Following short-lived, but largely spectacular Sports Night and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (especially Sports Night) - Aaron Sorkin is writing a third show about what goes on behind the scenes at a television show.

Sorkin, the creator of one of the greatest TV shows ever in The West Wing, spoke with TVGuide.com about his new project…

“I’m going to be starting on a new TV series” when filming is done on the upcoming movie “The Social Network,” the Sorkin-penned account of the founding of Facebook directed by David Fincher, he says. “It’s going to be what turns out to be the third in the trilogy of TV shows that take place behind the scenes of a TV show, but this will be a different kind of TV show. That’s all I can let out of the bag right now.”

Later in the interview, Sorkin said he would love to reunite with some of the people he has worked with during past projects for his new TV show.

“If you’re a writer,” Sorkin said.  “When you find an actor like Josh Malina, Felicity Huffman, Brad Whitford, Matt Perry, Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, all these great actors that I’ve worked with, you just want to stick them in your pocket and work with them forever, so I hope so.”

I hope so too, and I can’t wait for a new TV program from Sorkin.  I’m running out of interesting things to watch on network television.

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This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, check out RipcordNews.com.

Tonight was the first night in 10 years I didn’t watch the Emmys.

One of the reasons was because of the show’s length (as I addressed in Part 1), but the other is that most of the television shows I watch aren’t nominated (exs: Friday Night Lights and Rescue Me).

A good portion of the television I used to watch were critical darlings, especially NBC’s The West Wing.

The West Wing remains my favorite television show ever.  It was the most thought-provoking, best-written television show I have ever seen and the voters who award Emmys annually agreed.  The West Wing seemed to win at least half of the awards it was nominated for, which was thrilling for me.

The Emmys, as I look back, served as an event that seemed to legitimize the time I spent.

But now, as quality TV continues to be replaced by the four big networks in an effort to please middle America, quality television is watched by less and less people.  AMC’s Mad Men will likely dominate the Drama categories of tonight’s Emmys, which is absolutely terrible for the show because Mad Men isn’t watched by that many people.

30 Rock will likely dominate the comedy awards.  Though 30 Rock is on network TV, this is also terrible for the Emmys because it doesn’t have the mainstream following a show like CSI or Grey’s Anatomy.

A simple solution to this problem is what many think will happen to the Emmys next year if CBS’ ratings are low for its 2009 broadcast: the award show needs to move to cable.

This would change the definition of what is a ratings success and would change the talk of the Emmys from a ratings disappointment to one of the highest-rated shows ever on cable TV.

Expect a move next year.

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This post was written by Eric Van Dril.  For more of his writing, check out RipcordNews.com.