Sports Night (#6)

"You're watching Sports Night on CSC, so stick around." Words I wish more people listened to...

Everybody has a comfort show - or, at least, folks who watch a decent amount of TV does. That’s a show that they put on when they’re feeling sick, or maybe a little depressed, and need a pick me up. Per a thread on Reddit, a lot of shows I’ve never watched show up here (guess I need to watch The IT Crowd) but for me, there’s an easy answer: Sports Night.

You may have never heard of it, or even if you have you likely haven’t seen it, because it only ran for two seasons and has rarely been widely available on streaming services. (It IS on Amazon Prime, though to rent/buy.)

So, what is it? It’s Aaron Sorkin’s first TV show, which takes place at what is a lightly veiled proxy for ESPN’s “SportsCenter.” The two main anchors are Casey McCall (Peter Krause, who we saw earlier in Six Feet Under) and Dan Rydell (Josh Charles), and their producers are Dana Whitaker (Felicity Huffman), Natalie Hurley (Sabrina Lloyd) and Jeremy Goodwin (Joshua Malina). Their boss is Isaac Jaffe (Robert Guillaume) and it’s worth pointing out that Isaac Jaffe seems like the name you’d write for, say, Judd Hirsch, and yet not once during the show did I wonder why an older black man would possibly be named Isaac Jaffe.

Each show has its own contained plot (will the show successfully show a team summiting Mt. Everest? What will happen when Jeremy “gets the call”? Why is the wardrobe team mad at Dan and Casey and not giving them pants?) but there are, of course, continuing story lines.

Dana, Casey and Josh have worked together for years from smaller shows to this big break at CSC, and it’s clear that Casey, despite getting a divorce just prior to the shows beginning, is in love with Dana, who knows it but keeps getting strung along and is trying to move on. Dan has issues from childhood (in a theme we see Sorkin repeat through his other shows) and Natalie and Jeremy also couple up.

And yet, none of that is really why I love the show so much. In a pattern that repeats through Sorkin’s TV shows, what all these characters have in common is the passion for what they do. They LOVE sports, they LOVE their boss Isaac and everything else is secondary - in a way that makes me, at least, wish to have just one job that I feel even close to this about. (Though at this point, that ship has sailed - please send winning lottery tickets to this substack.)

The humor is excellent, and smart, and the rest of the writing was a keen insight into what we could expect from Sorkin. This quote is one that makes sense in context for its episode but is also just damn good life advice:

Another line that I insist is one of the funnier moments in the show is this, when rumors start that Isaac is thinking about retiring:

Isaac Jaffe: Let me start by saying that: Dana, what I say in my office stays in my office.

Dana Whitaker: Natalie's my number 2, she's the only one I told.

Natalie Hurley: Jeremy's my boyfriend, and he's the only one I told.

Jeremy Goodwin: I told many, many people.

(You might have to watch the episode. But, Joshua Malina agrees.)

(((Joshua Malina))) @JoshMalina

Mine was Aaron’s “I told many, many people.”

Lex Friedman @lexfri

@JoshMalina I never knew that, but “two people” was my favorite line in all of Sports Night.

The main cast is so talented - those are all hitters who have gone on to other great successes, with the small exception for Sabrina Lloyd who decided to stop acting. (She was so charming and adorable as Natalie - and incredibly annoying, too, it should be said - that I feel sure she would have found plenty of other work.) But the actors who came on to play other multi-episode arcs are just as impressive. Lisa Edelstein is incredible as Bobbi Bernstein, the reporter Dan is sure is crazy because she insists they slept together in college. William H. Macy shines as Sam Donovan, the ratings expert hired to turn the show around. Brenda Strong is great as Sally Sasser, the producer of the late show who is “so good looking I’m not convinced she’s human” per Dan Rydell. (Casey’s quote that “her legs do go ALL the way to the ground” is one I’ve never quite understood though.) Teri Polo, Ted McGinley (yes, the curse of Ted McGinley was in full effect here) and Kayla Blake also had major roles.

“I turned into quite the babe, didn’t I?”

When Season 2 started, Sorkin also started another show you actually may have heard of called The West Wing. Spoiler Alert: We’ll discuss that show later. It for sure impacted the quality of Sports Night (though some of my favorite episodes of the series are in Season 2), and the show was cancelled by ABC. (Ironically, or perhaps due to a “write what you know,” the threat of being cancelled was a continuous plotline of the show itself.)

Sorkin has tried with the “backstage” element of other shows, like sketch comedy with Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip or The Newsroom. I ended up actively disliking both of those shows - they were very self-important, preachy and most importantly not funny or dramatic. He’s written some tremendous films like A Few Good Men, The American President, Moneyball, Social Network, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and even Molly’s Game. The guy has serious chops, but his TV success was largely confined to this and The West Wing. And yet, every time I hear rumors that he’s working on a new TV show I get excited beyond reason. It’s largely because of Sports Night.

Here’s the list we have thus far. This project is obviously going to take enough time that I’ll probably want to redo it immediately, but such is the fun with lists.