It's like bad crack ...
Scott D. Pierce
The concept behind the show was heinous but, at the same time, completely believable. Engaged couples would go on the show to test their love; researchers would dig into their backgrounds to dig up dirt; the dirt would be exposed on national TV.
The producer gleefully expressed the hope that maybe they'd find out that one of the women had a secret abortion.
While network chairman Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber) wanted to go after the show, McDeere refused, saying, "It's bad crack in the schoolyard." Which is exactly how series creator/executive producer Aaron Sorkin referred to the reality-show genre when he took questions from TV critics back in July.
"I do think that television is a terribly influential part of this country, and that when things that are very mean-spirited and voyeuristic go on TV, I think it's bad crack in the schoolyard," he said.
Those feelings were expressed in the show's pilot episode, when producer Wes Mendell (guest star Judd Hirsh) went on a "Network"-like rant that cost him his job:
It's hard to argue with Sorkin. And you've got to admire him for taking obvious shots at shows like "Fear Factor," which aired on NBC — which airs "Studio 60."
But there was also unintentional irony in his "bad crack" comment, given his own problems with cocaine and hallucinogenic mushrooms. (He was arrested at the Burbank airport in 2001 and entered a treatment program — as he had in 1995 — in lieu of jail time.)
"Why did I use that word?" Sorkin wondered aloud in front of a room full of critics. "Everything was fine. ... Seriously, I will go person to person, giving each $100 if we can just get the crack quote out of the papers tomorrow."
(He wasn't serious. Or I never got my $100.)
"It's an expression that I meant nothing by," Sorkin said. "And with all the mental preparation I did for this panel, that I was actually able to say that is beyond belief. It really is."
Even the stars of his show didn't let him off easily. Asked what it's like to play a character who's based on Sorkin, Matthew Perry said, "I think it's mostly like bad Vicodin in the schoolyard."
(Perry, you might recall, went into rehab in 2001 to treat his addiction to the painkiller Vicodin.)
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