STUDIO 60 ON ROOSEVELT AVENUE
EPISODE 11
WRITTEN COMPLETELY BY AARON SORKIN TOTALLY ALONE AND UNDER GREAT DURESS
RELIVE THE EXCITING INAUGURAL SEASON!
PILOT | EPISODE 2 | EPISODE 3 | EPISODE 4 |
EPISODE 5 | EPISODE 6 | EPISODE 7 | EPISODE 8
EPISODE 9 | EPISODE 10 | EPISODE 11
LOGLINE: Once the nation’s best and most respected baseball GM, Sandy Alderson has been reduced to trying to revive a moribund franchise in the depths of deepest, darkest Queens. Along with his sharp-witted and adoring protégés, he fights off the seemingly endless series of controversies and crises that beset him while trying to run a sports team in the country’s most bustling metropolis, and still look fantastic while doing it. Can the pressures of such an important job crush this singularly talented and gifted individual genius?
ACT I
The office. PAUL DEPODESTA and J.P. RICCIARDI are standing near a Xerox machine as it whirs away, crumpling up pieces of copy paper and shooting them, basketball style, into a large, overflowing recycling bin.
DEPODESTA
If you could be any tyrant in history, who would you be?
RICCIARDI
Define “tyrant.”
DEPODESTA
Autocratic giant ruling his land with an iron fist.
RICCIARDI
Why would I want to be that?
DEPODESTA
Imagine you had no choice. Which one would you pick that would be the least distasteful to you?
RICCIARDI
I guess…Louis XIV. Seems like you’d be pretty far removed from most of the horror, and you could wear powdered wigs. How about you?
DEPODESTA
Abraham Lincoln.
RICCIARDI
What?! Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a tyrant!
DEPODESTA
The South thought he was. That’s why Booth yelled “sic semper tyrannus!” just before he shot him.
RICCIARDI
That’s a loophole. I didn’t know I could pick Lincoln.
DEPODESTA
Shoulda come with me on that trip to Gettysburg.
MACKENZIE CARLIN walks in, looking annoyed.
CARLIN
What are you two doing? You’re supposed to be copying all the 40-man-roster salary info for today’s meeting.
DEPODESTA
We are. And while we do, we are having a very important discussion abut tyranny, while also playing recycling bin basketball.
RICCIARDI
And I’m winning, mostly because I didn’t call Abe Lincoln a tyrant.
CARLIN
[grabbing the overflowing recycling bin] Is somebody gonna clean this thing out?
RICCIARDI
Yes, I assume somebody will. Could you put it down? I’m trying to line up a three pointer.
CARLIN
[rooting through the trash] What is this?
RICCIARDI
It’s you looking through garbage, for some reason.
CARLIN
No, this.
CARLIN pulls out something from the trash. It looks like a card. She shows it to RICCIARDI and DEPODESTA, who immediately look intrigued.
Cut to DAVID EINHORN’s office. He’s sitting on the edge of his desk with a large square of grass-covered sod in each hand, weighing them carefully. He hears a knock at his door.
EINHORN
Come in, but this better be important. I’m trying to choose grass for my dog’s new putting green.
CARLIN, RICCIARDI, and DEPODESTA enter.
CARLIN
I thought you’d want to see this.
CARLIN hands EINHORN the card. He too is immediately intrigued.