By Daniel
As this show starts, Will and Chris are discussing the spelling irregularities in the names of Atlanta Braves outfielder Andruw Jones and sports commentator Cris Collinsworth, and Kim gets in on the act so it goes on for a little while, and this would be annoying except news outlets do sometimes fret over details like that -- as well they should, I suppose, although in the case of one desker at work the other day who spent the better part of half an hour trying to determine whether the N in "Guns 'N Roses" is capitalized, sometimes energy can be better spent in more productive areas, like, say, laying out pages that don't have any stories mentioning Guns 'N Roses.
Elliot wonders aloud why there's a twenty-pound frozen turkey up on the light grid. Sure, it's the tubby guy who sniffs out the food up there. Dan, walking from the set to the control room, repeats Elliot's question to Dana. She says it's twenty-four pounds, like maybe she could have actually answered the damn question. So of course Elliot comes in and now wants to know why there's a twenty-four-pound turkey on the light grid. Dana says she's thawing it out. "Anybody got a problem with that?" she asks, a little snippily, if you ask me. All the Tertiary Characters say it's fine, and Elliot just kind of shrugs and walks away, knowing full well that if anyone else had put a turkey up there, Dana would have been pretty pissed.
So Dana and Natalie starts speaking in hushed tones, because Dana will explain to her buddy Natalie what she's doing but doesn't have the courtesy to tell her staff. Apparently Dana's holding a dry run for Thanksgiving, which is a week away. Her family is coming to visit, and Dana has never cooked for eighteen people before. Kim starts yammering on about how Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks. Well, there's that little mystery solved; I have always wondered exactly what that cryptic word "Thanksgiving" was supposed to express. Then Kim starts talking about some sort of "warm embrace," and I perked up, but we go back to Natalie, who tells Dana, "You don't want to take any crap from your mother," which Dana confirms. Natalie says, "I think you're doing the right thing," which didn't really even make much sense. Then Dana says, "I need to see how long it takes to thaw," which makes even less sense, and I hope this episode's dialogue starts to show some sort of continuity soon instead of just a bunch of non sequiturs all randomly slapped together. Not to mention, I'm no Martha Stewart, but I know how to cook, and unless Dana has a light grid in her kitchen, I don't see how this experiment is going to give her an accurate idea of how long it takes a damn turkey to thaw. I swear, it's getting harder and harder for me to even make it through the happy-fun two-minute opening sequence of this show.
At the desk, Dan asks Casey expectantly if he knows what day it is. It's Monday, November 23rd, Casey reveals, when Dan clearly has something a little more significant in mind. Casey tries to think and comes up with Boston College upsetting Notre Dame (and I don't know what he means, but November 23 was when Doug Flutie threw his famous Hail Mary pass with no time remaining to beat the Miami Hurricanes in the Orange Bowl), Wayne Gretzky scoring his 500th goal (when, as I'm sure everyone knows, it was actually his 600th goal he scored on November 23rd), and then a bunch of guesses about Alberto Salazar winning the New York Marathon, and I have no idea if any of those are true but I'm not going to look it up. Dan's getting more and more pissed off by degrees. Then Dan gets all sulky and tells Casey to forget about it, while Casey tries to cajole Dan into telling him.
In the control room, Kim is smiling at the married couple bickering at the desk when Isaac gives her his daughter's phone number in San Francisco and asks her to keep trying it. Dana asks him if there's a problem, and he says there isn't, but "she's due in ten days" and his wife, Esther, flew out there to be with her, and she should have landed by now but Isaac hasn't heard from either of them. Dana tells everyone to have a good show, then says, "Esther and Cathy are fine, you're going to be a grandfather in ten days, so try not to make everybody crazy." He seems a little worried and reveals that he and Esther had a fight this morning before she left, but he won't say what about.
Casey asks Jeremy what happened on November 23rd. Confidently, Jeremy declaims thusly: "It was on this day in 534 B.C. that Thespis stepped out onto the stage at the Theatre Dionysus during a choral song and dance and became the first man to speak words as an actor in a play." By this time everyone has turned to look at him. Casey says to Dan, "Tell me I was supposed to know that," but Dan, without any humour at all, says he doesn't want to talk about it.
The show intro starts. "Thespis?" says Dana. "The first actor," says Jeremy. "Now a mischievous ghost, he likes to wreak havoc on performances of any kind. I'd brace yourself for a strange show tonight." Dana gets up and says that there will not be a strange show, that it's "locked up tight as a drum"; Jeremy warns her that "Thespis loves a challenge" but eventually gives up trying to convince Dana, even though she does start to look a little apprehensive. Then she falls down. I guess by "strange show," Jeremy meant "annoying show." Dana clomps to her feet and wants to know why she wasn't briefed on this Thespis thing before. And then she decides that as long as they get through the first half-hour, they'll be fine, because that's normally when things go wrong. Which was sort of strange in the sense that she now seems to be buying into this mischievous-ghost thing, but she's setting the parameters of his havoc-wreaking? Anyway, she's determined not to be defeated. Jeremy chuckles at the "mortals" of Sports Night.
Back at the desk, Casey is still trying to figure out November 23 but Danny is in full-on sulk mode, dismissing Casey with the hand and saying, "It's not important." The show starts, and the boys paste on smiles and run down the top stories, then go to commercial. Dana and Natalie note that there are just 28 minutes left to go. You know, until Dana has decreed that this ghost will stop bugging them. Commercials.
Back from commercials, Dan is making fun of soccer again, and since my complaints about Danny dissing sports he doesn't like are almost as tired as the actual dissing, I'll leave it alone.
Well, except to say this. Here is a transcript of Dan's actual highlights: "Blake kicks the ball with high hopes that it will go in the net but it does not." Is it safe to say that Dan's still suffering from the writer's block from the last episode?
In the control room, everyone is trying to work, and Isaac comes in and starts going on about how his son-in-law, Douglas, hasn't rehearsed the route to the hospital. Dana tries to ignore him at first, but then she probably remembers the myriad times she's bugged Isaac with problems even dumber than this one, so she tries to reassure him by pointing out that Douglas is a radar officer in the navy, like, how that prepares someone to drive a woman in the throes of delivery to the hospital is beyond me. It's beyond Isaac too, and he says as much to Dana, who is smiling indulgently at the cute old worried expectant grandfather. Elliot points out the futility in expecting anything remotely relevant from someone thawing out a turkey on the light grid, forcing Dana to hastily change the subject. Kim comes in to tell Isaac his wife is on the phone.
Dan teases a story about the Detroit Red Wings looking to threepeat as Stanley Cup champs, which may not be the most pressing of angles, what with it being only November, making the playoffs five months away. And since I happen to be recapping this episode during the Stanley Cup playoffs, can I just say to all you Dallas Stars fans: Oilers in six. You just watch. Anyway, Danny flubs "Red Wings locker room" by saying "Wed Wings rocker room," which was funny, but everyone reacts like he just said "motherfucker" on the air. He finally corrects himself and they go to commercial. "Thespis?" says Dana to Jeremy. "It's his special day," says Jeremy.
At the desk, Dan finally tells Casey it's their anniversary, confusing Casey a little, but he quickly recovers his sarcasm: "Geez, Danny, that night in Minneapolis with the Jägermeister, we didn't do anything untoward, did we?" Mmmm, Jägermeister. Danny tells him he recited the St. Crispin's Day speech in the lobby of the St. Paul Radisson, which is apparently not so much as untoward as it is embarrassing. No kidding. St. Crispin's Day? Of all the stupid things guys do when they get drunk, that's pretty lame. It reminds me of this time in college when I was in the school bar drinking with some friends, one of whom lived across the hall from me in residence. His nickname was "Wiener," for reasons long and complicated and non-sexual, and therefore too boring, to go into here, but for some reason we started discussing stupid things guys do when we get drunk. You know, public urination, petty vandalism, all that kind of stuff. Wiener mentioned football players head-butting each other and basically beating each other up to prove they could take it. Then Wiener decides that I should punch him to prove that he could take it. I refused at first, but he kept asking me to and I kept getting drunker, so finally I punched him in the head. He's shorter than I am, I hit him in the forehead. Then he said, "Head butts!" and we smacked our foreheads together. He staggers off, and all I could think was that I didn't really get a good punch in, and in my drunken logic figured he wouldn't really know if he could take a punch from me if I didn't really get a good one in. So I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around and I drilled him again. It was okay, though, he didn't mind. But again, I didn't think I hit him really well. So, over the course of the night, I punched him in the head six or seven times, completely horrifying whomever he would happen to be talking to as I would just walk up without warning and then punch him, but Wiener told them it was okay. And also, throughout the evening, Wiener would show up out of nowhere and yell, "Head butts!" and we'd knock our skulls together. So what started out arguably as performance art satirizing the stupid things drunk morons do evolved into actual drunk morons beating the crap out of each other, me more so than him. And despite me thinking that I wasn't hitting him hard enough, reports the day were that I was pounding him pretty hard. This was evident to me the morning when I woke up from the coma and went across the hall and knocked on his door. You know those charts that show the evolution of man from Neanderthal to Homo sapiens? Wiener looked like he belonged right around the middle of that chart, somewhere around Cro-Magnon man. His forehead was swollen and puffy, and I felt pretty stupid. Not nearly as stupid, though, as I would if I recited the St. Crispin's Day speech.
Anyway, it's the fifth anniversary of their first broadcast in Dallas. "What do you want from me?" asks Casey, a little irritatedly. Danny says "nothing" and resumes sulking. Casey says, "Impersonating my ex-wife never won anyone a place in my heart." Dan says the day is important to him, and Casey says it's important to him too, and Danny laughs.
In the control room, everyone starts quizzing Jeremy on mythology, and he starts rattling off the various pastimes and occupations delegated to different gods and goddesses. It was rather impressive. Dana smiles at Natalie as if to say, "Your boyfriend is amazing," and you'd think they just found out Jeremy volunteers three days a week at the hospital reading to terminally ill children, or maybe Natalie had just held up her index fingers about ten inches apart.
At the desk, Danny is still on about it. "I remember what you were wearing. Do you remember what I was wearing?" You know, I am sympathetic to Danny here, but this has gone far enough. "I remember not thinking at the time that you were a woman," says Casey, which made me laugh, so I hope it wasn't too sexist or anything.
Long shot of Dana getting up and handing something to that unnamed woman who sometimes sits to Dave. Dana's about to saying something to Kim when Isaac bursts in and tells Kim to get him on the flight to San Francisco. Kim starts to ask him why, but Isaac just barks "do it!" and runs off. Dana watches him go, worriedly tells Natalie to take over the show, and leaves. Natalie seems momentarily at a loss, but recovers and starts giving orders. "You all right?" asks Jeremy, in an annoying display of chutzpah from the new guy.
In Isaac's office, he's on the phone, telling someone that he's flying in and he'll meet "Mom and your sister" at the hospital. "Honey, don't argue with me," he says. Dana has come in. When Isaac gets off the phone, he tells Dana to go back to the control room, but she wants to know what's going on. "She's having an emergency c-section," says Isaac. "They're doing it right now." Cathy had been cleaning the kitchen when Esther arrived. She doubled over and started screaming. "Bea [Isaac's other daughter] said there was massive internal bleeding." Esther took her to the ER. Dana gets Isaac to sit down while Kim arranges the flight. He wonders why she was cleaning the kitchen when she's nine months pregnant. "She's hoping to make a good impression on her mother," says Dana, half to herself, then asks Isaac if anyone said anything about "placenta previa." "That's what it is," he says. She says it happened to her sister-in-law two weeks before she was due. There was massive hemorrhaging and they rushed her to the hospital, but she was fine. "What about the baby?" asks Isaac. Dana hesitates, then tells him they lost the baby. "But Shelley was fine," she stresses. Isaac ponders this for a few moments and seems to relax a little. "You should get back to the show," he tells Dana. She gets up to leave and says she'll check back in a few minutes. She leaves Isaac alone. Isaac's worry is etched into every line of his face. Robert Guillaume rules.
At the desk, the giant digital studio clock says there's fourteen minutes gone.
Arriving back in the control room, Dana is greeted with a "thank God" from Natalie, who then recites a litany of screw-ups, including potential dead air that was narrowly averted when Casey recited the St. Crispin's Day speech. You see, in broadcasting, even hot air is better than dead air. Oh, and you know what else has gone wrong? ISAAC'S PREGNANT DAUGHTER MIGHT DIE. Jeremy sticks up for Natalie by saying that she did fine, like, way to defend the little woman, Jeremy. Chris says there's water dripping onto the anchor desk. Dana orders Natalie to "get someone up there and find out what's going on." Uh, is this a mystery to anybody?
At the desk, Casey is just making the transition to commercial while Danny puts a cup underneath the dripping water, while looking up to determine where this probably-turkey-scented water could possibly be coming from.
During the commercial break, Dan asks Dana what the hell is going on, and Dana goes into take-charge mode, which I quite like. She says they're having some problems, but nothing they can't handle, and orders everyone to get their heads in the game. She strides onto the set, saying she's not going to be beaten by Thespis: "For one hour every night, this is my little corner of the world and nothing screws up here unless I screw it up!" Looking upwards, she yells, "You got that?" Then she walks over to the desk and demands to know why there's still water dripping on the desk. She, Casey, and Danny all look up, and a turkey lands on the desk. Danny, as calmly as he can but with a hint of irritation, asks Dana if that's her turkey. Dana tries to act as if she doesn't deserve to be reamed out like she would have done to someone else who pulled such a stunt. She gathers up the turkey and walks off, muttering about how she'll be taking crap from her mother. Commercials. The immediate promo for ABC has the inspiring, memorable slogan, "You're watching ABC. Really." That's the spirit!
Back from commercials, the clock shows about eleven and a half minutes left of havoc yet to be wreaked. Dan throws to a press conference about the suspension of a college player, then turns to Casey and says, "Just answer me this," and Casey says, "What are you, the Riddler?" Yet another bon mot from Casey. Danny wants to know what was wrong with Casey during their first show. Casey attributes it to nerves, but Dan says there was more to it than that and wants to know if it had anything to do with the Conan O'Brien show, and Casey brings the hammer down, saying Dan made way too much of that; Casey's name came up a couple of times for the show but he was never seriously considered for the job. Casey goes back live briefly, but I'm not sure how he was able to read the TelePrompTer, what with Dan's glare burning into the side of Casey's head, revealed in a slow circular pan of the desk. After Casey throws to Jack Jankowitz, Dan says Casey was considered for the job and when he didn't get it, he was "stuck doing a little sports show with [Dan] in Dallas." "It was a good show, Danny," says Casey. "Wasn't good enough for Lisa," says Danny, angering Casey, who yells, "Yeah, well what was good enough for Lisa?" Dan wants to know what Casey hasn't told him. Casey ignores him and asks Natalie how much time he has. He finds out he's not on air for almost five minutes, says he's going to stretch his legs, and storms off.
Isaac's watching the show in his office when Casey walks in. "Any news?" says Casey, although Dana only said it was a "family emergency" and didn't give details. "No," says Isaac. Casey asks him if he wants company. Again, no. They sit down. Isaac sits silently for a moment, then points at the monitors and says, "Did a big frozen turkey just fall onto the anchor desk during the last commercial?" Casey says yes. "And why?" asks Isaac. "Aw, Isaac, is there any answer I can give to that question that'll satisfy you?" Isaac sort of chuckles and says no. Casey tells him not to worry about it. Isaac tells Casey about the fight he had with his wife this morning. She said he isn't showing enough enthusiasm about the baby. Casey says that's ridiculous, but Isaac says it isn't. He says he's been feeling his age, was rude to his son-in-law, and told his daughter he was too young to be a grandfather. Damn -- he should talk to my mom, who has practically overnight gone from warning me from getting too serious with any one girl to practically demanding to know when I'm going to start producing grandchildren for her. I usually tell her I'm waiting for the results of a couple of DNA tests and will let her know, which tends to shut her up. Anyway, Casey tells Isaac that he and Danny are having a similar fight now, "only he doesn't know it's about a fight Lisa and I had five years ago." "You've never told him, have you," says Isaac. Casey says no. Isaac says Casey has to learn to let people know how he feels about them. "Why do I have to prove it to him?" asks Casey. "Because he feels like a consolation prize," says Isaac. "He's not." "Tell him." Isaac says he should make a gesture. "It's a small price to pay for what you get in return. For what you get in return, it's a steal." Isaac fixes himself a drink, and when he turns, Casey is right in front of him. "What?" says Isaac. "I was going to hug you," says Casey. Isaac grimaces. "Oh, please don't," he says. "As a gesture!" says Casey. Isaac laughs and says okay and they hug, but I bet Isaac didn't spill a drop from his tumbler of scotch.
In the control room, Dana is whining about her mother, calling this the "Thanksgiving of Mom's Disapproval," which includes such hits as "Why aren't you married?" and "Sports is no place for a woman" and "Didn't anyone ever tell you how to cook a turkey?" Jeremy says she may have a point on the last one. She presses him for more information on Thespis, wondering what his mission is. Jeremy says the mission of most ghosts is to teach humility. "They point out what's important by mocking what is not," he says. Dana says she's not sold, just as Casey goes back live. Elliot hangs up the phone and says the broadcast centre called, warning them to expect some trouble with their transmitter within the couple of minutes. "What kind of trouble?" says Dan. Immediately, the screens on all the televisions behind Elliot turn to snow. After a long pause, Dana says, "Well, that was certainly uncalled for," and punches Jeremy in the arm. He starts whining. She wants to know why Thespis is picking on them, and wonders what she ever did to Thespis to bother him like this. "I just wanted to make a nice Thanksgiving dinner!" she says. "Well, not exactly," says Jeremy. She wants to know what he means, and he seems to think better of it and says, "It's none of my business," a phrase that is completely foreign to Dana. They scoot off into the side room, where he gives her the lecture all about how Dana and her mother really do love each other, which is really what matters. Zzzzzzz. Dana says, "For a guy who's read The Hobbit fourteen times, you're not so dumb," which was pretty funny. And yet so sad. Casey stomps in, crying because he's not on television right now. Of course, since Dana has just now realized What's Important, she can't really be arsed to do anything about it. Natalie soothes Casey by telling him that the power grid is down and will be back up in a few minutes, and he should get back to the desk. "There's not going to be any more poultry falling down?" he says, which was kind of funny. Natalie shrugs and says, "Who can say?" which was also pretty funny.
Back at the desk, Casey tells Danny about the power grid. Then he says, "I was going to buy you some flowers on the way back from the control room," and how nice to see Isaac's speech had such an effect on Casey. Dan points out he already dropped that, and starts to say something, but Casey interrupts and tells him they offered Casey the Conan show. Danny is stunned. "And you passed," says Danny. "Yeah," says Casey. "You passed on your own network show. To work with me in Dallas." "Yeah." Casey says it was clear the sports show was going national. "No, it wasn't," says Dan. Then Danny makes the connection that Lisa must have been furious. "She wasn't happy," admits Casey. "Was that the beginning of the end?" asks Dan, quietly. Casey says it was. Dan ponders, then shakes his head and says, "Casey, Casey..." and Casey starts to thank him for the "fond wishes," whatever that means, but Danny interrupts him and says, "Are you stupid?" and upbraids him for passing up the show. Danny says Casey would have been great, but Casey shakes his head and says he would have been embarrassing. "That is flat-out not true," says Danny. "What did that woman do to your confidence? How many hits did you have to take to your ego?" Putting aside the seriousness of this discussion, I will says Casey's ego seems to have recovered quite nicely. Before Casey can answer, Dana shows up and tells them they're about to go back on. Danny says again that Casey would have been great. Casey looks at him thoughtfully. "Thank you," he says. "You're very good on this show," says Danny. "Oh, yeah, I know," says Casey, but it was jokingly said, so it's okay. "But thanks for saying so. I appreciate the gesture." They high-five. Well, actually it's a side-five.
Dana tells some technical guys they're going to be three minutes long. She turns and sees Isaac walking toward her, looking grim. She says, "Tell me what happened." He grins, whips out a cigar, and says, "I got a six-pound, eight-ounce grandson named Matthew and his mother's doing just fine." Relieved, Dana shrieks and hugs him, saying that's the best news she's ever heard. Dave calls to her that the studio's back, so Dana drags Isaac over to the set and tells everyone the good news. The gang crowds, Casey says "congratulations" and Danny says "mazel tov," and Isaac gives them both cigars, and they stick them in their mouths and smile at each other idiotically. Isaac wants to know why they're not on the air. Dana babbles on about "technical difficulties" and "paranormal interference" and the "mythological penalty box," and Isaac wants to know what the hell she's talking about. Elliot strolls in and says he just got a phone call that told him Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford were accepting a humanitarian award (I guess this episode aired before Kathie Lee released her album) at a function across town when Kathie Lee slipped and fell face-first into a bowl of tapioca. Who are Elliot's idiot friends that they would call him in the middle of his show to tell him this? Anyway, Dana says, "Ladies and gentlemen, Thespis has left the building!" Everybody cheers. Then the camera pulls away from the desk, and Dan and Casey are using their customary all-of-this-episode's-crises-are-resolved-and-we're-bringing-it-on-home voices, and we see the giant digital studio clock, just past thirty minutes.