'Studio 60' flop humbles the mighty Sorkin -sfgate -tim goodman:
Sorking made a pilot, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," that got people's blood pumping and piqued their interest, [..but..] it never followed with an episode to match the first one.
...The cast was a bad fit. Aside from Matthew Perry (who was a wonderful surprise) and Timothy Busfield (who was underused), not much else worked. Sarah Paulson and D.L. Hughley were not funny in this series playing comics. Nate Corddry is funny in real life and was funny on the show, but his part, like Busfield's, was too small. Had Amanda Peet, as the fictional network president, flipped roles with Paulson, it would have been a major improvement. huh int thought exp. Bradley Whitford is a wonderful actor but he at first seemed to be rejiggering his 'West Wing' role, then his character became periodically unlikable or annoying. Either way, it's not the mix you want.
Steven Weber went from bellicose chairman of the network (which didn't work) to beleaguered chairman of the network (which did, and he became funny while everyone around him went dour by apparent accident.)

'Studio 60'..on NBC -Nov06-Variety.com:
In early March, Peacock will replace 'Studio 60' with 'The Black Donnellys,' the Paul Haggis skein - a 'young-skewing drama' that should be helped by the broad demo base of 'Heroes." Four unaired episodes of 'Studio 60' will remain when the show ankles Monday after February sweeps. No word yet on when or where those segs will air.
'segs'? and 'sked', too. how caj. and 'ankle'. 'skein'? Skein - Wkp: television series; this usage is found in the 'slanguage' of Variety magazine"
Variety.com - Slanguage Dictionary: Almost from its launch in 1905, Variety has used its own, distinctive slanguage huh in headlines and stories, words like ankle, which refers to someone leaving (say, walking away from) a job, or whammo, which refers to something terrific, especially box office performance. In part it was a device to fit long words into small headlines, but it was also to create a clubby feel among the paper's entertainment industry readers. People in the business understood thrush; those outside the business, well, they weren't Variety's target readers anyway. Now that Variety is being made available to the whole World Wide Web, we offer the following glossary of terms.