NBC-TV has trailed the other three networks in the ratings for a while because it runs really bad shows – like “Deal or No Deal” – and cancels really good shows – like “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.”

NBC has taken up residence in the cellar, because Brandon Tartikoff and Grant Tinker, the supreme showmen who once ran the network, have been succeeded by a series of gamesmen, who behave as if they know everything, but apparently don’t know that a TV network is only as good as the people who make its programs.

Unlike the gamesmen, showmen Tartikoff and Tinker loved what they did, loved the medium and its extraordinary potential, loved the writer-producers and actors who made the shows and had great respect for their audience. They were bold, brilliant and devoted men, who worked very hard, and took it very seriously, but never took themselves seriously. When they made mistakes, which they sometimes did, they were the first to admit it.

Tartikoff and Tinker would have been crazy about Aaron Sorkin, who created and wrote virtually all the episodes of the first five seasons of “The West Wing,” and was the creator -writer-producer of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” which was unceremoniously dropped off NBC’s schedule some
weeks ago.

Talent is in Sorkin like muscle and bone. He’s an extraordinary writer, an exuberant storyteller, an original – inimitable, abundant — and he’s just begun.

Somewhere in Burbank there are six unshown episodes of “Studio 60.” One of them will be shown Thursday night at 10 p.m. on NBC-TV, channel 4. Maybe the other five will follow.