On his private mailing list, Bad Signal, comic & TV writer Warren Ellis has been talking about the new show in development by West Wing creator, Aaron Sorkin. I've never been a big WW fan, but this new show sounds right up my alley.

Warren is such a master wordsmith, I won't try and paraphrase him - I'll cut and paste the unexpurgated version:

STUDIO 7, his new behind-the-scenes show, this one about a “Saturday Night Live”-style comedy show. Sorkin really has the knives out for “Saturday Night Live.” Heavily influenced by NETWORK (which characters acknowledge in the script, often a sign of the writer not being quite comfortable with his lift/homage and ethically covering his arse), it puts a WING-scale cast into a tangle of personal history.

Amusingly, one of them is a director who can't work because of a drugs infraction that prevents him from getting insured, explained in such detail that it clearly comes from Sorkin's own well-publicised adventures in drugsucking. There's a few little quirks: one of the show's cast is a committed Christian, kind of the “Ainsley” role, a figure of tolerance whose faith nonetheless causes her professional and relationship problems.

You can sign up to receive Bad Signal here - one of the very few email lists that I classify as required reading.