Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip TV Show - Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Television Show - Yahoo! TV

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has too damn many good adjectives in its' wake, many of them superlative.

Aaron Sorkin, has a feel for the television watcher's sensibility that is surpassed only by Aaron Spelling. His banter is a roller-coaster, the characterization is tight, stark and iconic without being hackneyed or campy, and the casting is without a doubt, top-notch.

The series began with the simmering of a burned-out executive producer Wes Mandell (Judd Hirsch) blowing up over the trivial state of television today in a live rant that lasted 53 seconds, but turned out to be the most riveting 53 seconds on television to date (and also elicited memories of his real life railing against "network suits" shortly after "Taxi" was cancelled).

What follows is a mad dash to replace the subsequently-fired Mandell (ya think?) in a way that would trump the spectacle of his on-air meltdown. A task, which suits incoming network president and corporate maverick Jordan Mc Deere (Amanda Peet) to a "T", who re-hires formerly ousted Executive Producer Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford) and head writer Matt Albie (Matthew Perry).

The chemistry and timing between Whitford and Perry ranks up there with Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Hope and Crosby, even (dare I say it?) C3PO and R2D2. It's addictively watchable and entertaining.

The chemistry doesn't end there. Because Tripp and Albie left the show somewhat prematurely (and bitterly), there are a number of loose-ends to be tied-up, relationships to rebuild, trust to regain and, oh yeah! a flagship network program to save.

Sorkin performs this juggling-act-on-crystal-meth with practiced aplomb, while at the same time creating yet another oasis fr the unspoken voice. Where "The West Wing" was a paradise for liberal discourse, "Studio 60" tugs at the heartstrings of viewers weaned on Rod Serling and Steven Bochco, Norman Lear and Grant Tinker. He shows that good, intelligently-scripted television series can still be found on "free TV", and that one can still stimulate the mind as well as the funny bone. Setting an episodic drama within the confines of a sketch comedy show is the type of mad genius that births airplanes, light bulbs and telephones.

Now, for the bad stuff.

Sorkin plays "Studio 60" a little too close to the vest for my taste. The casting, while stellar, is formulaic, no more so than in a recent two-part episode where John Goodman, who played a staunch and unapologetic Republican Speaker of the House on "The West Wing", is cast as a staunch and unapologetic Republican Superior Court judge who held one of the Studio 60 cast members on a traffic warrant. As imaginative as the show is written, one would expect the casting to be equally as imaginative and risk-taking, but the "go with what you know" school implies a lack of trust in the audience. I'm not saying or recommending that Sorkin cast the show wholly with unknowns, but half of "Studio 60"s cast is made up of former "West Wing"ers. It was a pleasure and a surprise to find Ed Asner as a high corporate muckety-muck as opposed to Martin Sheen (come to think of it, subject Ms. Peet a bad haircut and she has more than a passing resemblance to Rob Lowe. hmmmm...)

Whan all is said and done, as entertaining and riveting as "Studio 60" is and can be, it can also touch one's heart, whether it be the awkward stumblings of two ex-lovers or a moving rendition of "O Holy Night" performed by an ad hoc New Orleans jazz band assembled from musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" can move you, and often does. It can also frustrate you, anger you, make you cry and make you laugh.

All true experiences do. And despite the fictionality of "Studio 60", it is, indeed, one true experience.