Gone are the dark days when we in Blighty had to wait months for the cool new American shows to make their way by Manatee to these shores. Now, thanks to the magical Internets, we can get tantalising glimpses of the fresh output overseas and, in some cases, the entire first episode.
No, we don’t mean Bittorrent, Captain Broadband. We’re talking here about an officially approved tool increasingly being used by TV networks to drum up a little interest in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
Just such a network is NBC, which has been kind enough to whack up the entire first episode of Aaron Sorkin’s new show, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, which arrives on US TV next week, but is already sitting, waiting to be watched at AOL.com. Admittedly, it means sacrificing your TV-style experience for a small moving box on a website, but at least it means gaining the right to point and laugh at the people who can’t get to see it.
Sorkin’s latest takes us behind the scenes of a Saturday Night Live-alike comedy sketch show, which is undergoing a creative crisis. Executive Producer Wes Mendell (a cameoing Judd Hirsch) has just done a Network on live TV, taking over the broadcast to rant about the current state of US telly. Incoming studio suit Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet) sees a chance to bring back former show-runners Danny Tripp (The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford) and Matt Albie (Friends’ Matthew Perry). Can they put the show back together? You’ll have to watch and find out, won’t you?
Head over hereto see the pilot episode. The show should be on UK telly by January.