Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip/YMMV
- Acceptable Targets: Religious people, conservatives, anyone not marching in lockstep with Aaron Sorkin.
- Crowning Moment of Awesome: Jack gets one in Nevada Day Part 2, where he loses it on a mega-wealthy Chinese investor who he thinks has insulted Jordan and NBS. He gives a minute-and-a-half long rant about the virtues of everyone he works with, revealing his true feelings for Jordan especially.
- Funny Aneurysm Moment: Matt's struggles with drugs are uncomfortably paralleled in Matthew Perry's real-life addictions.
- Ho Yay: Matt and Danny's relationship tends to have a bit of a romantic, codependent slant. "Focus Group", for example, sees Matt lying on the beach, with Danny straddling him, shouting about what Matt means to him. Hmm.
- And then there's their final exchange of the show:
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Danny: Matthew, don't take this the wrong way, but I love you. |
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- Parodied with Matt and Jack:
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Jack: I need you. |
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- Humor Dissonance: the "brilliant" sketches.
- Also weirdly subverted, inverted and generally messed around with. In the episode where Simon takes Matt to see a hotly-tipped black stand-up comedian (see White Dude, Black Dude below), the one they're there to see trots out all the stereotypes associated with that joke and is totally unimpressive. The guy who comes on after him, who is much more sophisticated, absolutely tanks... but, to the audience, he is considerably funnier than the guy who got all the laughs.
- Jerk Sue: Matt is an insufferable self-righteous Jerk who treats people like dirt. Yet everyone speaks of him as if he has found a cure for AIDS
- Narm: "That's swell Tom, but YOUR LITTLE BROTHER IS STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF AFGHANISTAN!"
- Rooting for the Empire: A number of viewers noted that they found Amoral Television Executive (and Deadpan Snarker) Jack Rudolph to be much more sympathetic than many of the self-important main characters. Part of this is down to the deliberate fleshing out of his character as the series progressed... which then backfired as he began to get just as self-important as everyone else.
- Straw Man Has a Point: Harriet complains that they make too many jokes about religious people and is portrayed as a Single-Issue Wonk. The first two episodes focus on two sketches: "Crazy Christians," which we don't see, and a painfully unfunny mock-gameshow where several religious stereotypes defend their beliefs about scientific topics.
- Jack's rant about the reception a drama about the U.N. is going to get from the American public is spot on. It comes across as a snipe at dumb audiences... which doesn't change that Jack is right not to want it on the NBS schedule.
- Tear Jerker: In "Breaking News," Tom breaking down in tears when he sees his brother on TV being held hostage by terrorists is pretty heartbreaking.
- What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: A frequently-raised criticism of the series as a whole was that the characters would, in a fashion similar to The West Wing, charge around making dramatic speeches and treating everything as The Most Important Thing Ever and acting as if The World Will Literally End If We Don't Get This Right. While this was justifiable on The West Wing, given that the characters frequently were dealing with issues of major importance and that would have major national and international repercussions depending on what happened, considering that this show was set behind the scenes of a TV comedy show the characters and show could probably act a lot less self-importantly and take themselves less seriously than they did.
- People who work in comedy often take their work more seriously than an outsider would expect. Lorne Michaels of SNL is an example. Yes their work isn't life or death, but it is to them.
- While this may indeed be the case, it doesn't necessarily stop them from coming off as self-important and pompous to said outsiders because of it.
- This and many other Sorkinisms were brilliantly parodied in an online humor skit where people treat their work at a single restaurant of a fast food franchise as being of global importance, complete with numerous dramatic pauses, pointless stands of principles (over french fries versus apple slices in kid's meals), and hero worship of a Sorkin standin manager.
- People who work in comedy often take their work more seriously than an outsider would expect. Lorne Michaels of SNL is an example. Yes their work isn't life or death, but it is to them.