It is so fucking bad and like off the rails.

It has devolved into the point where like it is just therapy for its creator.

Like it is just he's just trying to work through his like neuroses and his frustration that no one likes his shitty show.

By the way, I want to thank listener Tyler who sent along this blog post from October 30th, 2006, that seems to indicate

the network had already decided not to renew the show by around episode seven. So I think that is

very important. Yeah, that is very important context. The viewership just completely tanked. And so by

this point, it seems like, you know, the writing is on the wall.

And like, this is just for, uh, the Sorkmeister. He's freaking out. He's panicking, uh, like I've said on the, on the past two episodes. Like, he's just trying to do a West Wing

episode. Like, the show is barely pretending anymore that it's even about a comedy show.

But more to the point, there's one plot line in this episode

where I feel like Sorkin is actually fantasizing.

He's imagining a world in which his show is enough

of a cultural touchstone that like Red State affiliates

are getting mad about it.

Will and I have said relentlessly on these episodes

that both Matt and Danny are kind of

stand-ins for Sorkin himself. I think by this point, the show, Studio 60, like the imaginary show

has itself become, like, Sorkin is the ghost in the machine, but the show itself is a stand-in

for Sorkin himself. What we are seeing here is Aaron Sorkin's mind palace disintegrating

as no one watches his god-awful show. And he just like imagines a world in which Studio 60 on the

Sunset Strip, like his highest aspirations for it, this great cultural touchstone. Like that's all real.

And then also the show that he's written about it is

...