Saturday Show Recommendation

 Sports Night.  Sports Night was an Aaron Sorkin show that ran on ABC from 1998-2000.  The show centered around a SportsCenter (ESPN) type show on the fictional CSC network and all the happenings that went on behind the scenes.  Much like many of Sorkin's shows it was often shot with long single takes, very seamless dialogue bits and contained a whole lot of wit and humor.

The show starred many future big names on primetime TV, notably: Felicity Huffmann (Desperate Housewives) as Dana Whittaker the show's producer, Josh Charles (The Good Wife) as Dan Rydel - one half of the two man anchor team, and Peter Krause (Parenthood) as Casey McCall - the other half of that bro-some.

Besides the wonderful cast, which also included Josh Malina and Robert Guillaume, the show had a freshness to it that I still find true today.  The situations, while often overstated, always seemed applicable to something I was feeling or going through at the time.  In a way, it was a show that was about sports - but it was also about everything BUT sports.  It was about people, their interactions with each other, and their lives at home and work.  It was about office life, deadlines and work competition.  It was had a great love story that ran through it and it had a great friendship by which each episode was measured.  It was a show that mixed both comedy and drama and put that all into 25 minutes of airtime each week.  I think this was one of the reasons it was so short-lived...people weren't ready to deal with such a mature show at that time.  Nowadays I think a show like this would find a much larger audience.  In some ways, the show was just too far ahead of its time.  

Also, Dan Rydell really gets my feelings on soccer:




One slightly annoying part of the show is the laughtrack that they felt was needed in the first season.  It drops out somewhere along the way (I can't quite remember when) and when it does, the show is without flaw - in my not so humble opinion.  

To be honest, I never watched Sports Night when it was actually on.  I believe that it was on Comedy Central (or some other channel on which it was syndicated) that I first became acquainted with its genius.  Sports Night is constantly listed as one of the best unknown shows and one of the best shows ever to have been canceled.  So do yourself a favor: order the box set from Amazon.  Or download it illegally.  Or watch it all on youtube (yes, it's all out there).  Or ask me if you can borrow my copy sometime...it is well worth getting your hands on and devoting a bit of time to watching.

Until the next episode...
Chris