The show opens with Casey reminding viewers to set their alarms tomorrow if they want to catch "Desmond Corey's assault on Mount Everest." He says the first live footage will be coming back from Corey's team at 2 a.m. Eastern, and he hopes viewers will join Dan and Casey live at that time for what he's sure will be a very exciting event. Yeah, I would have this marked in my day planner too: "Watch umpteenth person climb Everest." Do these dingbats know it's been done before, hundreds of times? They go to commercial.
In the control room, Jeremy is laying out Everest's vital stats. "29,000 feet," he says. "Do you know how tall that is?" And Will says -- wait for it, this is great -- "It's 29,000 feet." No, seriously. That is the funniest line ever delivered on a television show. Ever. Chris says it's actually 29,029 feet, and I was premature in saying Will's line was the funniest of all time, because Dana comes up with, "It's those last ten yards that'll kill ya," raising the bar in terms of general hilarity. Jeremy then expresses the size in terms of metres (8,848), but when Natalie tells him it sounds more impressive expressed in feet, he goes back to Imperial. Then Natalie and Dana share another one of their weird "isn't he great?" smiles, like, what kind of weird criteria do these women have for an ideal boyfriend? Jeremy's looking for something than he can use as an example -- you know, a certain number of these laid end-to-end to give a sense of the size of the mountain. Elliot suggests 29,000 rulers, which I thought was pretty damn funny (I'm not being sarcastic this time). Jeremy complains that they're not getting into the spirit of it, but maybe it's because the rest of the gang knows it's been done many times before. Dana then threatens Jeremy with violence and he says, "I'm just saying it's a big mountain." Dana says, "And I hear ya!" and then...that's it. The opening scene is over. It ends with "And I hear ya"? The music was even different. It didn't punctuate the punchline (not that "And I hear ya!" is much of a punchline) with that little bam bam! thing; there was just this little organ flourish that left me with a vague sense of unease. And at the risk of alienating SN fans for whom this is potentially their Favourite Scene Ever, I'd just like to suggest that maybe Sorkin could have done a second or third draft to make it, you know, good.
“ 'The homeless?' says Casey. 'Yeah,' says Dan. 'They need homes,' says Casey. While I can see Casey making that joke, did the laugh track really need to be flipped on for the comedy gold mine that is homelessness? Christ. ”
The day, Danny has brought his mail to work so Casey can ask him if there's "any good mail," and Dan flips through several envelopes from charities and organizations looking for money. "I'm on the mailing list to end all mailing lists," he says. Well, I see endless plot possibilities here. Dan makes a joke about how he'd love to give them all money but then he'd have no money and he'd need his own mailing list to ask people for money. And Casey calls it a "vicious circle," and Dan agrees, and they keep repeating it because it's a vicious circle, you get it? I know, it took me a while too. Anyway, Dan wants to know what he should do; he's inactive, he just sits around. "Ah, like the trusty basset hound," says Casey, like, what is he talking about? Seriously, why does Casey even bother speaking if he can only come up with inane comments like "like the trusty basset hound," and further, why do people even talk to him when he makes no sense whatsoever like this? Then they revisit the "vicious circle" repetitive dialogue thing again, fortunately more briefly this time. Casey says, "You know, while we've been having this conversation a couple of people have probably died from something you could have cured," and I thought to myself, "Lucky them," but Danny only thanks Casey for cranking up the pressure. So Casey takes the various solicitations, tossing aside one from the Montgomery (Ala.) Symphony Orchestra, but Danny suggests that music is a worthwhile cause and says, "Music, culture, arts, these things shouldn't just be confined to New York and Vienna," and maybe someone should point out to Danny that they're not. Casey sort of sighs and tells Danny to write them a cheque, then, but Dan wants to go through the rest of them first. up: the American Heart Association. Casey suggests Danny get his new friends in Alabama to play them some Beethoven. Heh. Danny needs more time to think about this one, like the remainder of the episode.
At the rundown meeting, Natalie has a memo from building security telling them that, with the cold weather approaching, "some of our local homeless are coming into the building for shelter and staff are supposed to alert security." Suddenly, socially conscious Dan wonders if maybe they should be doing something (but good for him, I guess, instead of building security referring to them as "our" homeless before booting them back out on the street). "Like what?" asks Casey. "What do they need?" asks Danny. "The homeless?" says Casey. "Yeah," says Dan. "They need homes," says Casey. While I can see Casey making that joke, did the laugh track really need to be flipped on for the comedy gold mine that is homelessness? Christ. , the meeting moves to an update on the Everest team. They're at Camp Four, about 2,500 feet below the summit. "That's where the toeholds start getting scarce." Casey nods knowingly and says, "Tell me about it," which prompts Dana to go "wuzzah?" and Casey straight-facedly tries to pretend he's a climber. Dan points out that Casey climbs at his gym and Casey calls it a "challenging ascent," which is only surpassed in annoyingness by his use of the phrase "darn tootin'." Natalie says, "I hear the air gets pretty thin up near the juice bar," which was pretty good, and Casey starts going on about "the spirit of the hill," and Jeremy says "Tell it, Casey!" and Dana also says Casey should tell it, except she's sarcastic about it. He comes up with, "There's a hill...its spirit..." like he couldn't even come up with full sentences. Behind him, Jeremy says, "Man, did you drop the ball!" which cracked me up. Dana then goes over the plan for the evening, which is really simple, and everyone says they know it but she still goes over it because she's going to be gone for the afternoon. She gives out instructions, and there's this strange fade-out as she says, "Someone keep on top of Oakland and Baltimore," and it's weird because it actually fades out as she's delivering the line and fades back in on her, presumably mere seconds later, walking into the newsroom. I guess it could be a little later, but it was still a weird transition.