I know that by writing this post I’ve made this the most post-rific day on this site in ages, but I couldn’t let this go by without comment.

Aaron Sorkin writes what would happen if Obama went to Bartlet for advice.

Unfortunately, I don’t know what my comment is.

If there’s one thing I strive to do here, it’s to think way too much about everything Aaron Sorkin does. I’ve been thinking about this column all day, and I still have no idea what’s going on. I guess he makes some good points? Someone, please help me. Is this weird? Is it fine? Does it upset me only because I’m still hung up on the glorious failure of Studio 60? What would four-years-ago me have thought? Is it fan fiction if the character’s yours? Does it matter? Really, does any of it matter? Was Martin Sheen full of shit or what when he said last night that the West Wing was non-partisan?

Help.

A while ago I went to see the new Aaron Sorkin play, The Farnsworth Invention. Just the fact that it’s a play by television impresario Aaron Sorkin would be enough for me to mention it here, but it’s also about the invention of television and the history of why we watch the way we watch. In other words, the most interesting topic in the world.

As another show might put it, the facts are these: Philo T. Farnsworth, a scarcely-trained farmboy from Utah, transmitted the first moving image using the process we still use today (sort of). But he never quite got his television to work quite right, and his patent ended up embroiled in a dispute with GE/RCA/NBC and its leader, David Sarnoff. (Philo=Josh/Sam/Danny/Matt, Sarnoff=Jack Rudolph.) In the meantime, Sarnoff was busy laying the groundwork for regulating advertising and deciding what types of things would eventually be shown on television, once it eventually existed.

I know — good stuff, right? Or is that just me?

I found that I really enjoyed myself at the play, despite the things said in these reviews, which are all true. After a season of Studio 60, it may be that I am hardened to Sorkin’s ticks and pitfalls, and now accept them without question. Or it may be that I’m so engrossed in the topic that I don’t actually care that much about the “characters” or “structure.”

I’m leaning toward the latter explanation, because I was just watching a Modern Marvels on the History Channel about Wiring America and I realized I was just about excited that as I was about The Farnsworth Invention, in the exact same way.

I will say: Jimmi Simpson and Hank Azaria are killer. There’s a classic drunken, silly, romantic scene I rather enjoyed. And there was a truly amazing dramatization of the 1929 stock market crash. Make of that what you will.

It’s much more satisfying to write with them…

• Mandy Patinkin will be in one scene of Criminal Minds next season (which hopefully someone here watches, because why I am I even reporting this?) to tie up the loose ends. And apparently all his other cast members think he’s a bastard.
• Another Star Trek alum will have a role on next season’s Heroes.
• Desperate Housewives has cast its gay neighbors, who are, weirdly, named after Bob Woodruff and his wife.
• Kristen Bell breaks our hearts a little more, saying that there likely won’t be a Veronica Mars movie.
• D.L. Hughley post-mortems Studio 60 for the AV Club.
• Time weighs the possibility of a Deadwood movie.
• Richard Branson and Stephen Colbert got into it.

Can you handle all this pent-up news? Well, can you?

• Masi Oka talks about what Hiro will be up to next season.
• CBS defends Kid Nation and other ‘risky’ programming.
• Some of the Real Housewives of Orange County feel entitled to something else: a spin-off.
• Katee Sackhoff was bluffing (?) when she threatened to walk out on The Bionic Woman.
• Mekhi Phifer is doffing his lab coat on ER.
• Kal Penn and four others will be joining House next season.
• Spoilers from TV Squad.
• Pimp My Ride has officially run its course. Now, there is officially nothing I want to watch on MTV.
• ABC is spinning off Dancing with the Stars.
• LeBron James will host SNL’s season premiere.
• Spotted dick anyone? NBC loves the Brits.
• Danny Glover + Sally Field = hot old sex.
• Aaron Sorkin opens up about Studio 60’s demise.
• Remember those four hour-long episodes of The Office? They’re going to be the first four episodes of the season.
• Tim Gunn wants to get at Meryl Streep.
• JAG, a contestant on that Food Network reality competition show, apparently lied about his culinary training and military service.
• This whole Mandy Patinkin/Criminal Minds separation is getting more and more mysterious.
• Tina Fey talks about 30 Rock’s direction for next year.
• And, lastly, take a look at this oddly depressing old Hardee’s commercial featuring a Lost castaway.

Since Maggie tried her best to say nice things about Studio 60, I’m going to say some mean things. And then I’m done with it. Because it makes me grumpy.

Some of my friends just gave up on it cold turkey. They tell me that their lives were much improved. I couldn’t stop. I almost enjoyed myself sometimes. But it was so infuriating. A late night sketch comedy program is not important. I don’t care how good it is. Nobody cares what Saturday Night Live puts on the air. 30 Rock is extremely aware of this fact. Any sense of self-importance Liz or Jack (Donaghy) might get during an episode is always intentionally deflated by a glimpse of a Robot vs. Bear sketch or something equally ridiculous. But Aaron Sorkin was so hell bent on making this show IMPORTANT that in an act of desperation he had to move the core of the last 4 episodes into the one month in recent history when anyone was paying attention to comedy.

Yes, after September 11th nobody felt like being funny. Someone prematurely declared the death of irony. Then David Letterman came back with a heartfelt monologue from the desk that everyone paid attention to. Saturday Night Live had Guiliani and an extremely relevant farting-baby sketch. That’s My Bush was cancelled. Bill Maher got in trouble for repeating his guest’s point that it’s not cowardly to be a suicide bomber. Ari Fleischer said we should all watch what we say. Maher ended up losing his job at ABC at the end of the season. So I can imagine that Matt and Danny had a lot of people paying attention to them back then. A lot more than would normally be paying any attention to a show that like the other—real—sketch show, hadn’t been Important in 25 years.

Maybe Sorkin should have set the whole series during that time. The good guys could have been endowed with incredible foresight and the bad guys could say stupid things about how soon we’d be wrap up the war. But he didn’t. And just to add even more insult to a season full of insulting injury, he engages in a little revisionist history. You see, it turns out Matt and Danny weren’t fired like we were told in the pilot. No, like all real men, they had control over their own destiny and took a principled stand! They quit! Did everyone then cover it up and pretend they had been fired so they could look stupid when Matt and Danny became a successful writer/director team? Sadly that question will have to wait for some Season 2 fanfic.

In another neat piece of revision, Jordan claims at the end of the show that she wanted Danny to be the father of her baby the moment she laid eyes on him. Now, it is true that they flirted when they first met, but Jordan then pulled out a nasty bit of blackmail about Danny being uninsurable. She then spent several episodes showing no interest in Danny. Totally hot, Jordan.

And speaking of Jordan: Endangered Pregnancy? Really? Writers have a term for this kind of plot device. It’s called schmuck bait. Is Jordan going to lose the baby and/or die? No she’s not, but a lot of easy drama comes from the situation. It’s lazy. And Sorkin was so ashamed of pulling such a cheap stunt that he explicitly called attention to what a cheap stunt it was. “The number-one audience manipulator among women is a pregnancy in jeopardy.” Just like admitting that getting them together by locking them on the roof is the oldest cliché in the book, it doesn’t make it any less lazy. (Does anyone remember that great episode of That’s My Bush? I’d love to see a second season of that show.)

I can’t remember the last time I disliked a television show so much. Most shows I just stop watching if I don’t like them. But there was this great TV show that desperately wanted to break free from the crushing web of ego and narcissism and the brief flashes of that show kept me coming back. It was a punishing experience and I don’t plan to go through it again.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip wrapped things up last Thursday. Everyone’s fine: Jordan, her baby, her weird relationship with Danny, Tom’s brother, Tom, Simon, Matt and Harriet, Matt’s magical non-withdrawal, and even drunk Jack, who finally admitted that his personal beliefs conflict with the job he’s supposed to be doing. In the spirit of forgiveness and thankfulness for the occasional good times, here’s a list of things that were good about this show.

1. I’m grateful we never had to see Jack’s ugly descent into alcoholism. Jack remained my favorite character throughout and it was killing me that they were clearly setting him up for a huge drunken downfall.
2. Sorkin has a remarkable ability to make tiny peripheral guest characters immediately charming. I think Jordan’s young, sarcastic doctor in the last few episodes was hilarious, and his sense of entitlement and condescension (shared by all the characters) makes sense because he’s, you know, saving lives.
3. Even though I never understood Jordan and Danny’s relationship and definitely did not believe her for a second when she said she knew she wanted him to be the father of her baby the very first time they ever met, I found myself buying into the whole “we both have baby papers for the other person to sign!” plot. Jordan is definitely the type of person to plan for disaster, to make sure that her baby ended up with someone she trusted. I also liked that Danny was going to ask her to sign those papers even though he didn’t want to. That worked, even if they probably could’ve used seven seasons to develop the characters to the point where the lead-up made more sense.
4. On the other hand, I did not like that Tom was going to use Trask but was saved from his own stupidity at the last minute. That struck me as a little cheap. Since that is not a positive point, so I’ll just add: Nate Corddry was great in this show. He should get something good again soon.
5. That was a seriously amazing set.
6. When Matthew Perry leans in to kiss somebody, he leans in like he really means it. My stars, that was something!
7. So why did I watch every single episode, even though Studio 60 is known colloquially in my apartment as “that show we hate so damn much”? It’s fun to see what Sorkin’s writing. He’s got enormous neuroses and hang-ups about all sorts of things, but he’s also got a point of view. It can be (occasionally) funny and insightful as well as frustrating and pedantic. Even in failure, he’s interesting.

So long, Studio 60! You were a strange bag, but you always provided plenty to gab about. I can’t say I’ll miss you, but I will look back on this whole thing with at least a tiny bit of fondness.

Head, gut or crotch?

• A democrat (wha?) is leading the charge against TV violence.
• E! is trying to make a True Hollywood Story about Project Runway, but people aren’t talking.
• Billy Campbell is begging for an arc on Battlestar.
• Portia De Rossi will be on Nip/Tuck as, you guessed it, a lesbian.
• Molly Shannon — who knew she’d be everywhere all of a sudden? — is going to be in a Lifetime comedy movie that is basically Michael Keaton’s Multiplicity.
• Oprah’s Gayle, Whoopi and some other lady are the candidates to replace Rosie on The View.
• Someone who died on Rescue Me speaks.
• Here are some details on the DVD release of Studio 60.
• If you’re still taking the loss of Veronica Mars hard, here’s something to make you feel even worse — ABC has belatedly renewed According to Jim.
• Many members of the cast of Big Brother 8 have pre-existing, unresolved conflicts.
• And if you want to see John Stamos trashed (allegedly) and promoting ER in Australia, look down.

If you’ve never met me, I hope your mental image involves a pompadour.

• I guess Mark Burnett will never give up. He’s working on some sort of martial arts reality show.
• A spoiler chat with E-Kristin including a bit about Lost and Harold Perrineau.
• Joey Fatone will host a copycat version of the Wayne Brady lyric-remembering contest.
• Rock and roll on TV this week includes Morrissey (hey! pompadours!) and Explosions in the Sky.
• Messy Peregrym from Heroes (shapeshifter Candice) will be the new lead on the CW’s Reaper.
• Zach Braff is launching his “I’m not a cad” (his word, not mine) tour.
• Battlestar’s big two-hour episode that will air in November will get its own DVD and 15 minutes of new footage.
• The Onion helps us with the Sopranos problem.
• An 18-year-old slaps Bill O’Reilly around.
• Dreamz from Survivor has been hit with a paternity suit.
• Studio 60 should have a neat conclusion. You hear that, David Chase?
• Bravo forced the top four from seasons one and two of Top Chef to participate in the pre-season three competition.
• Finally, Kathy Griffin does what we all want to do: profess our love for Anderson Cooper.

A highly underutilized instrument.

• A heart-to-heart with J-Wahl.
• Wayne Brady will host a game show where people have to remember song lyrics. Like every awful theater nerd party you’ve ever been to.
• TV Guide weighs the reality cooking shows against each other.
• VH1 has a bunch of new shows, including a Salt and Pepa reality show and a game show for models.
• Law and Order blurs the line between entertainment and politics even further by entertaining the idea of casting a former senator.
• Studio 60 with a laugh track.
• The Office will be a video game.
• Smashing Pumpkins will do Letterman twice in July. This is going to hurt.
• Ghost Hunters is back.  Boo.
• AMC has greenlit a drama series with Bryan Cranston.
• Planned Parenthood gets all liberal crazy on FOX and CBS (and rightfully so) for refusing to air condom ads.
• Finally, here’s an awesome way to waste some time: the top 10 moments from 30 Rock.

TiFaux readers have a standing invitation to come grill food with me in my backyard. Unless you’re a freak.

• A female WWE wrestler has joined the cast of Survivor: China.
• E-Kristin has a spoiler chat including stuff on Dexter, Heroes and Rescue Me.
• The creators of Homestar Runner have rejected the Cartoon Network.
• Rachael Ray, Jon Stewart and Tina Fey will all appear on Sesame Street.
• And NBC has a crush on Jon Stewart.
• In even more suffocating Sopranos news, HBO talked David Chase out of a full 30 seconds of blackness at the end.
• Steve Carrell is sticking with The Office.
• A study indicates that television watching decays moral values. I would have read the article, but I was too busy kissing boys in my meth lab.
• Bret Michaels stars in “The Bachelor: Herp edition.”
• Judd Apatow wants to know why you didn’t watch his TV shows.
• There’s a Quixotic quest to save Studio 60.
• Finally, if you’ve got some time to kill, watch this compilation of scenes detailing the Lost plane crash from a variety of perspectives.