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So last night I am watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which for what it is worth has to be the longest title for a TV show I want to be bothered to remember, perhaps slightly longer. So last night I am watching Studio 60 and one of the plot lines turns out to be about product placement. About two minutes into one scene I can't help but ask myself if there is a meta-issue at work here.

And then I am thinking that really what Studio 60 is about is everything Aaron Sorkin dislikes about television. The first episode railed against lowest common denominator, then we had contracted writers that weren't pulling their weight, then we had a network chomping at the bit to get the inane show while likely passing on the substantive show. The last two weeks were all about standards and practices. A scene on the show about how you can't say "Jesus" in a scene on the show unless you are using it as a proper noun serves the purpose for the actual show that the sketch does on the hypothetical show, tweaking off the censors.

So now I understand a little when people say that the reason the show isn't appealing to a wide audience is that it is just too much inside baseball. Doesn't mean I can't like it though, right?

So anyway, last night I am watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and they get into a discussion about product placement and they talk about placing signs on the set, and then they talk about using known gear, and then they talk about bumps in and out, and the substance of the scene is about how crass and awful it is.

Right? But step back...

Because in that scene they plug Adidas, Gibson guitars, Dell Computers, and Nokia phones. And all I can think about is whether they managed to get people to pay for product placements in a scene about how sleazy it is to have product placements. Very, very meta.

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