The last episode of Aaron Sorkin‘s highly anticipated but ultimately disappointing series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip airs tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC, so set your TiVos if you want to catch out actress Sarah Paulson in her last turn as sketch comedian/devout Christian Harriet Hayes.
Sorkin’s series about a Saturday Night Live-like sketch comedy show was one of the most-buzzed-about shows of the 2006 fall season. Though it started off with a respectable 13.1 million viewers for its fall premiere, ratings immediately began to slide and critics quickly began to snark about the show’s self-important tone. What worked on The West Wing didn’t seem to translate to a Hollywood location.
The series went on a brief hiatus over the holiday season, returning in late January for another five episodes before going on a second hiatus until May 24. The last five episodes have averaged about 4 million viewers each.
Tonight’s episode, the series finale, is titled “What Kind of Day Has It Been,” a title that Aaron Sorkin has used twice before: on the first-season finales of his two previous series, Sports Night and West Wing. The episode includes a hostage crisis and a premature birth and revisits the on-again, off-again relationship between Matt (Matthew Perry) and Harriet.
I watched the first few episodes of Studio 60 but soon was turned off by the show’s un-funniness and, I admit, I found Sarah Paulson’s character kind of annoying.
What did you think of Studio 60? Did any of you continue to watch after the first few episodes? And though I wasn’t into Harriet, it is a bummer that Sarah Paulson is no longer on TV. It was great to have an out actress in such a buzzed-about network show, even if the show itself ultimately tanked.
