Thanks to zapatos for providing me with tapes of Season 1.
Sports Night kicks off with sports show lingo in the control room. On this first episode, we see the regular cast of characters we've all come to know and despise. There's even an extra bald Tertiary Character whom we've never seen before. I mean, I realize this is the first episode of the first season, so if I'd been doing these recaps from the start, all these people would be new to me, but I'm not going to pretend I haven't already done a full season's worth of recaps. The bald guy is sitting where Dave normally sits, so this doesn't bode well for Dave being in the show. Chris is checking something, and Dana is asking Natalie to get her Judy in Alameda.
At the desk, Dan and Casey are being fussed over by the fluffers. Danny is telling Casey that Casey needs to get out of his house. Casey points out that he has in fact been out of his house for six months: "I don't live at my house," he says. Casey's hair is way more skater-ish in this first episode. It's brushed to the side and I think it's longer; it practically covers his right eye, and he looks more like one of the Thompson Twins than a sports show anchor.
Isaac shows up in the control room, and because this is the first episode, we get to hear people's full names used a lot to establish the characters, which is still a pretty weak reason to get Dana to say, "Isaac Jaffee's in the house." Yes, yes, y'all, and you don't stop. Dana tells Natalie to ask the boys something, so she yells into the microphone. Casey does this really annoyingly over-exaggerated reaction to it. And he bitches about the decibel level at which the human head will explode. Isaac wants to know if Casey's in a better mood than he was this morning. So Dana asks him, and he tells her to "shut up." "Pretty crappy, yeah," she tells Isaac. The bald TC gets a line, like, shut up, you bald not-Dave TC.
Dan, looking over his script, has a question about the segment about unnamed Swiss Olympic officials commenting on Helsinki's Olympic bid. Dana wants to know what the problem is. "Helsinki's in Finland," he says. Dana wants to know if he's sure, and Dan seems a little annoyed that she would even question him. Will and Chris bitch about this mistake a little, and now Casey is trying to convince everybody that Helsinki is in Finland, and he does so by yelling, because, oh yeah, we're supposed to be able to tell on the first episode ever of this show that Casey is out of sorts, even though we would have had no other experience with Casey to compare this with. And no one gets mad at him for yelling while he's miked like he did with Natalie. Natalie yells at Elliot to "get something up on the 'net" to find out if Helsinki's in Finland. First of all, how is it that only Casey and Dan know where Helsinki is? Helsinki is in goddamned Finland. Second, it's called an atlas. You have no idea how that "get something up on the 'net" line annoyed me. And, at this point, without subjecting myself to hate mail from Sports Night fans, I'd like to say that if I'd seen this first episode when it was originally on, I would have switched channels about now and I doubt I would have ever come back to it. Before I did the recaps, I thought I had seen the pilot. But it was the second episode I saw, where Dan has to apologize for his comments on marijuana.
Anyway, Dan, in the midst of all this Helsinki hubbub, is trying to get Casey to come out with him tonight. Casey says he doesn't need a "cruise director." Having never seen Sports Night before, one could wonder if "cruise director" was some sort of euphemism as far as Dan's sexuality is concerned, because Dan then gets bitchy-quiet and says, "Forget I said anything." The show goes live. When Casey says the "You're watching Sports Night, so stick around," he cheesily points at the camera. Commercial break. Elliot, who I'm assuming got something up on the 'net, confirms that Helsinki's in Finland. Good thing that didn't take like half an hour or anything, Elliot. Also, the national bird is the whooping swan. Oh, that Elliot and his national birds! Dan and Casey, in unison, look up from the desk and say, "Thank you." From this shot, we see that Dan doesn't have pants on. Wow! Good job! Already, we can tell that Casey is the serious stuffed-shirt type and Dan's the insouciant merrymaker! What a crazy pair! Commercials.
The day, Dan is collecting money from people in the newsroom for some bet he won, and he's also slapping high fives all around. Casey tells him that "Jason Grissom got arrested in a strip bar in Houston last night," and that Kim and Elliot are on it. Dan asks them what's up. Kim says, "He shot twelve for fifteen from the field and then he went to the Silver Key," which she says is a nude nightclub. Elliot grouchily says, "Topless only," and Kim gives him a bit of a look. Dan gives them some helpful instructions for getting the story like, "Get Grissom on the phone," and Kim says they can't do it. Nice attitude, Kim.
Dan walks into his office and Casey makes a comment about Grissom having a career-high 32 points and then sending a guy to the hospital. "Can you imagine if he'd had a lousy game?" asks Casey. Dan chuckles, then asks Casey if he came in early. Casey says he did, but Dan doesn't believe him, and Dan's theory is that Casey slept in the office. Casey calls him "Mom." Then Dan asks if he's told Casey about his New York renaissance and Casey says he has, "A lot." Natalie comes in with tapes of last night's show. She asks, "What's up?" Dan says, "Grissom's free on bail, Casey slept in the office, and I am having a New York renaissance." Natalie says "cool" and then tells them the rundown meeting's in five minutes.
Isaac and Dan walking and talking. Isaac says, "I think the show's going to hell in a handbasket and I'm ready to fire the whole bunch of you." He doesn't sound like he's entirely joking. Actually, he doesn't sound like he's joking at all. Dana, instead of promising to get everybody back on track, tells Isaac he won't fire them, because they're like a family here and she's very much like a daughter to him. He corrects her: "This is a television show here and you're very much like an employee to me." Dana says Casey needs to be given some slack. I think Casey needs a smack. Or maybe he needs some smack. Isaac wants to know why, and Dana hesitates. Isaac says if she can't tell him why, he can't tell the network. She stutters a bit, so Isaac asks if there's something going on between the two of them. She says, "Absolutely not, but the bulk of the forty-odd episodes until we're cancelled will revolve around that very question." Well, no. But she says Casey's having some personal problems. Isaac spazzes a little here and says he knows all about Casey's problems and the network knows all about Casey's problems and therefore they're becoming Isaac's problems and blah blah blah. They enter the meeting room.
In the meeting room, Dan is still going on about his New York renaissance and how he's lived in New York his whole life, so he should be sick of it, but he's not. Fascinating. You'd think he'd be sick of the sound of his own voice, too, but apparently he isn't. Casey tells him that "nobody cares," in a manner that is obviously supposed to be Grouchy Asshole Casey, but I agree with Casey here. Isaac wants to know how to avoid these Helsinki mishaps in the future. The answer is "by not being a bunch of idiots," but Dana blames it on being shorthanded since "Phil and Michael" left. She says Natalie has been interviewing people for an associate producer position, and Dana's meeting the finalist this afternoon. Natalie then says, "You guys, he is so totally cute and intense, with a dark mystery about him that says, 'this is not a technician, this is an artist.'" Oh, good lord. You know, Natalie, since your boss and her boss and the network representative are present, and since your boss blamed the problem on being shorthanded, you might want to pretend you picked this guy based on competency, not on how badly you want to jump him. I'm just saying. Furthermore, since you are presumably older than thirteen, please don't open any more statements with, "You guys, he is so totally cute," especially not during a work meeting. I mean, really. Everybody gives Natalie funny looks. Not because of her unprofessionalism, but because of her "this is an artist" comment. Isaac growls at her to make sure the guy can find Helsinki on a map. Cut to a shot of Elliot weeping in the corner because his Web-surfing expertise is not valued very highly.
Dan tries to start in on his renaissance again, but no one is interested, and Dana starts going over the rundown. We get this weird shot where it looks like J.J. and Dana are making eyes at each other. Or maybe she's nervous in his presence at the meeting. We get meaningless dialogue about a placekicker who's going to be cut from the Bengals since, Casey says, "he can't kick." And he repeats it a bunch of times, and Kim and Natalie talk about what a nice guy he is and other pointless stuff as Sorkin works really hard to show us his snappy dialogue where people never shut up, but amazingly, two people never speak at the same time, and the only pausing is for that tool-of-Satan laugh track present during Sports Night's first season. Casey acts like an asshole, Dan talks about how the city never sleeps. Weird shot of J.J. looking up. You'd think he'd be mad at how nothing is getting done, but he looks like the new kid in school just trying to take it all in.
Dana says something about "on to segment twenty-four," and J.J. says he wants to go back to segment twenty-three. Dana wants to move things along, but J.J. says the network would like him to address it now. Dan makes a snarky comment about how, since Dana's the executive producer, they like to let her pretend she's in charge. "I have some concerns about segment twenty-three," says J.J. "Is this you or the network?" asks Casey. "In these meetings, Casey, mine is the voice of the network," says J.J. His air of superiority hangs heavy in the air. Casey says, "Wow, J.J.!" Uh, touché, Casey, touché. Dana rather pleasantly asks what J.J.'s concerns are. "Who is Ntozake Nelson?" Natalie explains that Nelson is a South African distance runner, 15,000 metres. He led protests against the white majority. J.J. says, "That's swell, but..." but Natalie won't let him cut her off and says, "He was beaten up and thrown in jail. His legs were broken and the doctor said he'd never walk without a cane. He's 41 years old and guess what he's doing tonight," says Natalie. "It doesn't matter since I've already changed the channel," says J.J. Well, isn't that a meta-comment and a half. Casey looks pissed. Dana says Nelson is running the World Pacific Games (whatever), an event that CSC is carrying live tonight. J.J. is pleased they're "spotlighting" other programs, but asks if they can't find a good-looking 22-year-old American who might actually win. Dana says if they do, they should send him to her place. Good example she sets for Natalie. No wonder they're hiring an associate gigolo instead of a producer. J.J. starts lecturing them about his ratings book that is very instructive about their "key demographics," including 11-to-17-year-olds who watch their morning rerun over breakfast and do not want to see features on 41-year-old "clinically oppressed" Third-World distance runners. Is "clinically oppressed" supposed to be a clever play on "clinically depressed"? Or is it a screw-up? Hard to tell. Dan and Casey roll their eyes nonstop. Casey gets handed a message by an extra. He stands up, saying he has Jason Grissom on the phone, but stays long enough to say this to J.J.: "Danny and I have hosted shows in the fifth- and third-largest markets in the country and we've received awards for journalistic excellence. I prefer not to take my instructions from 11-year-olds. And the time you sit in on our rundown meeting, I hear the voice of the network come out of your mouth, I'm going to put my foot on your throat." Then stone-cold Casey stalks off.
Nobody says anything. Dana watches Isaac. J.J. contemplates Casey's threat. Dan leans over to him and says, "You ever ride the subway all day long, just for the fun of it?" I think this is him talking about his renaissance again. The laugh track found that line hilarious, but it did nothing for me. J.J. asks everyone but Dan, Isaac, and Dana to leave. All the TCs plus a couple of extra TCs who are never heard from again are banished from the room (after Dana says, "Go ahead"). She apologizes for Casey's performance at meetings lately, but J.J. says he isn't concerned about that; he's concerned about Casey's performance on-air. He says that right now, Casey's got less on-air charm and charisma than his high-school driving instructor. How long has he been waiting to use that one? He tells Dan it's time to think about doing the show with another partner. Of course, Dan refuses and leaves, saying he's going to pretend this conversation never happened.
Isaac sarcastically tells J.J. he admires how J.J. manhandled his staff, and J.J. starts to say something but Isaac points at him and says, "Don't take me on." Isaac's "don't take me on" is infinitely more menacing than Casey's "foot on your throat" threat. "The network's not going to wait forever," says J.J. Yeah, because the network's too old just to be having fun. So if Casey's not in this thing for the long haul, maybe they should just break up now. J.J. leaves. Isaac says to Dana, "It's your call. But pretty soon it's going to be my call. 'Cause here's the thing: I can't let it be their call." He does not look happy. He leaves. Dana throws up her hands and says "yeah." Commercials.
When we come back, Jeremy is sitting on a couch in the newsroom. Dana comes striding by, muttering about how she can't get a decent satellite signal from Buenos Aires. Jeremy says, "Excuse me, ma'am?" and he starts getting into his trademark weather-geek mode, talking about some sort of high-pressure system that will blow over in a couple of hours and the satellite signal will be all right. Dana discusses it for a bit and then annoyingly asks, "Who, who, who is this?" to the rest of the newsroom as the laugh track tells us that was really funny. He introduces himself, and she realizes he's the guy here for the associate producer job. I can't believe she couldn't tell it was him from his so-totally-cuteness. Jeremy does this elaborate bow and "what an honour" and all this kind of crap, but she tells him she's not ready for the interview, so he sits down and looks really nervous while she leaves.
She walks into Casey's office, and he asks her to take thirty seconds off the NFL injury report so he can have it for a thing on ACC recruiting violations. She says "fine" and then, "You're screwing up my show, Casey." He tells her to keep the thirty seconds. Then we get "that's not what I meant" and "I was joking" and "I know" and blah blah, and he says if she came in to give him a pep talk (yeah, most pep talks I've received included the phrase "you're screwing up," but whatever), can they just pretend she already gave it to him and blah blah blah some more. I know Sorkin's been pretty successful with The West Wing, and I'm no television screenwriter or anything, but can I suggest that if you want to build an audience, you want viewers to care about the characters, don't you? Or at least like them? And having said that, was it really a good idea to have most of the Sports Night characters come across as a bunch of cranky assholes in its very first episode? Just a thought.
Anyway, Dana says, "Now, I know you think that there are 250 people in this business who can produce this show..." but Casey interrupts her to deny this. She goes on about how she has the job and she loves it and she loves the rush. "I love doing Sports Night," she says, "and you used to too." She seems really mad, and as she walks out she yells "Natalie!" and Natalie says "yo!" and Dana says, "Let's meet with your guy." Natalie is very excited as they go back over to where Jeremy is.
Jeremy gets hired.
scene, Danny is at the desk, reading his script...
What? You want more on Jeremy? Aw, come on. See, I think what happened with this scene is that the network decided that Jeremy was going to be the main source of comic relief, in the absence of a wacky neighbour they could use a la Kramer or, um, Urkel. And this must have been the big comedy scene for the pilot, because all the gestures and movements and delivery were really exaggerated in this scene -- approaching slapstick territory, I'm not kidding. And the laugh track goes wild during this scene, which is irritating, for no more reason that the obviousness that it is a laugh track. And it was really fucking annoying. I know Sars and Wing Chun don't want us to swear a whole lot in these recaps, and I don't use "fuck" a whole lot, but it's warranted here. This scene would have been nice without the laugh track. As it is, it made my head bleed.
All right. Here goes. Dana starts by saying that Jeremy has an impressive résumé. And as the three of them sit down, Natalie tells Jeremy he looks nervous and offers to get him a drink, like water or a soda, et cetera. Jeremy declines, but Dana says as long as Natalie's taking orders, she'll have some angel-hair pasta and a nice Merlot. Hey, that's it! I should be drinking! Ah, sweet alcohol numbs the pain. Dana and Natalie start to bicker in that over-exaggerated-as-a-concession-to-sitcomminess style I mentioned earlier. Jeremy offers to come back later, which immediately puts Dana and Natalie back on track, and the Three Stooges sit down again. Dana asks Jeremy what his favourite sport is. He says football, so she decides to quiz him on basketball. "Shot of bourbon?" offers Natalie, like, she's already trying to get Jeremy drunk during his interview, for God's sake. Dana tells Jeremy to name three things the Knicks need to do to make it to the finals. Jeremy would like another question, but Dana wants an answer to this one first. Jeremy looks like he's going to explode -- he's breathing heavily, and he starts by saying, "Miss Whitaker, I would be great at this job, I've been training my whole life for it." Here we go -- here's the speech that makes my stomach clench up with the unnecessary laugh track absolutely slathered on like tomatoes on good bruschetta. Jeremy gets up, gets louder with each sentence, and the laugh track builds as well as Jeremy talks about how he was the equipment manager for all his high school teams, he's read every box score in every English-language newspaper, and he's watched Sports Night every day since it first went on the air. He nails the show's longevity to the day: two years, two months and a week ago today. He's pointing and flailing and he looks insane. I've strapped two bottles of Merlot to my foam dome and I'm going to suck it back until I sweat purple.
Natalie looks enraptured; Dana looks strangely nonplused. Both should display a degree of fear akin to that of the first movie audiences to see The Exorcist. As you might guess, Jeremy sprinkles some Knicks insights into his tirade, and the unholy marriage of Sports Night and canned laughter is consummated as Jeremy yells, "But if you're looking for genuinely sophisticated analyses, and I SENSE THAT YOU ARE," and here the laugh track just erupts and Jeremy pauses. How unbelievably frustrating it must have been for Jeremy to be told to pause here, because later they're going to dub in fake wild yelling and applauding. Not as irritating for me to have to watch it several fucking times for the recap, though. Sorry, Sars. ["I feel you, dude." -- Sars] Jeremy calms down and asks for more time, sits back down, and the "audience" applauds.
Then Jeremy asks if anything he said made any sense, and Dana says she wasn't really listening, and Jeremy starts to get apoplectic again, but Dana reins him in and tells him if he wants to work here, he has to not spontaneously wig out. I guess only Dana is allowed that luxury. Jeremy calms down again and says, "The Knicks," and Dana says, "Name three things," and she says it in sign language at the same time (or fakes it. How the hell would I know?). But what was weird was when she did it, she said "name three things" with a bit of a deaf voice (at the risk of coming off like Aaron Eckhart in In The Company Of Men). And I can't believe that made it on the air. Anyway, Jeremy comes up with "improve their free-throw percentage" and "run the floor." Nice generic advice that could apply to any team. I thought his third valuable insight might be "score more baskets than the other team," but he says, "Tell Spike Lee to sit down and shut up?"
Jeremy gets hired. I have taken up smoking to settle my nerves.
scene; Dan is on the set, practising his script. Casey strolls in and offers a suggestion to remove an unintentional rhyme in one of his lines. But Casey's got bigger things on his mind -- he tells Dan he's thinking about leaving the show for good. Dan asks if Casey got an offer, and Casey clarifies that he's thinking about getting out of sports, period. Dan wants to know why. Casey says he's tired of it. "Tired of what?" says Dan. Casey points to the story they're following on Jason Grissom. "So, Jason Grissom's a jackass," says Danny. But Casey says he got into the business to get people to like sports and he's turned into a "PR man" for "punks and thugs." It was ever thus, Casey, you just didn't know. He references Tonya Harding, Grissom again, then "and let's not forget the mother of all great sports stories, a double homicide in Brentwood." Dan says this isn't really what Casey needs to talk about, the moral decay in sports. Casey insists that it is the problem, because he has a seven-year-old son who looks up to these athletes (and since Casey only gets to see his son once a week, they're also Charlie's male role models six days a week). Dan tries sarcasm: "Well, quitting your job ought to do the trick." Casey gets pissed. Dan also says if he quits, sports will be good again and his wife will take him back. This sounds a little like the joke about playing a country song backwards. Then Dan asks if Casey's mental. Casey starts to stomp off and Dan says, "One thing you definitely don't want to do? Is talk to your friends, you know, I wouldn't do that." So Casey comes back so they can argue some more.
Casey says anyone would kill to do the show with him. Then they start getting into more personal stuff. Dan says he has kept his mouth shut because that's what Casey wanted. "But if you'd have asked me? I'd have told you that Lisa is an angry, unhappy, punishing woman and in ten years there has never been a single moment that has suggested to me that she as any affection for you at all." Damn. Casey looks a little taken aback at this. "And I have no patience for people like that," says Dan. Then he reminds Casey that he's surrounded by people who like him, and he has done nothing but show them the back of his hand. He asks if Casey's noticed that Dana has kept the network away from him with a whip and a chair. "And do you really think, my friend, that it has that much to do with your talent?" As Dan reads Casey the riot act, Kim comes in to try to talk to them, but Dan keeps yelling. Finally Dan snaps at her and she tells them there's something going on that they have to see. Dan and Casey look at each other for a second, then hustle to the newsroom.
On the monitors is the long-distance race -- there's one runner far ahead of the pack. Anyone want to guess who's winning? The entire staff is rapt, watching the screens. Lucky Dan showed up, because no one thought to turn on the audio until he screeched for it, while Casey starts saying, "That time can't be right!" As the race enters the final moments, everyone starts cheering Nelson on. Casey looks around and runs to a phone and calls Charlie (who had to be woken up by Lisa -- I don't see this custody arrangement changing any time soon). Isaac looks over and spies Casey rushing into the meeting room where it's quieter. "Charlie! It's Dad! Did you finish all your homework?" Wha? (To his credit, Casey makes a "why did I ask that?" gesture.) Casey tells Charlie to turn on the TV ("My channel," says Casey. I liked that). He tells Charlie who the runner is. "I'll call you tomorrow and tell you all about it, but for now you just watch him run. He's not doing much, he's just running faster than any man has ever run before." He then tells Charlie he's going to be on air soon, and Charlie can stay up to watch the beginning of the show ("if Mom says it's okay") but when he gives Charlie the special signal (aw!), he has to turn off the TV. Casey's voice breaks a little as he says, "I love you too, Charlie."
Out in the newsroom, the race has just ended, and Dana starts bossing people around. She tells someone to fetch Casey, but Isaac volunteers. He swings open the meeting room door. "You okay?" he asks. "Absolutely," says Casey. "Get to work," says Isaac. "Absolutely," says Casey, looking very happy.
At the desk, Dana's running down the teasers with Dan, but Casey struts in and says he'll do them. "It's not that my teasers are better than yours, it's that your teasers are vastly inferior to mine." Can we have grouchy Casey back, please? A moment later, Casey tells Dan, "You were right, I was wrong. It won't happen again." Wait, what won't happen again -- Casey being an asshole or Danny being right? Then Casey asks if Dan wants to go out and suggests going to a bar, finding some people they don't like, and beating the crap out of them. I'll put down $100 on the guys they don't like. Casey goes on to deliver the teasers with annoying gusto, and in the control room, Dana smiles and says, "He's back!" Goddammit.
At the first break, Casey asks Dana to come to the desk. When she does, he kisses her on the cheek. "No one can produce this show but you," he says, and hugs her. Dan looks over and smiles. Dana smiles. Everybody's smiling! But by now I've passed out.