It made me laugh, it made me cry. I demand no more from my televised entertainment.

I am – Hercules!!


So how great is James Lesure as Captain Boyle? And how much do we now realize he is wasted on NBC’s just-renewed “Las Vegas”?

Tonight brings the end of Aaron Sorkin’s “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip,” and that makes this a saddish day. It was a great show, but maybe not a good one, and I acknowledge that may not make any sense. It came equipped with scenes that transcended all media, but also scenes that elicited little more than wincing.

Some argue that the quality of the show’s sketches were not important, that viewers weren’t tuning in for the sketches.

But the sketches were important, and here’s why. Most were completely horrible, and hobbled horribly our suspension of disbelief. Ricky and Ron were supposed to be writing the shitty sketches, not new head writer Matt Albie. If Matt’s stuff came off as poor, it reflected poorly not only on Matt, but also on producer Danny and network chief Jordan, whose faith in Matt could only be read as delusion.

If the show couldn’t afford to hire Jim Downey or Tim Herlihy or Al Franken or Robert Smigel or Sam Simon to punch up the sketches, they perhaps should have been careful to leave those sketches just off-camera. (It’s possible, one supposes, that Sorkin simply believed his sketches funnier than those mounted by the oft-derided SNL. If so, this was a monstrous miscalculation.)

The show also had casting issues. Nathan Corddry was funny enough on “The Daily Show,” but he’s a far cry from the powerhouse likes of a John Belushi or a Bill Murray or a Will Ferrell. Was anyone ever convinced he had somehow emerged as the superstar standout on a hot late-night sketch show?

Original King of Comedy D.L. Hughley, by contrast, has bucketloads of natural charisma when he’s doing his own material -- but as an actor Hughley demonstrated mammoth deficiencies, and Sorkin’s dialogue never seemed to fit Hughley’s mouth. (Imagine what an actor like Lesure would have brought to Simon Stiles.)

There was a similar problem with Matthew Perry. Perry’s interviews over the years illustrate that he doesn’t need a script to find he funny, and one senses that “Friends” was so huge, in part, because Perry was a major force in shaping Chandler Bing.

But Sorkin’s work is too tight and unyielding and accomplished; it does not need an actor’s help to get where it’s going. Perry characteristically seemed too confined by Sorkin’s alter ego, and one suspects he’s at least a little glad to be done with the role. (A slightly younger Perry might have been spectacular as Tom Jeter, the show-within-a-show’s star player.)

Perhaps Sorkin’s material, always so precise and fully formed, needs something of a blank canvas to inhabit; if the canvas comes with its own lines and colors, those elements unduly distract from what Sorkin is trying to accomplish. Rob Lowe – a handsome but (beyond “The West Wing”) generally bland and workmanlike presence – managed to manifest one of the most successful Sorkin protagonists ever.

Ah, but enough with what might have gone haywire. Let’s go out by enumerating a few of the series’ more memorable virtues:

* The network. Programming chief Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet) is a profoundly cool character. So, it turns out, is her boss Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber). And Jack’s boss, Wilson White (Ed Asner). All proved unexpectedly complex and entertaining. In retrospect, a series titled “McDeere” or “NBS” might have proven a far better fit for audiences, critics, NBC and Sorkin himself.

* Andy Mackinaw (Mark McKinney), the tragedy-stained comedy pro who returned to the writer’s room.

* Kim Tao (the spectacular Julia Ling), the sexy and hilariously horny little rich girl on whom the network’s fortunes appeared to teeter.

* Zhang Tao (Raymond Ha), Kim’s wily pop.

* Captain Boyle (James Lesure), see above.

* Robert Bebe (John Goodman), the backwoods Nevada judge who turned up to torment the regulars for two episodes before providing them deliverance.

* Suzanne (Merrit Wever), Matt’s landmine-jumping assistant.

* Wendy (real-life ex-Pussycat Doll Cyia Batten), the Bombshell Babe with the boot.

* The show's sprawling multilevel main set generally, but especially that giant "Play It Again Sam" Life Magazine cover in Matt's office.

* And the Christmas show.

Christmas Day 2007, by the way, will see the release to cinemas of “Charlie Wilson’s War,” about the Texas congressman who aided Afghanistan in its war against the Soviet Union. It teams a Sorkin screenplay with director Mike Nichols, as well as actors Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Shiri Appleby, Rachel Nichols, John Slattery, Mary Page Keller and real-life ex-Pussycat Doll Cyia Batten. Which just proves again – if you kick a great writer out of TV, you’ll end up paying later.

10 p.m. Thursday. NBC.

And The Deathly Hallows