The House Next Door: Walking and talking: the quick wit and false heart of Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60:

The problem is that the TV landscape the Hirsch character cites doesn't bear much resemblance to TV as we now know it. Many of the most popular unscripted series are dumb, of course (American Idol, anyone?), but they're not the near-pornography Sorkin describes. Idol is all about wish-fulfillment and a misbegotten sense of the American dream, but it's also a standard example of one of TV's oldest formats, the talent show. nice.

Sorkin, of course, came to TV via theater (A Few Good Men) and then movies (A Few Good Men again and The American President). His first network series, ABC's Sports Night, was a show about a scrappy underdog cable sports news show that.. in many ways, is the purest expression of the Sorkin formula -- two wisecrackin' guy best friends (Peter Krause huh yep that's Peter Krause from SixFeetUnder and then WeDontLiveHereAnymore and Josh Charles) who are supervised by a whipsmart and commanding woman (Felicity Huffman) who is in turn overseen by a sage, older man who has been ravaged by the battles of his youth (Robert Guillaume).
In Studio 60 the familiar formula is present and accounted for, albiet tweaked a little (it's not giving away too much to say the wise old man is fired -- though we can expect future guest shots, one would think).