Sports Night“Pilot”
Original Air Date: September 22, 1998
KP – TwoCents Head Writer
kp@thetwocents.com
How do you know you’re watching an Aaron Sorkin show? Well, before you even hear the sparkling dialog, you notice you’re watching a single camera shot follow a multitude of people around an enormous set. Sports Night started with this very thing!
And, in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …..
“Good evening everybody, from New York City, I’m Dan Rydell alongside Casey McCall. Those stories and more, plus we’ll take you live to the locker-room at Arrowhead.
All that coming up after this. You’re watching Sports Night on CSC, so stick around.
We’re Out.”
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Sports Night
ReplyDelete“Pilot”
Original Air Date: September 22, 1998
KP – TwoCents Head Writer
kp@thetwocents.com
How do you know you’re watching an Aaron Sorkin show? Well, before you even hear the sparkling dialog, you notice you’re watching a single camera shot follow a multitude of people around an enormous set. Sports Night started with this very thing!
And, in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …..
“Good evening everybody, from New York City, I’m Dan Rydell alongside Casey McCall. Those stories and more, plus we’ll take you live to the locker-room at Arrowhead.
All that coming up after this. You’re watching Sports Night on CSC, so stick around.
We’re Out.”
As any good pilot episode, we are quickly introduced to the cast, so, let’s talk about that one shall we?
Casey McCall (Peter Krause):
Casey has recently gotten divorced from his wife, Lisa, six months ago.
Dan Rydell (Josh Charles):
We’ll, he’s always single – but he’s trying to convince Casey to embrace his new found single status and ‘get out there’. He’s having a New York Renaissance.
Kim (Kayla Blake) and Elliot (Greg Baker):
Associate Producers. They find all the facts, act as Dan and Casey’s secretaries (they aren’t) and pretty much keep the show running.
Isaac Jaffee (Robert Guillaume):
He’s not too happy with Casey screwing up lately because his head isn’t in the game. But he doesn’t want to talk to Casey about it. Also, that’s Jaffee – not to be mistaken with Sorkin’s Kaffee from “A Few Good Men”.
Dana Whitaker (Felicity Huffman):
She’s the executive producer of the show and who do you think Isaac wants to talk to Casey? Yeah, Dana. Problem? Sure – because we’ve just been introduced to sexual tension between Casey and Dana.
JJ (Robert Mailhouse):
He speaks as the network. He IS the network. He has ‘concerns’ about the way the show is run and how Isaac runs it. He gets told off a lot throughout this series. It starts here with Casey.
Let me take a minute to say that the first season has a laugh track. UGH! Thankfully they learned to LOSE it afterwards.
Natalie (Sabrina Lloyd):
She’s Dana’s Associate Producer. Her job this week it so hire a new stat checker/producer. Enter – Jeremy.
Jeremy (Joshua Malina):
He’s the epitome of geek. Horn-rimmed glasses, bad suit and tie, spewing facts about longitude and latitude. However, there’s something cool about him. Just ask Natalie who is VERY smitten.
Ok – so, Dana confronts Casey and tells him to straighten up and head off to the interview of Dana Whitaker. She asks Jeremy to name three things the Knicks need to do to this season to make it to the finals. Now, let’s let Aaron Sorkin’s poetry flow…
Jeremy: “Miss Whitaker, I would be great at this job. You gotta believe me when I tell you I’ve been training my whole life for it. I’ve crunch stats, I’ve broken down film and there wasn’t a team at my high school that didn’t have me for an equipment manager. I have read every box score in every newspaper that’s printed in English and has a sports section and I have seen Sports Night every night since your first broadcast two years, two months and a week ago today. Now yes, sure, indeed, I could tell what Ewing and Oakley are shooting from the field and that you’re not going to stop John Starks if he squares up to the basket and put an defensive pressure on Charlie Ward – he’s going to fold like a cheap card table. But if you’re asking for generally sophisticated analyses, and I sense that you are, you gotta give me some time. At least 20 minutes.
Did that make any sense?”
Dana: “I wasn’t really listening.”
Jeremy: “Oh God…
Dana: “Jeremy, Jeremy this is television, things happen. If you want to work here you gotta not spontaneously wig-out.”
Jeremy: “Right, right. The Knicks?”
Dana: “Name three things!”
Jeremy: “Improve their free-throw percentage.”
Natalie: “Yes!”
Jeremy: “Run the floor.”
Dana: “Ok, one more.”
Jeremy: “Tell Spike Lee to sit down and shut up?”
Natalie: “Excellent!”
Dana: “Well, welcome to Sports Night.”
That’s the beauty of this show folks. It flows like the beautiful prose of a well written play.
So, there you have the Pilot episode. Casey is divorced, small thing for Dana who Isaac wants to tell Casey to chill out. Dan’s renaissance involves riding subways all night. JJ is a jerk. Natalie is in love with the new guy Jeremy who just go the job and a ton of people like Kim. Elliot, Will, Dave, Chris and more are running around putting a sports tv highlight show together.
I’ve just fallen in love with this show all over again. How about you guys?
Next Week: A Very Special “Sports Night” entitled “The Apology” – Season 1 Episode 2.
I think Aaron Sorkin wrote most of that review.
ReplyDeleteZING!