Taking Back The Idiot Box.

Last month the TV series 'Studio Sixty On The Sunset Strip' aired for the first time in the US.

It depicts the 'behind the scenes' production of a live late night comedy show in a similar vein to Saturday Night Live. Created and written by Aaron Sorkin, the man who brought the West Wing to our screens, it boasts an excellent cast, lavish production and sharp dialogue. What could go wrong? A lot. According to some reviews I have read.

It has repeatedly been lambasted as; too pleased with itself, too clever for its own good, self indulgent rubbish et cetera, et cetera. This is discounting the furor it has caused in the right wing religious press. I would post a link to that, however I can't bring myself to connect my blog in any way to those fundamentalist bigots. Needless to say L. Brent Bozell III, the head of the Conservative Communications Center has been having his say.

So why has it been so poorly received by so many in the liberal media? It shares so many of the defining characteristics that made The West Wing so successful. The dialogue is generally superb, (even I will admit that there have been a couple of lines that clunked) the acting is top notch, provided by a dream cast. The characters are believable and multi-layered. The direction, lighting and camera work is faultless.

What is really rubbing people up the wrong way is the fact that Sorkin is attempting to bestow a similar level of importance and idealism onto television as he did with politics in West Wing.

This is what people have a problem with. My question is, why should they?

There has been a fair amount of talk about television in the blogging world of late. Is it relevant? Do people even watch television in the traditional manner anymore? Does television matter?

Television IS important. It is vitally important, even in this digital age when news is readily available online. The reason for this is because even though all this digital news, comment and debate is available to people, so few actually seek it out. Television is still the main route to the masses.

It is the main source of education available today, yet we are being fed a menu of lobotomised rubbish.

So what is wrong with wanting Television to be of a high quality and of a certain level of intelligence? As a friend said to me recently after watching an episode of West Wing, "In the age of reality TV it is refreshing to watch a programme that you know was written by people much smarter than yourself."

This is not always the case, TV need not be 'high-brow', or even 'mid-brow' to be enjoyable, and I will readily admit to enjoying the occasional reality show (not Big Brother I hasten to add). However, why shouldn't we have more television that doesn't insult our collective intelligence?

Why shouldn't we ask for it, or at least allow a television writer such as Sorkin to speak out on our behalf?

I don't know a soul who doesn't wish that the President of The United States was more like Martin Sheen's Josiah Bartlet, so why shouldn't we wish that television was more like 'Studio Sixty'? Why do we buy the ideal in a programme about politics, but not in entertainment?

Here's an edited excerpt from the speech made by a disgruntled 'producer' at the start of the Studio Sixty Pilot...

"This show used to be cutting edge political and social satire, but it's gotten lobotomized by a candy-ass broadcast network hell-bent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience.

There's always been a struggle between art and commerce, but now I'm telling you art is getting is ass kicked, and it's making us mean, and it's making us bitchy, and it's making us cheap punks and that's not who we are."

So why don't we give the people who want to provide us with quality entertainment a chance, and get off their backs? I think that we should let them be clever, for our own good.