Sports Night Blues
Jan. 14th, 2012 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerOn Thursday I posted about my new-found love of Sports Night.
The honeymoon lasted two days. And then I got disc two of the first season, and either Sports Night took a considerable downward turn in its middle episodes, or now that I’ve watched a critical mass of Sports Night episodes I’m noticing things that have always been irritating about it.
In the middle of the first season Sports Night suddenly becomes mired down in romance. Romance does not seem to be Sorkin’s forte. He writes characters being together or breaking up just fine, but the part where they get together? Not so much.
Danny, one of the anchors for Sports Night’s show within a show (also called Sports Night), meets a woman named Rebecca, whom he proceeds to ask out seventeen times because he’s so enthralled by the fact that she’s not interested. Creepy stalker behavior for the win!
But creepy stalking aside, at least Danny’s relationship with Rebecca has actually gone somewhere. They meet in one episode and agree to have dinner at the end of the next. Voila! Plot movement!
Whereas Danny’s co-anchor, Casey, has an on-going not-quite thing with their producer, Dana. They’re in love with each other but they haven’t admitted to themselves they’re in love with each other even though its obvious to everyone else they’re in love with each other even though Dana’s dating another guy, and they’ve been stuck in this perpetual loop since the first episode and have gone exactly nowhere over the proceeding sixteen.
Even though eight of those episodes are devoted, in whole or in part, to their not-a-relationship.
And their entire relationship seems to be about how they’re not in a relationship.
Why should we root for them to be together? Do they have anything in common other than believing that they’re not in love, while actually being totally in love? Why are we wasting time on this when there are other story lines that a) are interesting, b) actually go somewhere, and c) aren’t a rehash of a million other story lines on a million other shows?
The honeymoon lasted two days. And then I got disc two of the first season, and either Sports Night took a considerable downward turn in its middle episodes, or now that I’ve watched a critical mass of Sports Night episodes I’m noticing things that have always been irritating about it.
In the middle of the first season Sports Night suddenly becomes mired down in romance. Romance does not seem to be Sorkin’s forte. He writes characters being together or breaking up just fine, but the part where they get together? Not so much.
Danny, one of the anchors for Sports Night’s show within a show (also called Sports Night), meets a woman named Rebecca, whom he proceeds to ask out seventeen times because he’s so enthralled by the fact that she’s not interested. Creepy stalker behavior for the win!
But creepy stalking aside, at least Danny’s relationship with Rebecca has actually gone somewhere. They meet in one episode and agree to have dinner at the end of the next. Voila! Plot movement!
Whereas Danny’s co-anchor, Casey, has an on-going not-quite thing with their producer, Dana. They’re in love with each other but they haven’t admitted to themselves they’re in love with each other even though its obvious to everyone else they’re in love with each other even though Dana’s dating another guy, and they’ve been stuck in this perpetual loop since the first episode and have gone exactly nowhere over the proceeding sixteen.
Even though eight of those episodes are devoted, in whole or in part, to their not-a-relationship.
And their entire relationship seems to be about how they’re not in a relationship.
Why should we root for them to be together? Do they have anything in common other than believing that they’re not in love, while actually being totally in love? Why are we wasting time on this when there are other story lines that a) are interesting, b) actually go somewhere, and c) aren’t a rehash of a million other story lines on a million other shows?
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 08:53 pm (UTC)For all that they have similar romantic issues, Sports Night is a million times better than Studio 60. Outside of the Casey/Dana circle of DOOM, it has things like "humor," "pacing," and "a show-within-the-show that actually works."
no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-16 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 08:54 pm (UTC)...but mostly there isn't much. IT IS SAD.