Is this going to be a thing?

“Ironically, I’m the one who’s high as a paper kite right now—but legitimately. I had back surgery on Tuesday: L-5, S-1, if that means anything to you. Stop talking now? You bet.”

****

“Are they fixing it?”
“In a manner of speaking, yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
“They don’t know how to fix it.”
“How much of this do I want to know?”
“As little as possible.”

****

“At this point, you know me better than my parents.”
“I don’t know your parents at all.”
“I know. I meant…”
“I know what you meant. I was doing a dangling modifier joke.”
“Yeah, I stopped doing those to people in high school, after the fourth time I got shoved in my locker.”

****

“This isn’t going to be a problem.”
“It is if you’re still in love with her.”
“I’m not. [pause] I’m not. [pause] I’m not! [pause] Really. I’m not.”
“…We’re totally screwed, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.”

Have you ever gone on a long vacation? Like, for a month or two? You know that feeling you get when you come home for the first time, that feeling of rightness, that feeling that says everything is in its right place? Sure, you enjoyed your trip, but now you’re where you belong—you don’t have to wander around wondering where the bathroom or clean towels are: you know! And everything, somehow, feels right with the world? It ain’t much, you know, but it’s home.

Watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is kinda like that.

Aaron Sorkin is more than just one of my favorite writers: he’s a goddamn miracle worker. He managed to write not just most of The West Wing during its first four seasons, but churned out the scripts for all but one episode: the bulk of the series, indeed. And even though the show pretty much went off the rails when he left, those first four seasons are universally accepted as some of the finest television ever created.

And before The West Wing was Sports Night, another beloved show that, by all accounts, was a masterpiece that died before its time. (I only saw one episode, regrettably, but that one episode was bloody fantastic.) And there was The American President. And A Few Good Men, which somehow still manages to be entertaining even after the fiftieth viewing. Sorkin is some kind of Hollywood Midas, turning every project he touches to television or cinematic gold.

And so it is with Studio 60. Once again, he takes a behind-the-scenes premise—this time, it’s the goings-on at a long-running live sketch comedy show, like SNL—and weaves his tormented romances, insecure Jewish writers, substance abusers, baseball metaphors, dangling modifiers, gratuitous uses of the word “thing,” and Gilbert and Sullivan references into magic. And not just any magic—his style is so instantly identifiable (especially when combined with the impeccable direction of his West Wing and Sports Night partner Thomas Schlamme) that watching the show feels very much like coming home again after being away.

Unfortunately, this isn’t The West Wing—Studio 60 is far from flawless. The biggest problem is the show’s pomposity: the whole thing is presented with a smug, pretentious, we’re-making-an-important-drama-here air. Now, that’s perfectly all right when you’re telling stories inside the Oval Office, but it feels wildly out of place backstage at SNL.

And there’s the little problem with informed attributes. An informed attribute is when characters stand around talking about Character X, telling us that he’s got this ability and that ability, rather than showing us. The reason is that, usually, Character X is nothing like he’s described, and is often the exact opposite.

In this show, Studio 60’s returning head writer Matt Albie (played remarkably well by Matthew Perry) is described as a comedic genius and a fantastic writer. When we meet him, he’s being given the Writers’ Guild Award for Best Original Screenplay. (Not the Academy Award, mind you, which is handed out by the writers, directors, actors, costume designers, electricians, and the other people in the AMPAA, but the Writers’ Guild Award, which is handed out only by other writers. So: other Hollywood writers point at him and say, “He’s the best.”) The writers he’s taking over for are repeatedly described as pathetically inept, and Matt’s return is supposed to save the show. Once he does come back, Studio 60 undergoes a renaissance of quality and popularity, and Matt is regarded as the savior.

The only problem is the actual bits of the show-within-a-show we see are absolutely terrible. On his first show, he kicks off with a cold open that features the entire cast singing an apologetic song to the tune of (big surprise here) Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Modern Major General.” It’s hailed as genius, the audience roars and leaps to their feet, but it’s not funny. Other sketches we see are similarly unimpressive, and most are depressingly obvious, including a much-adored game show sequence that pokes fun at fundamentalist religions, and a promo commercial for Pimp My Trike. On The West Wing, we could buy that Toby and Sam were beyond-gifted speechwriters because the snippets of Bartlet speeches that we heard were gorgeous—here, the entire show suffers because Sorkin is apparently a far inferior sketch comedy writer than he thinks. And maybe he knows his weakness—the sketch that kickstarts the entire plot of the show is described in insanely glowing terms throughout the first two episodes, and we never get to see it at all.

(In fairness, “The Long Lead Story” did show the cast rehearsing a Nancy Grace sketch, featuring Studio 60’s big star, Harriet Hayes [played, again very well, by Sarah Paulson], doing a screamingly funny impersonation of that idiotic twit. That sketch was brilliant, and I wish we could have seen it in its entirety. And in even more fairness, “The Long Lead Story” is the first episode not written solo by Sorkin. So.)

But I’m spending an awful lot of time here dumping on a show I’m really enjoying a great deal. It’s funny, it’s smart, it’s well-acted, and Sorkin can still write snappy dialogue like no else. It ain’t The West Wing, or even A Few Good Men, yeah, but it’s Sorkin. Even when it’s bad (like the latter half of West Wing’s season four tended to be), it’s still pretty good. And Studio 60 is far from bad.

Sorkin seems to have, for the first time in his life, created something that is merely…good. Not grand, not spectacular, but just…good. And that, somehow, feels like a letdown.

But it’s early, yet. As of my writing this, only five episodes have aired. And I’d love to say that we should all wait for Sorkin to get his swing back, but he might not have the time—the ratings have been dropping steadily with each episode, and it doesn’t look like Studio 60 is long for this world. Which is quite a shame. But you can count on me to watch it as long as it’s on—because every episode feels like coming home again.

Mad props (yo) to the iTunes Store, where I’ve bought and downloaded all five of the episodes, since I don’t have cable. I’m also watching Lost this way, and I’ll tell you what I think of the new season as soon as I figure out what I think of the new season.