Pilot

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.