Though the show doesn't premiere on NBC until this fall, Netflix has the pilot on DVD for a short time.

Sorkin's shows usually take us behind the scenes of settings we're familiar with. "I like going behind the scenes of things we don't necessarily get to see," he says in an interview on the DVD. "I always said on the West Wing, 'Let's show the five minutes before and after what we get to see on CNN.' And same thing here."

Sorkin's short-lived Sports Night took us into the studio of a live sportscast. West Wing took us into the White House. And Studio 60 is a scripted drama that takes us behind the scenes of a Saturday Night Live-type show.

It's a fantastic pilot that should jumpstart a great new series, but it does start with a limp as the camera sweeps into a live studio for the taping in front of an audience. We've seen everything here before--the gear up to a live TV comedy show with silly hosts and gags--and for a minute we're bored.

But then Judd Hirsch takes over. He commandeers the camera for a vitriolic, prophet-like rant about how "We're all being lobotomized by this country's most influential industry." He's speaking of TV, of course, of his employer, National Broadcast System, and of his own show.

His outburst is prompted by a skit being cancelled by the network at the last moment because, as Hirsch says it, ..."The two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and every psycho religious cult that gets positively horny at the mention of a boycott."

The skit is called "Crazy Christians" and the network is sure it will offend religious people everywhere. Hirsch's speech shifts the show into a whole new groove. He calls the network a whorehouse, blames it for lobotomizing the nation, and calls their programming pornography. It's a "seat-of-your-pants" moment, a "sit-forward-on-the-couch" speech that tells you Studio 60 isn't the show you thought it to be.

We won't rehash what we've seen for years. We're going to interrupt bland, inoffensive, unfunny programming, the show announces in this speech, with truth. It will be funny. It will offend. But it's going to be about something.

And it doesn't shirk from truth. Matthew Perry's well-known addiction to painkillers is written into the script. Sorkin's bust for drug possession is worked in as well. The show participants seem to be saying that they're making this show to tell the truth, and if they have to start with their own ugly ones, then so be it.

The show is primarily a drama with comedy sprinkled in. And the cast is largely made up of comedic actors: Perry, Steven Weber of WINGS, D.L. Hughley, Amanda Peet. It might seem strange to rest a drama on comedians' shoulders, but haven't comedians always been better telling the truth?

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