Season 1, Episodes 12-13: "Smoky," "Small Town"
A good story works its way into your system. But every fiction fan has a few immunities, aesthetic antibodies that will always reject a certain storytelling strain - a particular genre, character type, plot device, whatever - notwithstanding the quality of its execution. You might be congenitally incapable of enjoying a conspiracy plot, or a brooding bad boy character, or anything remotely science fiction-y, no matter how skillfully or originally it's handled. That's a normal aspect of fandom.
Showing posts with label Sports Night. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sports Night. Show all posts
Friday, April 8, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Sports Night Revisited, Episodes 8-11: Drama is easy, dramedy is hard
Season 1, Episodes 8-11: "Thespis," "The Quality of Mercy At 29K," "Shoe Money Tonight," "The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee Tech"
When a friend of mine first started watching The West Wing, he remarked to me that he was surprised how funny it was. For a lofty political drama - which frequently discussed economic crises, capital punishment, and nuclear disarmament - it devoted a great percentage of its screen time to comedic scenes and side plots. The West Wing, winner of four straight Emmys for Oustanding Dramatic Series, was also one of the funniest prime time shows of its era.
When a friend of mine first started watching The West Wing, he remarked to me that he was surprised how funny it was. For a lofty political drama - which frequently discussed economic crises, capital punishment, and nuclear disarmament - it devoted a great percentage of its screen time to comedic scenes and side plots. The West Wing, winner of four straight Emmys for Oustanding Dramatic Series, was also one of the funniest prime time shows of its era.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Sports Night Revisited, Episodes 5-7: The best of times, the worst of times for Sorkin's leading women
Season 1, Episodes 5-7: "Mary Pat Shelby," "The Head Coach, Dinner and The Morning Mail," "Dear Louise..."
As far as Internet truisms go, "Aaron Sorkin can't write women," is right up there with "Never start a land war in Asia."
I haven't always understood this criticism; I see it more clearly on the fringes of his work. You can tell Sorkin wants to write powerful, independent women with strengths and foibles and motivations. He has an idea of what they’re supposed to look like. It's just that a lot of times, the traits he's trying to imbue get lost in translation. At worst, this results in the caricaturish Lt. Cdr. JoAnn Galloway in A Few Good Men, who comes across as shrill and over-matched at nearly every turn (at least based on Demi Moore's portrayal in the film version; I’ve never seen any stage productions). On the other hand, Annette Bening’s formidable lobbyist-cum-presidential-paramour in The American President is well-rounded and engaging, with entirely believable moments of strength and weakness. (Of course, it’s fair to ask how much of the disparity here is due to the relative acting talents of Moore and Bening.)
As far as Internet truisms go, "Aaron Sorkin can't write women," is right up there with "Never start a land war in Asia."
I haven't always understood this criticism; I see it more clearly on the fringes of his work. You can tell Sorkin wants to write powerful, independent women with strengths and foibles and motivations. He has an idea of what they’re supposed to look like. It's just that a lot of times, the traits he's trying to imbue get lost in translation. At worst, this results in the caricaturish Lt. Cdr. JoAnn Galloway in A Few Good Men, who comes across as shrill and over-matched at nearly every turn (at least based on Demi Moore's portrayal in the film version; I’ve never seen any stage productions). On the other hand, Annette Bening’s formidable lobbyist-cum-presidential-paramour in The American President is well-rounded and engaging, with entirely believable moments of strength and weakness. (Of course, it’s fair to ask how much of the disparity here is due to the relative acting talents of Moore and Bening.)
Sports Night makes a conscious effort to present two female characters in positions of authority. As, respectively, the producer and senior associate producer of Sports Night, Dana Whitaker and Natalie Hurley are drawn as smart, successful women in the traditionally male-centric world of sports journalism. The challenges faced by women in this particular profession (no less today than in 1998, sadly) are arguably greater than in any other consumer industry. Those challenges form the wellspring of the main story in "Mary Pat Shelby," a story which continues - and is disappointingly squandered - in "The Head Coach, Dinner and The Morning Mail."
Friday, February 25, 2011
Sports Night: Revisited - The first in an occasional series
One of the highlights of my dull and dispiriting summer of 2001 was falling for Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night. I can't remember if I watched the show during its initial two-season run on ABC in 1998-2000, but it didn't make an impression on me until I began watching the endless midday repeats on Comedy Central during those barren weeks spent at home from college.
I feel like the show is often dismissed these days when it's thought of at all. It's either overshadowed by Sorkin's far more successful (and superior) follow-up The West Wing, or pointed to as the first warning sign of the faults and excesses his detractors would come to loathe. So since I've been meaning to try my hand at television criticism for some time, I figured I would revisit one of my old favorites with a more critical eye.
I'll be working through the 45-episode series in blocks of three or four episodes at a time, grouping them by story arcs as much as possible, but primarily focusing on a couple of overarching themes. I'm not going to spend a lot of time recapping plots or identifying major characters except when necessary, but I'll try to make the discussions accessible to anyone with at least a surface knowledge of the show.
Finally, a style note: In order to distinguish between the show we're watching from the eponymous show-within-the-show the characters are producing, I'll refer to the former in the traditional mode of italics, Sports Night, and the latter in plain text, Sports Night.
With that in mind, off we go. One fan's reappraisal of Sports Night, ten years later, beginning at the beginning:
I feel like the show is often dismissed these days when it's thought of at all. It's either overshadowed by Sorkin's far more successful (and superior) follow-up The West Wing, or pointed to as the first warning sign of the faults and excesses his detractors would come to loathe. So since I've been meaning to try my hand at television criticism for some time, I figured I would revisit one of my old favorites with a more critical eye.
I'll be working through the 45-episode series in blocks of three or four episodes at a time, grouping them by story arcs as much as possible, but primarily focusing on a couple of overarching themes. I'm not going to spend a lot of time recapping plots or identifying major characters except when necessary, but I'll try to make the discussions accessible to anyone with at least a surface knowledge of the show.
Finally, a style note: In order to distinguish between the show we're watching from the eponymous show-within-the-show the characters are producing, I'll refer to the former in the traditional mode of italics, Sports Night, and the latter in plain text, Sports Night.
With that in mind, off we go. One fan's reappraisal of Sports Night, ten years later, beginning at the beginning:
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