Sorkin After 'Sunset'

After the hit TV series "The West Wing" and the critically acclaimed "Sports Night," creator Aaron Sorkin seems to be falling flat with his latest project. Despite being picked up for nine more episodes, Hollywood insiders say the NBC drama "Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip" won't make it past its first season. Here are a few of my suggestions for Sorkin's next TV series.

That's Opera: Aaron, you're a genius at bringing intense feelings of urgency and importance to seemingly ordinary situations, like editing sound for a sports roundup show or arranging a seating assignment for a state dinner. I suggest you raise the stakes: Create a TV melodrama about a melodrama. The whole thing would take place at a premier opera company where the productions cost a lot of money to stage but only a few elite members of society actually attend.

And when a character is wrestling with a crisis in real life they bring it onto the stage with them. Eyes well up as the lead soprano, obsessed with her weight, belts out an aria by Puccini. Yes, the song is in Italian, but who cares. And licensing won't be a problem since Puccini's been dead for more than 75 years. It's a tear-jerking, throat-lumping gold mine of an idea.

Animated Drama: The TV audience expects cartoons to be funny so the tough part will be to squeeze every last drop of comedy out of the script from the beginning. This shouldn't be a problem. Just do what you did with the fictional sketch comedy show in "Studio 60." I know you like to use a core set of actors, but you'll need to pick the least funny from that crop, so no Rob Lowe or Stockard Channing. Bradley Whitford should do nicely. Might I also suggest you bring in some new talent. Alan Greenspan could make a great patriarch character and I guarantee he'll be deadly serious.

The Remake: Remember the variety show "Hee Haw"? Busty blondes delivering one-liners from a cornfield and timeless country music made that show a semi-hit for more than two decades. You can revive that TV magic, and inject your own style into the mix. You could call the show "Yasgur's Farm" in deference to the famed Woodstock locale. Instead of the hot blondes, Gloria Steinem could pop up in a mock turtleneck and rattle off some stats on wage inequality and spousal abuse. And instead of corn you could have sunflowers.

You should drop the country music. I suggest free-form jazz. Does Martin Sheen play guitar? Maybe for the pilot he and Allison Janney could do a duet of Bob Marley's, "Redemption Song."

Think Piece: According to focus groups I've conducted at my local metaphysical bookstore and tea shop, the TV audience doesn't want to be entertained; it wants to be forced to think. And that got me to thinking: Why hasn't anyone produced a show about the Spanish Civil War?

"Marx's Cafe" could be a microcosm where the battles between the anarcho-syndicalists and the Franco-fascists play out in riveting verbal exchanges accented by poignant bongo flares from a mysterious man in a beret. The characters would speak in elaborate, monotone intersecting monologues. To take it one step further, after you release the pilot, summarily refuse to air the first six episodes. This will elevate "Marx's Cafe" to cult status. It will be one of those shows that everybody loves but no one has seen, kind of like "Sports Night."

If you really want to talk, send Mike an e-mail. If it's urgent, buy an industrial-size spotlight with a W stencil and shine it into the night sky. Mike looks up regularly to check his messages.