Man, was that awful. It really felt like the creators of West Wing were making a show about late-night comedy — and that’s not a good thing. The characters were pompous and mostly unlikable. They used the same technique of talking fast as a stand-in for talking smart. They used the same trick of seeming like a real conversation was taking place, but the liberals always win because they’re liberals. Also, the characters were often dark. It seems like Aaron Sorkin’s drug history looms very large in his imagination. And, fair or not, the seeming projection of his personal demons and ill-conceived grudges onto his characters simply makes them all the more unlikable.

What was most striking, however, was the very lame and tired potshots at conservative Christians. Here again the West Wing model seems to be dominating. In the first season, West Wing took some cheap and vapid shots at Christians and the show got some great free publicity out of it. Clearly, they were going for the same thing last night when we learned that Matthew Perry (Chandler-from-Friends) had broken up with his girlfriend because she had sung some gospel songs on the 700 Club which, we are told, is the same as attending a Klan rally or some such.

Forget the silliness of all that, it’s just terrible writing. First, Christian-bashing isn’t “edgy” it’s a cliché roughly a decade after West Wing premiered (in fact it was a cliche then, too). Does it feel plausible that an actress from Saturday Night Live would release a CD of gospel tunes and show up on The 700 Club to hawk them? Does it seem believable that a man clearly in love with a girl would simply turn his back on her for associating with “a bigot” like Pat Robertson in order to sell albums? Not to me, but reasonable people can differ on that. But what is indisputable is that Sorkin is desperately trying to Christian-bait because to him that defines “edginess” and moral seriousness. To me, it felt canned and desperate. As does the entire show which has managed to make a lot of very funny people deadly dull and boring.

If this is a good sign of what’s in store, I predict a very short run for Studio 60.