aaron sorkin to return to tv! [or why the universe owes me $10]

just please make it better than this show was, k? // nbc promotional photo

Take a moment to recall my words from a full three days ago, when I discussed NBC’s seeming attempts to put together their 2010 “Dream Team”:

P.S. You know who the ideal leader of this Dream Team ‘10 sitch would be? Aaron Sorkin, who was rumored a few months ago to be developing a series set backstage at a Keith Olbermann-type cable news show.  Just putting that out there.

Cut to TODAY, when I read THIS in TV Guide Magazine:

“I’m going to be starting on a new TV series” when filming is done on the upcoming movie “The Social Network,” the Sorkin-penned account of the founding of Facebook directed by David Fincher, he says. “It’s going to be what turns out to be the third in the trilogy of TV shows that take place behind the scenes of a TV show, but this will be a different kind of TV show. That’s all I can let out of the bag right now.”

Not quite sure why Sorkin’s playing coy with the details, when this series has been rumored to be in the works for the last eight months or so.  But having not heard much about it, and with pilot season breathing down our necks, it seemed perhaps the idea had fallen flat.  It’s unclear right now if Sorkin and Shoe Money Productions (his production company with Tommy Schlamme, his directing partner) are planning this for fall 2010, and the script definitely hasn’t been sold to a network yet, but it’s clearly possible that the show could end up at NBC, where Sorkin’s had ties for ten years.

Now that the logistics are addressed, let’s talk content: HOLY HELL I’M SO EXCITED.

Over two years ago, I wrote this on my former blog:

Someone at Television Without Pity suggested that Studio 60 would have been better if it had been set at a news program, not a late-night sketch comedy show. I really like this idea. I think it would have been a much better setting, given what Studio 60 eventually turned into. It would’ve allowed Sorkin to keep all of the great elements and get rid of the awkward superfluity. You could’ve still had the Matt-Harriet dynamic, the unfortunate network relationship, the current events, only it would have actually made sense.

It’s the perfect setting for a Sorkin series–he can do his backstage dealio that he did so well in Sports Night and Studio 60, but he can also easily and appropriately call attention to social issues, which was simple on The West Wing and not so simple on the others.  In its later episodes, Studio 60 came across as unnecessarily political, completely unfunny, and downright annoying.

And who for the cast?  I wonder if Greg Kinnear couldn’t be convinced to do this series–he could have that news-anchory look, right?  I can already imagine this show having a really rich group of characters.  Though I assume it will focus on one program’s entire staff, from the on-air talent to the backstage worker bees, there’s huge potential here for art-imitating-life.  Imagine takeoffs of Rachel Maddow, Nancy Grace, Anderson Cooper, or Glenn Beck.

This could be a good fit for Sorkin’s writing, one we haven’t really seen since he left The West Wing in 2003. Color me excited.