IF CLINT EASTWOOD CAN MAKE TWO MOVIES ABOUT THE SAME EVENT...

WILL STUDIO 60 BE 86'D ?

Even Aaron Sorkin's staunchest fans are going to have a difficult time defending "Studio 60" to the supposed crowd who don't get it (i.e., Middle America), when he makes jokes like the one in Monday night's show:

Simon Stiles (D.L. Hughley): "Are your parents still living?"
Tom Jeter (Tom Corddry): "In Columbus, Ohio...so, barely."

I may not have it down verbatim. I was too distracted by my ex-political science major roommate ranting about how Joseph McCarthy was actually a great American ("Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were [BLEEPIN!] guilty!") after Sorkin introduced the sublpot about the old Jewish comedy writer who'd been black-listed.

Last night's episode tilted on both the pedantic and heavy-handedness meter, but then Sorkin gives Matthew Perry a line such as the one he delivered to Lauren Graham (playing herself), in which he gives her his phone number and adds, "And give a copy of this to the girl who plays your daughter on the show."

I'm in your corner, Aaron. But I don't know how many other sad 40somethings there are out there besides you and me (and I realize that you use your TV show the same way I use this blog; someone's making this work better for them, but then someone has more talent).

Finally, my good buddy Mike McCollow only wishes that there was a network where such underappreciated shows such as Studio 60, Arrested Development, SportsNight, Action!, Freaks & Geeks, Love Monkey and even My So-Called Life could be picked up once studio execs prematurely axed them and given a second life. Alas, most if not all pilots these days are bought with a three-year non-compete clause, meaning that if the network that first gives them life cancels them, they are not allowed to be revived on another ntetwork for at least three years. It's all very salt-the-earth, Punic War strategy of them. And, of course, we the viewers lose out.

Every studio head who cancels a critically acclaimed show midway through its first season should be belted into a chair and forced to watch the first dozen episodes of "Seinfeld". You can see that it's not a great show yet, but that it has the potential. And you have to think that NBC's pretty glad they didn't put the DNR tag on that one.

However, if Studio 60 does get canceled, I hope Sorkin gets to write a finale in which he panders to the lowest of low tastes: Amanda Peet gets naked and makes out with Harriet, D.L. Hughley gets into a wrestling match with Kevin Federline, and Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford successfully pitch a blooper-reel reality show to a rival network entitled "Ow! My Balls".

That last one I did not make up. It's taken from Mike Judge's new film "Idiocracy", which opened in September without a trailer or any promotion...and not surprisingly, faded just as fast.

MARSHMALLOW MALFEASANCE

After every Notre Dame home game, The Observer (the student paper) runs a front-page story in its next edition reviewing the criminal activity from that Saturday's event. Today's story, for example, ran atop the front page with the headline "Police eject, cite, arrest 61 at game".

It's always an entertaining read, but the highlight of every story is the terse but telling sentence: "There were no marshmallow-related ejections." It provides a sense of security for myself and other fans to know that the Notre Dame Stadium ushers have the marshmallow projectile problem under control (either that or they've completely abandoned plans to curb the marshmallow malefactors, and that sugar-packed missiles are launched with impunity).

Every Monday you can count on it. After the Penn State contest: "There were no marshmallow-related ejections." After Michigan: "There were no marshmallow-related ejections." After Purdue. After Stanford. But then, today's story (The Observer did not publish on Monday due to fall break) contained no news, good or bad, relating to marshmallow malfeasance. Shoddy reporting? A coverup? The writer, normally diligent Observer News Editor Kate Antonacci, had the temerity to report that "one person was issued a trespass warning for urinating in a public place" (really, haven't we all been in that situation before? Dogs get a free pass, why not people?), but there's no news on marshmallows.

I've e-mailed Kate and hope to have an answer for you shortly.

WORLD SERIES DOLDRUMS

I'm not here to rip Detroit and St. Louis for advancing to the World Series and making it boring. And I hate to sound like the old fart who remembers when you could go to sleep and not have to worry about locking the doors. But Major League Baseball, with its unbending Saturday-Sunday (Home-Field Advantage Team), Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday (Other Team), Saturday-Sunday (HFAT) format, with all the games being televised in prime-time, has given itself a dull formula.

I can even do with the format in terms of the days (this way MLB avoids MNF as well as Friday, the worst prime-time night of the evening), but how cool would it be if just one of the games took place in the afternoon? I'd have more than one myself, but I understand why the TV overlords don't want that to happen. However, televising one game in the afternoon (especially one of the opening two) would do three things: 1) lure potential viewers who are not going to otherwise invest themselves in a series that compels them to stay up until nearly midnight, 2) be kid-friendly, 3) create some variety.

TV and sports execs just never seem to get the importance of the intangibles. Of things not having to necessarily be clean and neat. As it is now all seven games are indistinguishable from one another because the backdrop is always a dark October sky. It's B-O-R-I-N-G. Give us an afternoon game, a reason for sportstwriters to print the word "gloaming". Anything. Create some buzz by mxing things up a little. You can't create rhythm in a 7-game series when every game looks like the one before it.

And, by the way, if fans want to hurl marshmallows at one another between innings, let them.