10 TV Shows That Were Doomed From The Start
6. Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
One of the highest profile failures in recent television history, Studio 60 was also highly anticipated: it was the legendary Aaron Sorkin's first TV show after leaving the incredibly well received The West Wing at the end of its fourth season, and would star that show's breakout star Bradley Whitford and Friends alumnus Matthew Perry as the producers and head writers of a Saturday Night Live style weekly sketch show.
And man, but did this show tank. That it didnt stink on ice was mostly due to the stellar efforts of Whitford, Perry and the rest of a fantastically talented cast to make chicken salad out of chickensh*t. In fairness to Sorkin, his dialogue still sparkled, his characterisation was still mostly on point: but the core premise of the show and how he (as lead writer and showrunner) reacted to it, were horribly flawed from inception.
Sorkin believed that the job of a show like Studio 60s in-continuity sketch show (also called Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip) was to address topical issues without fear or favour. Sadly, he forgot to make any of the sketches in the show actually funny, taking the remit of the show within the show so seriously that neither one could ever succeed. At one point, the LA Times drafted in actual comedy writers to go over Sorkins material for Studio 60s weekly bits, who confirmed that none of them were remotely amusing.
It's a typical Sorkinism: sports reporting was one of the most important things in the world when he wrote Sports Night, politics and the democratic process likewise when he wrote The West Wing, and later news reporting was treated as a similar sacred profession in The Newsroom. Sadly, no one in the audience was buying that the writers, performers and producers of SNL felt this kind of moral burden in making their show. Quite simply, no one believed that people working in disposable television like that were that smart and sassy.
Bizarrely, NBC debuted 30 Rock, a surreal and satirical single-camera sitcom (try saying that seven times fast) with an identical premise the month after they began broadcasting Studio 60.
30 Rock, which had more in common with The Simpsons than it did with The West Wing, was a ridiculous, frenetic caper of a show, all screwball set-ups and weird grotesques: it would prove a far more plausible representation of the backstage shenanigans on a weekly sketch show, and ran for seven years. Studio 60 lasted for one season before the plug was pulled.