Spoilers for “The Disaster Show” below.

Things that happened

Erin is in critical condition, so I’m filling in! I am fully qualified to do so, as I remember absolutely nothing about this show aside from brief appearances by a morbidly obese John Goodman and a delightfully slutty asian girl.

But that’s okay, as the show doesn’t expect us to remember much either! The “Previously On” segment literally covers the entire run of the series, going back to the “We live here now” line from the pilot. It’s like Studio 60 on fast forward, and just goes to show us how little plot or character progression this show has had. It’s like: hey, we’re good and people love us! And then: aw, we’re screwed up but people still like us! And finally: we suck and everybody hates us.

This episode’s plot carefully sidesteps the whole “possibly attracting viewers” issue by featuring absolutely none of the advertised stars of this show. Instead, it casts its spotlight on some of the less-seen supporting players, including a major focus on director Cal, played by Timothy Busfield.

After Danny pisses off the propmasters union in an unseen scene, all of the prop guys walk out. And, just for good measure, they take all the cue card guys with them. Since all the Studio 60 employees are union, too, they’re not allowed to do any of the striking worker jobs.

Host Allison Janney — playing herself and doing a good job of it — clearly freaks the fuck out about this, though she doesn’t learn about the cue card thing until she’s actually live on the air. Danny tries to explain to her that sometimes they just have what they’ve termed “disaster shows.”

Things get only worse from there, however. Minutes after they go on the air — and Janney stumbles through a monologue without any sort of cue cards — Jack Rudolph and some security guys bust in talking about a bomb threat that was called on the studio during the dress rehearsal. Jack asks if they can dump the live show and just run the taped dress rehearsal, but apparently the disasters were happening even earlier in the day, as the tape is unusable.

So the show soldiers on. And it’s a cavalcade of errors! Props aren’t where they should be, Harriet is doing spit takes (and not because she thinks spit takes are hilarious), Allison has to pretend to get shot and die without any blood and, in the end, a dog really likes her.

It all doesn’t really seem to lead anywhere, and it all gets wrapped up with Allison screaming out her frustrations during the show credits. Fortunately, Cal has turned her mic off. Then there’s a little bit where he tries to get all sentimental and convince her that, even with all the mistakes, she still had the time of her life hosting the show. She didn’t, though. It looked kind of terrible.

Jack wanders around the studio during the show, apparently more than a little drunk, trying to help solve the mystery of the bomb scare. It was apparently in reaction to a new Tom Jeter sketch about Muhammad, so everyone assumes the caller was an Arab. In the end, though they pin it on a guy who lost his cellphone during the dress rehearsal. They call him down and learn, in a shocking scene, that it’s not an arab at all! Just a regular white teenage doofus! And his doofus friend! They thought a bomb scare would be fun.

Simon Stiles, however, is having less fun, as his current girlfriend, a rather busty woman, breaks up with him for fear that he’s a womanizer and a sleezebag. This throws a big cramp in his plan to go with Tom and Lucy (still together — hooray!) to Hawaii for a little weekend getaway. He spends most of his off-screen time during the show trying to find another woman to take with him. In the end, he runs into yet another ex-girlfriend — an even BUSTIER woman! — with whom he reconnects. After a little banter, he gets her to agree to come with him.

But wait! There’s a wacky love triangle afoot! His first ex-girlfriend (the less busty woman), decides she was wrong to break up with him, and decides she wants to go on the trip after all. So Simon goes to the much bustier woman and tells her it was a psyche-out — he has to go with the first girl. But THEN, in a scene right out of Three’s Company, Lucy accidentally talks to the first girl and drops that Simon had found the bustier woman and was going to go with her. So the less busty girls realizes that Simon is, in fact, a cad, and dumps him for reals.

So Simon has no one to go with! It’s sad. Sort of.

And, lastly, Harriet spends her bits of the episode obsessing about Matt. Because that’s what she does when she’s not learning about how it sucks to be religious. Nothing is really resolved, except for her to realize that maybe she should be Matt. But whatever, it doesn’t matter — it’s not like he’s there anyway.

Things that were good

• Allison Janney is awesome and delightful and actually way too good for this show at this point in time. Most actors play themselves as clear exaggerations as their perceived self, but Janney kept it low key, and it was funnier as a result.
• Plus, how cute was it to see her and Timothy Busfield on screen together again? They used to flirt in the press room! Back when he had a beard.
• Jack Rudolph continues to be the best character on this show. His “The call was coming from inside the house!” line was the only real laugh-out-loud moment during this hour.
• As much as I think it was stupid to have this show return without Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford and Amanda Peet, I can’t honestly say I missed them and their stupid storylines. The focus on Cal was a step up.

Things that were not so good

• If they’re not going to give us Matt, they should be kind enough to take Harriet out of the picture as well. Hopefully they’ll realize that the reason Matt and Harriet are not together is because the show is canceled.
• The Simon storyline was neither funny not interesting.
• What were we supposed to conclude from that bomb threat sequence? Maybe I’m just being cynical, but I feel like Sorkin was going for yet another riff on the “See, Arabs aren’t all bad!” theme he’s been doing for years. And well, sure, he’s right and all, he’s always been so obnoxious about it.
• While Allison and Cal are great, the West Wing references were just masturbatory. We get it: you created a show that people liked. Once.

Worth Watching If…

Despite all its flaws, I still maintain that Studio 60 is an utterly fascinating show. It deserves to be canceled, sure, and it has a ton of flaws, but I still consider myself a fan of Aaron Sorkin and will follow him to whatever project he does after this one. No other TV writer puts so much of themselves into their shows. That said, though, this show is only worth watching if you’re a total TV nerd and find Aaron Sorkin fascinating. Otherwise it’ll just be boring.

In Five Words

Better Without Its Main Characters