This episode starts off with this girl in Dan and Casey's office, talking to Dan about some restaurant that is supposedly going to be the hot new place. Dan doesn't understand how that is even possible since the restaurant is in New Jersey, and I don't think Sports Night is so deluged with viewers that they can afford to casually take swipes at potential audience members. ["Neither does this Jersey girl." -- Sars] The girl, whom we've never seen before, urges Dan to trust her. It becomes clear over the ensuing dialogue that Dan has finally gotten around to hiring himself a publicist. This girl, Katherine, is the publicist's assistant. Or something. Dan wants to know who else is going to be at the restaurant, and Katherine lists a bunch of nobodies, including "the other girl who used to be married to Donald Trump" except she can't remember her name, and I don't think Sports Night is so deluged with viewers that they can afford to casually take swipes at Marla Maples. Dan turns up his nose at the guest list instead of realizing that it could be beneficial if he's the most famous person there. Then we get this long-winded thing about Dan seeing Maples in some Will Rogers Follies or something. Katherine looks as confused as I feel about what could possibly be the point of all this. Five minutes to air! Dan starts walking, Katherine scurries after him. Dan finally agrees to make an appearance. Now Katherine wants to know if they should have a car take them. Them? Is she a publicist or an escort? Dan jokingly suggest swimming across the East River. Katherine doesn't think it looks good showing up in your own car, and Dan says he wouldn't want people to find out he has a driver's license. He says it sarcastically. Katherine tells him they're going right after the show. "Yes, already!" says Dan, exasperated as his publicist attempts to publicize him. Katherine babbles on about how she's a very important part of his life now. No arguments here -- she's really cute. Dan contends he doesn't take her for granted, then introduces her to Elliot as his "publicist's secretary, Katherine something." "Brenner," says Katherine, "and I'm pleased to meet you." "She's in the tenth grade," says Danny, which was pretty funny, and Katherine looks on the verge of a tantrum and says, "I'm twenty-two years old!" Yeah, NICE TRY, sweetheart.
At the desk, Natalie shows up looking for Dana, and Danny directs her to the editing room. Katherine keeps bugging Dan to promise her he's not going to "flake out," like someone do this girl a favour and fill her in on Danny's mental breakdown tendencies. Dan tells her go watch Felicity or something, which I thought was pretty funny, and Katherine laughs because, as if, Felicity is on at eleven on a Thursday. Dan says he's out of the mainstream, so he better get himself to New Jersey "and stat," and walks off somewhere, leaving Katherine looking very confused again and opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish.
Natalie finds Dana in the editing room and starts going on about having tape of Juan Antonio Samaranch and blah blah blah obligatory sports reference, and Dana doesn't acknowledge her, and finally Dana looks around and says, "I'm sorry, was somebody speaking in here?" which most people left off doing to their siblings when they were nine years old, and this irritates Natalie, who says, "Look!" and Dana says, "Saturday Night Live?" with this "how lame are you?" smile on her face, and then "Saturday Night Live?" with this "how could you?" look on her face. we learn that Natalie has "just an interview" at SNL like shoot for the stars there, Natalie, and Dana says, "You have a job," and Natalie says, "Not for long." Dana says, "Who told you that?" Perhaps Sports Night should run "previously on Sports Night" clips at the top of the show, if only for Dana's benefit. Natalie points out Dana was the one who told us that. "That was before," says Dana. "Before what?" says Natalie. "Before the writers cooked up a supposed ratings surge," says Dana, and Natalie scoffs that there has been a ratings surge, much like I scoffed when I heard about it, and Dana says that there has been a ratings spike and then starts listing a bunch of technical ratings jargon to make us all believe she knows what she's talking about. "The tide is turning," says Dana, meaning Natalie should stay in the Sports Night boat instead of going on job interviews. "You told me to!" protests Natalie. Yeah. She also suggested you call Rick Rogers at Prime Sports, not that we'll ever hear anything more about that.
They start walking to the control room. Dana yells out, "Up two-tenths in the last ten days!" but doesn't even say "baby," so of course everyone ignores her. Natalie pessimistically calls the ratings spike a momentary thing. Dana says they should build on it. Natalie repeats that she's just going for an interview, so Dana starts childishly pretending not to be able to hear her again (although it was pretty funny). Elliot reveals to Dana that the fire alarms in the studio go off when there's no fire, but this being Sports Night, it took approximately twenty minutes of Witty Banter before that's revealed. Dana worries that the alarm will go off during the show, and L'il Kim tells her they had them disconnected. "What if there's a fire?" asks the never-satisfied Dana. "It's a studio," says Kim. "You'll see it on television." Dana tells them to have the alarms reconnected after the show and then get them fixed, like give your crew a little credit, Dana, they might have been able to figure out that brilliant strategy on their own. Jeremy says something to Dana, who pretends she can't hear him. "That was Jeremy," Natalie informs her. "You can hear him." I laughed.
At the desk, Casey asks Dan what kind of food the restaurant serves. "What do you care?" asks Dan. How nice that these two made up, so that Dan can resume making wise-ass comments. Actually, I'm glad these two have stopped hugging. I'm still way too emotionally spent after last week. Danny tells him it's French food. "Ahhh . . ." says Casey. "I like the French. I like the toast." Oh, stop. My sides. "I like their dressing, I like their fries." Seriously, stop it. You're killing me. "I like their maids." Agreed, but if Casey says anything about kissing, I swear to God I am out of here until after the first commercial break. "I like their kiss --"
Back from commercials, Jeremy walks into Casey and Dan's office to tell Casey about another obligatory sports reference. Jeremy turns to go, but Casey says, "Don't you want to know what I'm doing?" so Jeremy gives in. Casey says he's being pro-active: "I'm rolling up my sleeves." He repeats Dana's blah blah ratings jargon. He also says he heard Continental Corp (their parent company) suspended trading for the day on the NYSE. Neither of these two boneheads know why, but Casey vows to find out. Silly me -- I thought Casey might have been hard at work trying to come up with ways to make their show better, thus garnering a bigger audience, thus generating more revenue. He says he's going to play a leadership role while everyone else runs around like chickens with their legs cut off, so Jeremy has a poke a hole in Casey's self-satisfaction by pointing out he means chickens with the heads cut off. Casey threatens Jeremy with violence. Then Jeremy wants to know specifically what it is Casey's doing. Casey makes a big show of explaining everything he knows that we all learned last week about deficits and OzTech and potential layoffs, while Jeremy practises his swing with one of the baseball bats lying around the office. It's because the stock has been dropping, says Jeremy, earning high praise from Casey, who says, "I see you've been rolling up your sleeves as well." Jeremy, whose sleeves actually are rolled up, says, "Yes, I am alive and I read the newspaper." Casey says industry analysts believe launching an all-sports network into an already over-saturated market was a mistake, and the single biggest expense for CSC is their little show. The two of them bond over the fact that their jobs aren't in jeopardy, because Casey is the franchise (not to mention the fact CSC execs know that firing Casey would be such a blow to his ego that it would rupture the very fabric of time and space). They theorize Jeremy won't lose his job since he doesn't get paid very much. Yeah, that's a good reason to feel secure -- relative cheapness of Jeremy's severance package notwithstanding. Casey cranks down the volume enough to display the requisite sombreness when he points out it's people like Natalie whose jobs are in jeopardy. Then he tells Jeremy that he became pro-active by unleashing the power of the Internet and getting online. Casey shows Jeremy that this morning's stock quotes opened up two and two-eighths (uh, one-quarter?). Casey blathers on, very pleased with himself, by proclaiming the company to be in great shape with a healthy future. Jeremy sadly informs the Wall Street wizard that he's looking at the stock analysis for Continental Coil. D'oh! "That's not us," says a deflated Casey. Jeremy agrees.
In Isaac's office, Isaac is chewing out Dana for blabbing about potential layoffs and rehashes that scene from last week when he told Dana to keep it to herself, so maybe Isaac has finally taken to reading my recaps. Except he says he told her Natalie's job might be in jeopardy, which would be a little revisionist history on Isaac's part, since no actual names were discussed. Since Dana is being barked at by Isaac, she decides to change the subject and asks him if he's growing a beard. He offers a bunch of excuses for his stubble, kind of grumpily, and we find out he couldn't use his electric razor because his wife baby-proofed the house in anticipation of their grandson Matthew's visit. Isaac says the last time he saw Matthew was almost nine months ago, before the stroke. Then he bitches that the kid can't walk so there's no need to lock the medicine cabinet. "Can he crawl?" asks Dana. "Not up walls," says Isaac. Natalie comes in to tell Dana an obligatory sports reference, and for once Dana leaves Isaac's office on her own without having to be kicked out by Isaac. She tries to cheer him up by reminding him that Matthew's here. "Get out," he says testily. Guess I spoke too soon. Dana and Natalie leave, Dana closes the door behind her.
In the hallway, walking while talking, Dana tells Natalie that Isaac is meeting with some budget guys at four, indicating just how closely she paid attention while Isaac was lambasting her for not keeping things to herself. Natalie says she's glad that Dana's talking to her again, and Dana smiles and puts her arm around Natalie. This was the least that these two have collectively irritated me all year. Then Dana says she's going to tell Natalie why her SNL interview isn't going to go well, which takes Natalie by surprise. "You're not funny," says Dana, yet mysteriously doesn't explain what funny has to do with Saturday Night Live. "I don't have to be funny," says Natalie, but doesn't cite any precedent such as Jim Breuer or anyone. Dana thinks it's possible Natalie might have to do some writing if there was a "writers' emergency" or something, a crisis which could very well describe the situation there for a long long time already. Natalie doesn't think that will happen (proving she hasn't even bothered to watch the show lately), but Dana says they'll expect her to be funny in the control room and at the post-show party, as if production crew get invited to hobnob with the likes of Horatio Sanz and Rachel Dratch. Now Natalie protests that she is funny, but Dana disagrees. Natalie FINALLY figures out that Dana is just trying to undermine her confidence and calls her on it -- Dana admits as such and tells her she's "queen of the mind game, baby" like there's that word "baby" again. I think I'm going to start a Sports Night drinking game, and the first rule is, "Drink whenever anyone says 'baby.'" The second rule is, "Drink whenever Casey is wrapped up in his own ego," and I predict that if this drinking game catches on, hospital emergency rooms across North America will see a weekly spike in cases of alcohol poisoning moments after Dharma & Greg ends. "You're short and no one likes you very much," deadpans Dana, cracking me up. Natalie walks away, and Dana says something else and punctuates it with "baby." Drink! Her work done, Dana walks into Casey's office, so I affix the SpeedPour (tm) spout to the top of a bottle of Jim Beam and get ready.
Jeremy is sitting at Casey's desk looking at his ex-girlfriend's site (I'm assuming). Dana proudly tells them she's "got the psychological end of this covered." Casey says he and Jeremy are "taking care of business over here" and I still fail to see how staring at a computer screen is such a big help, and Dana figures they've got nothing to worry about, and everybody says "yep" about fifty times, but you can tell they're all really worried, especially Dana, who leaves. Commercials.
Back, Jeremy is still at Casey's desk because apparently Casey was all too happy to give up his pro-active leadership role, as he is now lounging on the couch stuffing his face with a sandwich. Jeremy says something about the Dow Jones, but neither he nor Casey have any idea what it means, which I guess would explain Dana's worried look earlier. Natalie walks in, looking for Dan. Casey says, "He's got Sprewell at the Garden" and at first I thought he said, "He's got Sprewell to guard," which wouldn't make any sense unless Natalie was looking for Dan Majerle. Since Dan's unavailable, Natalie asks to speak to Jeremy, so Casey takes over the important job of staring at the computer. Casey asks him what the warning signs are. Jeremy says lights will go off along with bells and a siren and that will mean they're all in trouble. The look on Casey's face is priceless as he thinks Jeremy is serious. "Really?" he asks. "Yeah," says Jeremy and leaves with Natalie. Casey takes a bite of his sandwich and watches the screen intently. It was funny. You know what? No one has severely irritated me this week!
Natalie and Jeremy walk and talk. Natalie fills in Jeremy on how Dana has been trying to undermine her confidence for the interview. Jeremy sounds surprised that Dana would do that. Natalie explains that it won't work, but she still needs some words of encouragement so she came to him. Jeremy points out (they're in the meeting room now) that she actually came to Dan first. "And then you," pleads Natalie. Jeremy says, "You're poised, you're experienced, you're going to do fine," and Natalie says, "Thank you," but Jeremy goes on to say that the only thing that could hurt her is her limited vocabulary. Only it isn't so much that it's limited, but that she doesn't know that it's limited and she frequently misuses words, et cetera et cetera. "Dana got to you," says Natalie. "You're going to be fine," says Jeremy. Natalie walks away and bumps into Danny, who says, "Hey, dumbass." Natalie shrieks, "Danny!" and Dan explains that he saw Dana in the hall. "I hate all of you," says Natalie as she pouts off, with a scene lateral to Dan.
"How was the thing last night?" Jeremy asks Dan as they now walk and talk. Dan says it was ridiculous and he's never doing anything like that ever again. They talk a bit about Marla Maples, and we find out that Jeremy also saw her in Will Rogers Follies, like what a couple of wild and crazy guys these two are. Dan says he felt stupid, and that the high point was when he was mistaken for a Backstreet Boy, and asks Jeremy if there's one he looks like. Yeah, Dan, the thirtysomething one. Dan walks into the office, and Casey asks him how his thing went. Dan says he's firing his publicist and he's called him to the office to tell him. Jeremy thought Dan's publicist was a woman, and Dan explains that Katherine is his publicist's assistant, but I don't buy that. I think Katherine is the real publicist and this Paul guy is just a Remington Steele-esque front so people will take her more seriously. Dan wants to know what Casey's doing. "Looking out for our future," says Casey. Drink! I thought these guys had a show to produce, which I would think would better help them ensure their future than switching off between "staring at screen" and "lounging on couch." "I feel better already," says Dan, and gnaws off some of his own sandwich.
A little later, Natalie is in Isaac's office just before her interview. Isaac tells her she looks nice, and she does. He tells her not to worry about Dana and Jeremy and everybody else since they're all pulling for her to do really well. "Any last-minute advice?" asks Natalie. If you don't know where this is going, you haven't watched this show enough. "Stay away from big words and don't try to be funny," says Isaac. "I'm going now," says Natalie, annoyed. Pouting off, she passes Dana, who says, "Is that what you're wearing?" "I hate you," calls back Natalie. Dana smiles all proud of herself as she struts into Isaac's office carrying a bag. "What do you need?" asks Isaac, giggling at his and Dana's tag-team demoralization of Natalie. Dana, all business, wants to know how the budget meeting went. Isaac says he doesn't know, but he thinks something is going on because Sid Janus was acting strange. "Sid Janus always acts strange," says Dana, and Isaac agrees but still seems disheartened. Dana tells him she got something for Matthew, and she reaches into the bag and pulls out a Franklin the Turtle puppet, and Isaac says, "Yeah, he'll like that," and throws it down on the desk. "What is the matter with you?" asks Dana, but Isaac pretends to not know what she's talking about. She points out that Matthew's impending visit was a source of excitement for Isaac, but now that Matthew's here, he's a pain in the ass. "That's not true," says Isaac, and Dana lists all his complaints. "Matthew's afraid of me," Isaac confesses, shutting Dana up for a few seconds. He explains that Matthew shrieks when Isaac tries to pick him up and runs to another family member. Dana says it's because Matthew doesn't know him, but Isaac says it's because of the stroke, the way he walks. "I look like the monsters in cartoons he watches," he says. This scene was quite touching and well-done. Dana comforts him by saying the kid is only a year-and-a-half old and that he'll get over it, and Isaac finally smiles, so I guess I don't have to frigging cry again this week. Isaac says he'll be happy to give him the turtle puppet. "Anyway," he says, "Sid Janus was acting strange." This from the grumpy grandpa with his hand up a turtle's ass.
Back in Casey and Dan's office, Casey informs Jeremy that Nabisco is up a quarter, like so much for looking out for the gang, I guess. Dan sits in a chair and reads a magazine and asks them how many times they're going to check the screen. "Until the new recap is up, Danny," says Casey -- either that, or something about looking out for their future. Dan wants to know exactly what they're looking for. Casey says that there'll be bells and a siren and then they'll know they're in trouble. "You do know I was kidding when I said that, right?" says Jeremy. Casey pretends he did. Katherine shows up at the door, not Paul, only adding strength to my Remington Steele theory. Danny asks everyone to leave so he can speak to Katherine, but Casey won't go because he has to monitor their futures. Jeremy says they can do that in the newsroom because there are computers out there. Casey adopts a "Jeremy, duh!" tone of voice as he says, "Yeah, they all have this stuff on them?" and Jeremy has to explain the wonderful world of the Internet to poor, sheltered Casey. They leave and as he goes, Casey makes some weird sort of "What's up with her?" gesture behind Katherine's back that I didn't fully understand; either that or he was making some sort of horndog gesture that didn't seem quite right. Either way, it was annoying.
Anyway, Dan fires Katherine. Rather, he fires Paul, and by extension Katherine. Dan says he thinks they're fine publicists, but he doesn't want to do this anymore. "Do what anymore?" she asks, and Dan explains that although he's not a war correspondent for Radio Free Europe, he does take his job seriously et cetera et cetera. She says, "Okay." Dan says it was good knowing her and he appreciates the work she did. She turns to leave but stops and says, "Do you mind if I say something?" in a pissed-off tone to indicate it's a rhetorical question. She then proceeds to blast Danny for being "full of it," and nails him for wanting something but being ashamed of wanting it, and getting mad at people who try to give it to him (here she overestimates the publicity value of attending the opening of a seafood restaurant in New Jersey, but whatever). Anyway, Dan's therapist Abby could learn a lot from Katherine, who says he makes judgments about people, like deciding she was dumb even though she's not. She says she knows what most people think of publicists, but she wanted to be one so she's going after it. She lectures Danny on fame and how she understands how he could want it at a time when his show could really use it. And I fast-forward about two hours and Katherine is finally finishing her diatribe by saying that if Dan wants to fire them, that's okay, but he shouldn't look down his nose at her because it's unbecoming, and she stomps off. Of course, Danny chases after her and says, "Okay, one condition, I never have to go to New Jersey," and she says he'll go where she tells him to go. I like Katherine, she's sassy. Except I hope Dan doesn't ruin this by hitting on her. Which of course he does, albeit subtly, by inviting her to stay and watch the show. She explains she can't because she taped Felicity. Heh. She's kidding. "You did one of me there," says Dan. I think Danny may be in love. She tells him to have a good show and leaves. Danny walks back to his office.
In her office, Dana is lighting up a cigarette, presumably because she's nervous. Where's your messiah now, Dana? Natalie calls, "Dana?" from well outside her office, which is obviously to give Dana enough time to frantically search for some place to hide her cigarette. She doesn't have an ashtray, so of course the cigarette goes in her wastebasket, which is filled with many half-crumpled pieces of paper. Gee, I wonder where this is going. Natalie comes in to tell her she's back from her interview. Then Natalie tells Dana her garbage can is on fire. Dana scurries about and Natalie calmly tosses her a bottle of water in maybe the first non-product placement use of a beverage in television history. Dana asks Natalie how her interview went. Natalie says she totally tanked. "Yeah?" says Dana, a little too pleased. Natalie recounts everything the gang said would work against her. Dana interrupts the charade to tell her "Trey Curtis" called from SNL and told Dana that Natalie "killed," and that he couldn't believe she turned down the job they offered her there on the spot (as if) with a twenty per cent increase in salary (as if). Natalie gives a speech about being here since the first show and blah blah blah and she believes she's a big part. Dana tells Natalie she doesn't do a good job of showing Natalie how much she respects her. Natalie says she does.
In the newsroom, the show is three minutes to air. Everyone (including the Tertiary Characters, but not the Lesser Tertiary Characters) gathers at Jeremy's desk to see if there's any news on the Internet yet. This all-important Web site still just says "stand by," I guess. Natalie and Dana walk in, and Natalie explains that the smell of smoke -- responsible for Chris's only lines this week -- is the result of Dana lighting her office on fire. Casey explains that Jeremy "hacked into this amazing thing, it's a Web site about television. It has a bunch of funny and talented writers posting hilarious and snarky recaps of television shows. Also, it has some jerk recapping our little show." Actually, what he says is a bunch of stuff like "real-time business update" and "technologically calibrated" and a bunch of stuff, when all Jeremy actually did was log onto CSC's Web site. Casey calls Jeremy a "magician" and it was pretty funny. Dana tries to hustle everyone to the set, but suddenly something happens on the screen. Jeremy says "wow" and everyone crowds in for a closer look. "We're for sale?" says Dana. Of course, the fire alarms go off right at that exact moment and Casey has to check with Jeremy to make sure those are indeed just fire alarms. Then they shut off. And no one says anything. And slightly ominous music plays. Natalie says, "Let's worry about it in an hour," and the hustle and bustle of the newsroom returns to normal. The show ends with a close-up of Dana looking worriedly at the computer.
THIS is the season finale? A cliff-hanger for a show that doesn't even know if it's going to broadcast any more episodes? I hate to say it, but I almost wish last week's episode had been the season finale. Anyway, I hope ABC DOES cancel the show, and then maybe it might be picked up by a network that might bother to appear to give a crap about one of the finest shows on television instead of replacing it with stupid Talk to Me. I hate to judge a show by its commercials, but it's my unbiased prediction that Talk to Me is going to suck major ass. And I'd like to point out I saw more commercials for Talk to Me in the past two weeks on ABC than I ever saw for Sports Night. Anyway, I guess the final decision has yet to be made on whether ABC is going to continue with the series, but if any fans are interested in adding their letters to the pile in the Save Sports Night campaign, the addresses are listed in the forum section of Mighty Big TV. Thanks for reading, thanks for writing, and I'll keep my fingers crossed that we'll see more episodes eventually.