Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip seems to have vanished into thin air.  When last we left the struggling drama, it had secured an order to finish out its first season despite continued poor performance.  Then The Black Donnellys took over the time slot for a few weeks, also failing to grab much of an audience.  Now, finally, we have The Real Wedding Crashers.  Let’s take them in sequence, briefly.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip screams AARON SORKIN, as I’ve previously discussed.   It’s one of those shows that somehow fails to perform despite having all the right ingredients:  an acclaimed creator, talented leads, high production values, good writing, and Ed Asner.  There is nothing on Earth that cannot be improved with a little Ed Asner in the mix.  Try the ice cream.  Anyway, what’s most infuriating about Studio 60, as a TV viewer, is that every episode is just shy of being good.  Every single week, it just nearly gets there and somehow screws it up.  It’s like watching that footage of Lindsey Jacobellis over and over again.  The show is fantastic when it loosens up a little and/or focuses on the pressured, inherently stimulating process of making weekly television.  It totally loses me when it goes careening off into suspiciously familiar political monologues or torturous romantic subplots.  With a production cost of about three million dollars per episode and poor ratings to show for it, it’s not surprising that NBC wants to kill it off.  Still, I feel like Studio 60 could be great if it just took an honest look at itself, and I wish NBC would have the decency to let it finish out the season.  Instead, NBC replaced it with…

The Black Donnellys.  Like Studio 60, it’s got a famous creator and great production values.  It’s also not doing that well.  Maybe that’s because no one can bring themselves to care about a bunch of Irish street hoodlum cliches.  It’s like The Sopranos, only not written as well, and all of the main characters’ problems are self-created.  Hard to work up the sympathy there.  Oh, and finally, we’ve already seen this one.  It was called The Boondock Saints, and it was released in 1999.  I do, however, have a soft spot for the show’s rapid-fire opening credits.  They’re probably about ten seconds long and really nice looking (wish I could find a clip).  With the remainder of The Black Donnellys “airing” online, that means that time slot now goes to…

The Real Wedding Crashers.  I can, on some deep, pretentious level, appreciate this puerile garbage as a commentary on the out of control pomp and spending that has become synonymous with a happy couple’s “special day.”  That level is buried deep within my brain, right next to the place where I occasionally pretend that the first season of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer was good.  In short, Real Wedding Crashers glorifies an ill-considered prank that is guaranteed to piss off your friends and relatives.  Does this make the married couples, who play along with full foreknowledge of the smashed cakes and burned wedding dresses, less or more self-centered than the people who settle for doves and ice sculptures?  I can’t tell, and I don’t care to think about it.  Also counting against it?  The show takes its name from that movie.  The one starring Vince Vaughn and the blonde with the interesting nose.  Who’s idea was this?  Who gave these people money and cameras?  Who, I say WHO must I destroy?

Give me back Studio 60, minus the contrived diatribes and forced romance.  Keep your street thugs, be they riddled with bullets or wedding cake.