I’ve been justifiably hard on Studio 60 since its premiere, and I slogged through episode after episode yelling at the TV, grumbling after it was over, and hoping the next episode would pull up. Aaron Sorkin finally proved, with December 4th’s “The Christmas Show,” that he’s still got it. An episode with all the snap of the best of Sports Night, a taste of some of the worthier political posturing of The West Wing, and a dash of (gasp) character development. I finally realized that’s been the problem all along–the characters exist merely to rant about Sorkin’s political opinions, much like a multi-million dollar human version of the blogs Sorkin seems to hate. In “The Christmas Show,” though, he actually seemed to allow the characters to let down and develop some on their own, even unbending enough to acknowledge that the opinion of an anonymous consumer could be a reasonably important thing in the marketplace of television and movies. Romantic subplots were advanced, something I always like to see, Jack the Hardass Executive became a sympathetic human being, and Jordan the Female Executive is going to be dealing with a pregnancy and child. It always concerns me when shows take up motherhood as a theme, but it beats most of the alternative ways of addressing the possibility of pregnancy for a single woman on TV. I’ll take it.

So, Merry Christmas to the cast and crew of Studio 60; Merry Christmas, Mr. Sorkin, from a quasi-anonymous blogger. I’m looking forward to your New Year. Finally.