complained that we keep hearing about how hilarious she is without seeing it; certainly her "bear" quip shows an adorable side, if nothing else.

So... what did you all think? Sound off in the comments!

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Posted by Lex on October 2, 2006 10:59 PM
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