SON OF THAT DARN ZONKIN' SORKIN

"Good for you, Matlock."
Judge Beebe
'Studio 60'

With the other Zonk in "Nevada Day, Part Two" (Yawn! "Pahrump" would have been a better name for the episode!), we got an echo from last week's 'Supernatural'.

The same reasoning I used for their episode of "The Usual Suspects" applies in this reference. Ben Matlock is a nationally known lawyer on a par with F. Lee Bailey and Gerry Spence in our world. And that Judge Beebe and the NBC copyright lawyer would know of him seems to be an o'bvious given.

But the fact that Sorkin chose to use the name of "Matlock" as an insult towards the NBS lawyer seems - to me, at least, - to illustrate that all of Sorkin's characters share his voice and views in some respect.

Sorkin didn't write the jibe in the Toobworld sense - that 'Matlock' is a real person. No, he didn't care about preserving any illusion that other shows outside of the 'Studio 60' bailiwick might be just as real. He wrote it as a reality-busting Zonk.

As such, he's basically showing his prejudice against 'Matlock', the series. But would Judge Beebe have felt the same way? Whether he knew Matlock as a man or as a TV series, I think Beebe would have recognized Ben Matlock as a man of the people; certainly not the way he viewed the NBC lawyer.

Again, whether it was as a TV show or as the nationally known lawyer, I'm thinking Judge Beebe would more likely hurl the name of "Perry Mason" as an invective against a Los Angeles lawyer. Still a lawyer nationally known, perhaps the best of all time. And by comparing the NBC lawyer to "Perry Mason", he'd be telling the suit that he would never be the equal of Mason.... even if he was fictional.

Maybe I am over-analyzing. But then, that's just me.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby