Sorkin Returns!

NBC has announced that they’re willing to overlook Aaron Sorkin’s little cocaine binges and drunk-driving arrests (or maybe willing to concede that mind-altering substances help fuel his genius) and are giving him a new show for fall 2006, “Studio 7.” The show will be a behind-the-scenes look at a “Saturday Night Live”-style comedy series.

Sorkin’s return to television is tremendously good news–I’m still firmly of the opinion that the first four seasons of “The West Wing” were the best-written episodes of television ever [1]. And the short-lived “SportsNight”–likely a decent harbinger for what we can expect from “Studio 7″, given its behind-the-TV-scenes premise–was flat-out brilliant. The man knows how to craft some dialogue and he knows how to create and develop some characters, both skills which have made him one of my favorite writers, regardless of medium.

So my first question: given the high cast turnover we can expect from “The West Wing” with the impending change of administration, can we expect any of President Bartlet’s staff to end up in “Studio 7?” Or how about any of the old “SportsNight” staff? (I think it’d be awfully cool to have an actual character from “SportsNight” join the cast–it’s far from inconcievable that someone working for the TV show “SportsNight” could, years later, find themselves working for the TV show “Studio 7.”)

Good news for my Monday morning, indeed.