Michaels or Sorkin

Sitting here this evening watching (what i think is) the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, i am quickly realizing that the fake SNL on Monday nights this season is a hell of a lot more entertaining than the actual SNL. It's all part of the recent TV phenomenon of to create shows about what folks wish their real work was like. To my knowledge, the tradition started with Ally McBeal & on with David E. Kelly's other shows, where he made shows about what we all wish our lives were like. Boston Public tried to show what teachers wished their lives were like. The Practice was a dreamy lawyer's life & shows like The West Wing and Gray's Anatomy follow the same model, where we watch every week and see people doing what we wish people in their positions were doing, were being. More real.

The first episode of Studio 60 had Judd Hirsh, essentially as Lorne Michaels apologizing for the past years of network cowardice and selling out the material for political correct-ness and sponsor friendliness. The question, though, is whether SNL (or any show) was ever any kind of idyllic challenging, comic programming that we like to imagine once existed (and has been since lost.) And i think the easy answer is no.

** updated (finished) 13 November 2009 **

I can't quite remember what the catalyst for this post was, but I suppose it stands on its own...