When I previewed “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” for attendees of “Watch the Pilots with Aaron” at Screenland Theatre last week, they burst into applause. And that was before I showed it to them.

Such has been the anticipation for “Studio 60,” the latest project from “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme. They left “The West Wing” three years ago, Sorkin to write a political movie, Schlamme to create a high-concept drama series called “Jack and Bobby” that died in obscurity on the WB network.

If you like prime-time television, then you can only hope that some order has been restored to the universe with “Studio 60,” a fast-paced hour that takes place behind the scenes of a venerable but creatively troubled late-night variety show that is meant to invite comparisons to the real “Saturday Night Live.”

Yet after watching two episodes, which were quite enjoyable, I’m afraid Sorkin and Schlamme haven’t recaptured the magic. The world has changed since “West Wing” signed on, not just because of those fateful numbers 9-11 but another number, “24,” and three letters, “CSI.”

“The West Wing” was always able to project itself as a pleasant fantasy against the backdrop of real life. By design, “Studio 60” is very much that kind of show, though it is about TV.

“At its heart, ‘Studio 60′ is the same thing that “The West Wing’ was at its heart and the same thing “Sports Night’ before that was at its heart,” Sorkin told TV critics this summer. “It’s about a group of people committed to professionalism, committed to each other, committed to what they’re doing.”

But “Studio 60” is about more than that, and if you’ll allow me to mildly spoil the first 15 minutes of Monday’s episode, I’ll explain how, and why it doesn’t work for me.

Minutes before a taping of “Studio 60” (the show within this show), longtime executive producer Wes Mendell (Judd Hirsch) is fighting a battle with the network censor over a sketch that ridicules “crazy Christians.” Wes loses; the sketch is cut. Frustrated at his impotence with the network, aware his days are numbered, Wes exits in a blaze of glory, interrupting his own show to deliver a Howard Beale-style tirade while backstage, everyone goes crazy.

“There’s always been a struggle between art and commerce, and now, I’m telling you, art is getting its (keister) kicked,” he rages into the camera. “We’re all being lobotomized by this country’s most influential industry. It’s just thrown in the towel on any endeavor that doesn’t include the courting of 12-year-old boys, and not even the smart ones. . . . We’re pornographers! And it’s not even good pornography!”

I’ve watched this speech half a dozen times, and Hirsch should, if nothing else, get a guest-star Emmy out of it. But it rings false. Sorkin is writing about TV that, if it ever existed, predates the rise TiVo, DVDs and the Internet and the decline of the movie business.

Wes’ replacements, Matt and Danny, the hotshot tandem played by Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford, are brought in. Their network boss (Amanda Peet) makes it clear to them that she wants “Studio 60” to save the show, as well as the mythical National Broadcasting System.

Jokes fly about how bad NBS programs are (alas, I can’t quote the best line). “Studio 60,” the NBS show, will change that, and the inference is that “Studio 60” – the NBC show – is the kind of class act that will make people feel good about TV again, the way “The West Wing” once did.

No doubt there are viewers out there who will buy into this. But how many? I guess Sorkin doesn’t watch a lot of TV, other than HBO, so he may not be aware that each of the four big networks already have amazing, well-written, well-performed shows. Or that all reality TV doesn’t stink. Or that viewers aren’t a bunch of lobotomy patients waiting to be brought back to their senses by Aaron Sorkin.

He used to have a knack for boiling down the culture into a two-minute sermon. I know people who still quote President Bartlet’s tirade against the Dr. Laura stand-in from an early “West Wing” episode.

But Sorkin’s grasp may be slipping. There’s a line in the second episode where one of the writers is obsessed by what “Bernadette’s Blog” is writing about their show.

“The New York Times is going to quote Bernadette to demonstrate that they’re not the media elite,” the character says. “I preferred when they were the media elite.” What is Sorkin smoking? The Times has more people writing about TV than we have writing about the Chiefs.

If Sorkin intends to preach off-key sermons like this every week, “Studio 60” is going to get old fast. I say that with regret. Whitford, Perry, Peet, Steven Weber, D.L. Hughley, Tim Busfield and others turn in great work in service of this uncertain return of one of TV’s most honored creative teams.