Quo Vadimus
19/06/2006
Is the Aaron Sorkin TV series
That came before The West Wing, which everyone seems to remember or know. And that’s a shame, because Sports Night was so much better. So, so much.
So it’s about the lives of a crew behind a second rate Sports variety show, a competitor to ESPN or something. It features a couple of desperate housewives – Felicity Huffman, and the ethereal Brenda Strong. A few other West Wing regulars also showed up – like Jenna Maloney and Joshua Molina.
A pre-Meet the Parents Teri Polo showed up midseason as a love interest. Not a very likeable one, but different. William H Macy also showed up in a guest role, and perhaps that’s how he met Felicity Huffman, or maybe, just maybe, he got the gig because of her.
But of course, the most delectable of the cast has to be Peter Krause. He was in We Don’t Live Here Anymore, and Six Feet Under after the run here. His character was supposed to be based loosely on Craig Kilborn, and if Craig Kilborn were that cute, I’d watch ESPN.
Then there’s Josh Charles, Mr Dead Poet’s Society himself. He looks a little too much like a bird to count.
Sabrina Lloyd is a very cute Associate Producer to Felicity Huffman, although it’s weird she’s not really on TV anymore. She’s cute in every sense of the word, and she gets the most surprising sports-stuff – mostly surprising because you can’t imagine sports ever figuring in the vocabulary of someone who looks that cute.
Robert Guillaume – star of the 80′s Benson – stars as the managing editor of Sports Night, and he was good. They wrote in the stroke he suffered during filming into his character, and I was kinda relieved he eventually came back (with cane and all). He is in a class of his own, and it shows, but it was nice to see the chemistry between him and the rest of the cast nonetheless.
It only ran for two seasons or so, but Sports Night managed to steer away from being preachy, soapy or lamey the way other shows tend to end up. At least it ended on a high – no pun intended to Mr Sorkin – with Aaron Sorkin ditching this for the West Wing. After all there’s only so much you can do in the half hour slot for Sports Night, but there’s a whole lot of preaching you can do with Martin Sheen and a whole hour slot.
In any case, if there’s one TV series to catch, it should be Sports Night. It’s a seriously intelligent series. You don’t have to be a sports fan. You just have to be quick, or be able to read subtitles quick. The DVD box set has all episodes, so you don’t have to worry about getting season 1 and season 2. It’s a 2-for-1.
