Comedy Central is showing back-to-back episodes of ‘Sports Night’ on Thursdays. I never saw the show when it was on network TV (ABC I think). Then I found out it’s by the same guy who does ‘West Wing’ who was the same guy who did ‘A Few Good Men’ (Aaron Sorkin). So I fiqured I’d watch an episode. And now I’m hooked!!!
I love this show. Very well written. I tape it so as not miss the rapid-fire dialouge. I have a crush on the woman who plays Dana. How could I have missed this show till now???
I’m afraid that I’ve been spoiled by The West Wing. I see a lot of what I love about WW in Sports Night, except that it’s less polished. The snappy back-and-forth isn’t as crackly, the sharp characters aren’t quite as well-defined, and the tight storylines are a little looser. I’ve watched every episode of The West Wing from the beginning, though, and I’ve only seen a few isolated episodes of Sports Night, so I’m sure that has something to do with it.
Though I love TWW (favorite WW episode: Dead Korean War veteran in the park), I’m getting slightly tired of the little-bit-too-snappy, rapid-fire repartee. Sometimes it seems to be rapid-fire for its own sake. Being “less polished,” Sports Night didn’t take the snappy banter to such an extreme.
I liked Sports Night from the get-go, despite the laughtrack. Fell in love with it when they dumped the laughtrack. (Gotta love a show that trusts its audience to know when to laugh.)
Favorite episode: Waiting for the climbers to summit Everest.
“Sports Night” rules. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch “The West Wing” because its success is why “Sports Night” was canceled – Aaron Sorkin didn’t feel like he could keep two shows at the level of quality that he wanted, so he had to pick one, and it was “The West Wing.”
I love Sports Night, but haven’t been able to watch it due to my work schedule. Once I move and get on a better schedule, I can watch it to my heart’s content.
There are many, many reasons why SportsNight was cancelled, highest among them was that NO ONE WATCHED IT.
(Ok, some people watched. I watched. Unfortunately, I’m not a Nielsen household, so I don’t count.) Anyway, it was killed in the ratings week after week. Not only that, but lost it’s lead in - apparently the Dharma & Greg audience didn’t like SN, so they changed channels or turned off the TV.
Also, ABC never trusted the show (the laugh track coming on and going off, and coming back again) and kept interfering. They then yanked it from the schedule at random times (sweeps was always questionable, but even other times, it would be advertised or make it into TV Guides and just not shown), so you had to really want to watch in order to see it, otherwise you wouldn’t know whether it was on any given Tuesday.
Eventually (and not unsurprisingly) it got cancelled. (in fact, I was shocked, but happy, when it got a second seasons). But it wasn’t until months after cancellation, and a lot of talks and rumors of talks of many other stations picking up the show that Sorokin finally announced that he was only going to do West Wing.
I loved Sports Night. My whole family would sit around the TV to watch it (a rare thing in my house). I tried to preach the gospel to friends at school, and was deeply disappointed (although not surprised) when they cancelled it.
Oh, and Dana’s real name is Felicity Huffman. She’s married to William H. Macy, who did some guest spots as the outside ratings guy who got on everyone’s nerves, although Dana did kiss him a few episodes after he first appeared.
This is why I think it failed on network TV. It was very hard to follow because of the speed, and nobody wants to have to tape a TV show and watch it again just to understand what the heck happened. I watched the very first episode on network TV, I always like to give new shows a fair chance before I decide not to watch them. Anyway, a lot of people must have shared this opinion, because it failed almost as fast as the animated Clerks show.
And Casey is a BABE.