Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: "Sports Night," "30 Rock"
Likes: "Studio 60," "SNL," DL Hughley
Dislikes: "The West Wing," Amanda Peet
Hates: The ratings system

The Show
As anyone who has read my review of the "30 Rock" first-season box set knows, I backed the wrong horse in the battle of the "SNL"-inspired shows on NBC. I saw the name Aaron Sorkin, the big-name stars and the first episode of "30 Rock" and figured the battle would be short-lived, as the story of Studio 60 played out over the next few years.

Boy was I wrong. Worse yet, as a fan of Sorkin's incredible "Sports Night" series, I really should have known better. After all, that show had the same Sorkin name and an even better cast, and was based on a way more popular TV genre, yet it couldn't buy an audience. So what chance did a series based on a perennially disparaged comedy franchise have. The answer would be none, which is sad, as the show got off to a great start.

Wes (Judd Hirsch), the long-time producer of the titular late-night sketch show, finally cracks after years of putting up with the lowest-common-denominator nature of network TV, and breaks into the show with an acid-tongued rant that shakes up the network and costs him his job. Unfortunately for Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), the new head of programming for the network, this happens on her first day on the job, and her boss Jack (Steven Weber) is looking to her to fix everything.

Her solution is to turn to Matt (Matthew Perry) and Danny (Bradley Whitford), two former producers on the show, to take over. They are flawed people, but that's the only reason they would come back anyway, especially since Matt has a messy history with the show's female lead, Harriet (Sarah Paulson.) In coming back, they find things have changed, but are very much still the same.

"Studio 60" has two story tracks that intersect again and again to create the overall plot. Jordan's battles with the corporate suits sit alongside Danny and Matt's struggles with the show, with the various personal relationships between the characters tying the two threads together. The Matt/Harriet story is standard Sorkin love/hate fare, as his liberal mindset clashes with her conservative Christianity, while a slowly-emerging Danny/Jordan concept doesn't hold enough water to be interesting until late in the season, when they both get to be real people. The rest of the crew, including Nate Cordrry and D.L. Hughley, isn't tied down by relationships (for the most part), and is thus free from the story expectations they carry.

Unfortunately, it's the stories told free from convention that tend to be the problem, as they tend to focus too heavily on the minutia of the television industry (a similar problem from the "Sports Night" era.) Whereas "30 Rock" is about people who work in television, "Studio 60" is about television and the people who work on it. So you get stories about troubles with writing staffs, troubles with sketches and troubles with the FCC, which are of much less interest to most people than your usual who's-sleeping-with-who crap, a fact played out in "Nevada Day," where castmates Tom (Corddry) and Simon (Hughley) get in a bit of trouble in a tiny Nevada town with a young Asian heiress. This two-part story, featuring guest star John Goodman, was one of the series' highlights, as the personal stories got as much play as the professional, with both sides coming off better for it. Sorkin's trademark rapid-fire dialogue, complete with the standard walk-and-talk scenes, comes in handy when it comes to portraying the reality of the characters' chaotic lives, but when it comes to the complex world of options and show runners, it can be a bit heavy-handed. (But for fun, watch the show in 2x speed, and see if you can keep up.)

Unlike so many recent dramas, each episode is more or less self-contained, though the show inside the show maintains a season-long background plot. As a result, there are some genuine gems in the mix, including the sappy, yet effective "The Christmas Show," and the excellent, though equally sappy finale, "What Kind of Day Has it Been." When it aired, the season was broken into chunks by near-cancellations, and the final several episodes were burned off to little fanfare, which is probably for the best. The episodes leading up to the finale wouldn't have turned things around, as a multi-episode arc sees the brother of one of the cast held hostage in Iraq, with flashbacks to how the sketch show reacted to 9/11. Feel-good, it's not, and the presence of Cate Blanchette lookalike Kari Matchett as a shrewd, too-cool-for-the-room sexual harrassment lawyer helping out the show is just another distraction the series didn't need (mirroring the intrusive nature of Christine Lahti's "embedded" journalist character from early in the season.) That the show managed to bounce back from this possible dead-end with such a solid finish (which disconnected and wrapped-up from the previous episodes smoothly) was impressive, and put a nice bow on 22 episodes of solid TV.

The DVD
The 22 episodes of Studio 60 are spread across six DVDs, which are packed in a slipcased trio of dual-hubbed clear thinpaks, with reversed two-sided covers that have episode descriptions on the outside. The discs feature static anamorphic widescreen menus that offer options to play all episodes, select shows, adjust languages and check out special features where applicable. There are no audio options, though subtitles are available in English, Spanish and Chinese, along with closed captioning.

The Quality
Surprisingly, the anamorphic widescreen transfers on these discs are pretty damn beautiful, with an incredibly sharp image and spot-on color, with just a small amount of digital artifacts marring the image, and no dirt or damage to be noticed. It was tempting to say the transfers are too dark, but when you see the on-screen titles and anything white simply glow, it becomes obvious the show was simply dark to start with.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks aren't quite as impressive as the video, but there's nothing bad about it either. It's just the result of the show being a dialogue-heavy comedy/drama, which means there's nothing all that acrobatic about the sound. The musical scenes get a boost from the side and rear speakers, while the dialogue is crystal clear.

The Extras
The show's failures on TV seem to have led to a lack of effort on the DVD side, as there are just two extras included, and neither includes any perspective on what happened with the series.

The first extra is an audio commentary on the first episode by Sorkin and director Thomas Schlamme, apparently recorded during series production. It's easy to see where the Sorkin Universe's frenetic pace comes from when you listen to these two go back and forth talking about putting together the pilot, focusing on the scheduling, the casting and the set construction. It would have been nice to bring them back for a "now" commentary on the finale, to hear what they thought went wrong, but that topic doesn't appear on this set.

The other bonus is a 24-minute featurette with a grandiose title, "In Depth: The Evolution of 'Studio 60,'" which follows Tim Busfield around the show's elaborate set and mixes in interview clips with the cast and crew. Again, it's a pre-cancellation piece, and it's too fluffy for a show that crashed and burned, so you won't learn much new information.

The Bottom Line
It may have had a short life on TV, but "Studo 60" is in no way a bad show. It's in fact a very good show...on a topic few people care about: the intricacies of network television production. Unfortunately, it was more often about what these people do, instead of who they are. The DVDs look and sound very good, but the limited extras are a let down for anyone looking for answers or maybe some evaluation. This set is an excellent choice for a finite dramedy series and a good way to catch up for fans who missed episodes due to erratic scheduling. If you enjoy good TV (and "Sports Night" in particular) give this show a look.

Follow him on Twitter

*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.