“ Yes. Setting your clocks back or forward one hour twice a year is so confusing that an entire continent has been able to manage it for decades, including Alabama. ”
We are welcomed to the show by the dulcet tones of Kim giving the "five minutes to air" call and summoning the first team to the studio. And I'm a lot more encouraged by this episode already, because Dan and Casey stroll out of their office announcing to themselves and everyone in the general vicinity that they are pumped and that their pumpitude is "excellent," and you just know this is going to get annoying before long, but it's preferable to the crabbiness and bored looks we've been greeted with more often than not lately. Dan and Casey start talking about how "five minutes to air" are the best words in the English language. No, the best words in the English language are "No, go ahead and watch the hockey game. I can watch Ally McBeal week. And since I'm up, can I get you a beer?" Of course, by saying that, I've probably ruined any chance I have of hearing those words for some time. Casey then says "five minutes to air" in French, Spanish, and German (the latter prompting Danny to say, "Now you're just showing off"). This little dialogue exchange reveals a flaw in so, so many sportscasters: they're failed jocks. I don't mean has-been jocks -- failed jocks. Dan and Casey compare the rush of showtime to the rush of game time. Yeah, tackling people and reading aloud about other people tackling people are the exact same thing. Dan asks Casey if Orlando Rojas pitched this afternoon, but Casey doesn't know. Dan asks Natalie, but she doesn't know either. "Thank God none of us work in sports!" yells Dan, because I guess it's okay for him to not know, but not anyone else. As the guys sit down at the desk, Natalie asks if they've heard from Jeremy, who's gone to his parents' house. They haven't. She heard from him the first night, but not last night or today. Dan says Jeremy's probably just busy and Natalie accepts that, even though she looks like she's just this side of freaking out. Casey, ever the sensitive man, says, "Maybe he met another woman and forgot all about you." He changes his tune, however, when Natalie offers to jam a No. 2 pencil up his nose. Up his nose is probably the only place it'd fit.
In the control room, Chris gives a heads-up that they're two hours ahead of Baja California. Will says they're three hours ahead. Elliot points out that Baja California isn't on Daylight Savings Time. Kim says "the whole country is on Daylight Savings Time." I get a little messed up here, because for the first time ever we didn't get one line from each Tertiary Character before a TC gets a second line, as we go back to...Chris, who says, "Baja California isn't in this country," and Dave speaks, so his agent can probably stop yelling at Sorkin to give him some dialogue already, and what Dave says is, "California isn't in this country?" and Chris is totally hogging all the lines here as he says, "Baja California isn't in California," and we all learn (or maybe some of us already knew) that Baja California is in Mexico, but I could hardly pay attention to that, because I happen to live in the one province in Canada that doesn't practise Daylight Savings Time, Saskatchewan, and you have no idea what a controversial idea it is here. Every so often someone suggests adopting Daylight Savings Time for a variety of reasons, usually having to do with gaining longer nights to play baseball and golf in the summer, and someone else gets their back up over it for a variety of reasons, ranging from "why should we change" to "it's confusing." Yes. Setting your clocks back or forward one hour twice a year is so confusing that an entire continent has been able to manage it for decades, including Alabama.
The Sword Of Orion
“ Oh, Allison. Listen to the dreck they have you saying. They give you lines less often than I clean my bathroom, and when they do, they involve you in this whole 'pumped' nonsense. ”
Anyway, since the two-minute warning is synonymous on this show with Extreme Word Overuse Syndrome, here comes Dana to say about 150 times that she is "pumped," and remember how I said before with Dan and Casey that this was probably going to get really annoying? Well, here we go. And as many different ways as Dana says she's "pumped," that's how many different ways other characters will either tell each other that Dan is "pumped" or ask Dana herself if she is indeed "pumped." And God forbid that anybody else change the subject away from Dana's pumpedness, since that is not allowed to happen. Example: Natalie frets about why Jeremy hasn't called her. A normal friend would probably either offer to listen or reassure her that Jeremy's probably just busy (which I concede that Dana does here, albeit half-assedly). Granted, just before showtime really isn't the best time to address concerns about your boyfriend, but you know what Dana's advice is here? She tells Natalie she should "get pumped," which is probably the worst display of non-empathy from a friend in the history of friendship, made all the more unforgivable when you consider that the last two episodes have consisted almost solely of Dana whining to Natalie about her own man troubles. I'm not talking about Dana merely seeking advice, either; we're talking industrial-strength complaining performed at the expense of any other activities such as, you know, work.
But, if you recall, it's not just Dana who's pumped; Casey and Dan are also pumped, we're reminded as we go back to the desk. Casey asks Elliot if Rojas pitched today. Thank God, Elliot knows; he tells Dan that Rojas is pitching tomorrow. Dan asks if he pitched in the bullpen yesterday. Elliot says yes and that Kelly (I'm assuming the often-referred-to-but-never-seen Kelly Kirkpatrick) watched him pitch. Dan asks how his fastball looked, and Elliot says it should be crossing the plate just about now. Maybe I should explain that. After all, I realize the number of people who read my recaps and know a lot about sports is far smaller than the number of people who think Josh Charles is sex on wheels, so what Elliot means is that Rojas's fastball isn't looking very good, apparently. No time for that, though, because Allison gets some lines! Yes! My favourite character on this show! The criminally underused Allison tells the guys to have a good show. Casey says they will, and asks if Allison knows why. "Because you're pumped?" she says. Oh, Allison. Listen to the dreck they have you saying. They give you lines less often than I clean my bathroom, and when they do, they involve you in this whole "pumped" nonsense. Then Casey starts bragging about how he speaks four languages, but Dan argues that he speaks only three: Spanish, French, and German. "I dabble in a little English," points out Casey, which was pretty funny, but it was only a momentary digression because Danny says, "The point is we're pumped." Allison asks if she needs to keep standing there. The boys send her away, and my world gets just a little bit darker. Casey tells her to go "get pumped," and she leaves. We find out that Dan gets pumped by Orlando Rojas and Casey gets pumped by grape jelly, which is really weird in both instances. The boys tease the top stories as the show goes live. Right now I'm pumped for some commercials, which we get after Dana finally makes a sincere effort to put Natalie's mind at ease about Jeremy.