Entry under heavy construction... sorry!

Premise

Sports Night chronicled the hectic and stressful on- and off-air lives of the team of professionals behind Sports Night, a nightly sports show a fictional cable sports channel.

Wait! Don't go!

It's really not about sports. Despite the title.

It's a half-hour comedy-drama from the pen of Aaron Sorkin, creator of A Few Good Men, The American President and the huge hit TV series The West Wing. A critical hit (it won three Emmys and was nominated for another five) but a ratings disappointment, it lasted only two seasons before the plug was pulled by ABC Television. However, in reruns it is gaining popularity.

The Characters of Sports Night

Dan Rydell is one half of the on-air team behind Sports Night - the less mature, but cooler half. Dan is played by Josh Charles.

Casey McCall is the other half. Older and calmer than Dan, Casey is played by Peter Krause. (Krause went on to star in HBO's Six Feet Under.)

Dana Whitaker The talented but overworked and frustrated producer of the nightly show, Dana is most at home in the control room from 11pm to midnight. Dana is played by Felicity Huffman.

Jeremy Goodwin is an associate producer on the show, and joins the crew in the pilot episode. With an encyclopedic memory on any subject under the sun, nerdish, excitable but good-hearted Jeremy is played by Joshua Malina.

Natalie Hurley is the Senior Associate Producer of the show. Young, competent, slightly hyperactive, and completely loyal to Dana, Natalie is played by Sabrina Lloyd. (Lloyd is probably best known from her role as Wade on the sci-fi show Sliders.)

Isaac Jaffee is Sports Night's executive producer. His experience and optimism are a constant source of inspiration to the whole crew. Isaac is played by Robert Guillaume. (Guillaume's list of work is impressively long, but he is best known to American audiences as Benson DuBois from the 1970s sitcoms Soap and Benson.)

...not to mention a supporting cast of studio regulars and recurring characters.

The Stories

(section still to come)

Seeing the Show

If you are in the USA, Comedy Central is rerunning both seasons of Sports Night. Right now it's running at some absurdly late hour...

If you are in the UK, you're out of luck right now, because apparently Sports Night has never been shown on British terrestrial, satellite, or cable¹. If anyone involved in TV scheduling is listening...

If you're anywhere else and have information on where to see Sports Night in your country, please post it in a conversation here and I'll add it to the page.

DVD:The entire series of Sports Night (both seasons) will be released in a six-disc set on November 5th! (And there was much rejoicing.) The release will be Region 1 only, which means anyone outside North America will need a player that isn't region-locked in order to view these DVDs. Retail price will be $74.99. Thanks to MykeyII for this information.

At this point, the length of this conversation is way out of proportion to my interest in it.
- Dan Rydell