I keep typing Season One first and then I remember there is only one season!
“The Long Lead Story”
This episode gives us an insight into Harriet as she’s questioned by a journalist doing a story on the show, Jordan fighting for intelligent television for her network, and Harriet and Matt talking like actual full grown adults, instead of the children they’ve tended to be.
Harriet
There is a lot that I want to talk about in regards to Harriet and I’m not quite sure where to start. I adore Harriet, and when I started this show I really thought I wouldn’t. Admittedly I should have known better than that by now. For me, she falls into the same category as The West Wing‘s Ainsley Hayes. I don’t live in America, I’m not America, and I’m not sure if that makes this better or worse, but I hear some truly terrifying stuff that drifts over to this side of the pond about both Republicans and the Christian Right. I’m not ignorant, I’m not saying that I hate Republicans and that I hate Christians, because that’s just idiotic. I do however roll my eyes at a lot of the stuff that goes on. Ainsley Hayes was ridiculously important, she might not have agreed with the politics of the Bartlet Administration but she respected them, she respected that they were very qualified, and that they only wanted to do good. She was in opposition to the politics of the show’s protagonists, but she worked with them, and they worked well. She was, shock horror, a likeable Republican, in a show where Republicans are ‘the enemy’ in a very simplistic reading of a complex subject. I think The Newsroom‘s Will McAvoy falls into that category. I’m sensing a theme in Aaron Sorkin characters. In this episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip we learn quite a lot about Harriet’s past, and I found her character really relatable. I’m Catholic, admittedly I’m not exactly what one might consider a ‘good’ Catholic, I don’t go to church regularly, I don’t agree with everything they teach, I believe that a woman has the right to choose what she does with her own body, but until they changed it I could recite the Apostle’s Creed by heart. Martha, I will get onto her shortly, questions how Harriet can claim to be Christian and be part of a show that spends so much time mocking them, and Harriet says that she doesn’t mock the Christian Right just “preposterousness” and that she wouldn’t have a problem doing a sketch about pre-martial sex because she doesn’t have a problem having pre-marital sex. Guys, she’s just brilliant, she defends her beliefs, she defends the show, she defends her upbringing. Her conversation with Martha was a treat to watch.
Martha
Martha, the journalist doing a story about the show for Vanity Fair, the “Devil’s Whore from Washington” as she and Harriet laugh about. Guys, she thinks popular culture is important, she’s a girl after my own heart! I loved the whole bit with her finding out about the Matt wanting the boot signed in retaliation for Harriet giving him the baseball bat, all because Simon didn’t realise that he was still miked up. She notes to Matt as she’s leaving that they all look out for each other, and even if they’re not very good at it, it’s nice to see. And it is! It’s literally all I want from a show! I hope Martha’s back in this again, I really do.
Jordan and Danny
Jordan wants Danny to persuade a writer he knows to bring his show to NBS but he won’t because “HBO is better” and she feels that he doesn’t respect her. Later Jordan is pitched a reality show about breaking couples up. I’m not going to lie, I have a serious amount of disdain for reality television as it is, but this is idea probably one of the most stupid things that I’ve ever heard, and mean too. Digging up every little detail of contestants pasts and airing it for public entertainment, using rumour and the media to break couples up, I feel like I’m losing brain cells just thinking about it. And thankfully Jordan refuses to bid on it. Right now she’s finding out all to well what it’s like to be on the receiving end. It’s her refusal of this show however that grant’s her Danny’s respect, and convinces him to get the writer of the show she wants to choose NBS over HBO.
Matt and Harriet
You didn’t really think I’d be able to not give them a quick mention did you? This episode reveals that until Harriet joined the cast of Studio 60, Matt was unheard of, and nothing he wrote made it into a show. Turns out he got successful because he was trying so hard to impress her! And god, that scene with them at the end, they were talking without sniping at each other or each trying to make the other jealous, and was just wonderful to watch. My heart can’t handle the way they look at each other. I was also 100% convinced she was going to kiss him and I wanted to scream at the screen for her to cancel her date and stay with Matt.
Samantha Gray 