Watch out for: the deep and abiding love between co-anchors Casey (Peter Krause) and Dan (Josh Charles); incidental evidence of Dan's shoe fetish; allll the Shakespeare references.
Key Episodes
1.2 "The Apology": Dan gets in hot water for pro-legalization-of-marijuana comments in a magazine interview. Only gently authoritative managing editor Isaac (Robert Guillaume) can convince him to swallow his pride. A climactic final monologue sheds light on Dan's backstory. "No rich young white guy has ever gotten anywhere with me comparing himself to Rosa Parks."
1.16 "Sally": In a key episode for the show's central will-they won't-they pair, Casey and producer Dana (Felicity Huffman), Casey realizes that Dana's boyfriend (Ted McGinley) is cheating on her.
1.22 "Napoleon's Battle Plan": Dana finds out about Gordon's infidelity, but is more bothered by how Casey knows. "Actually he was murdered on Elba. That's just one of the many things I know that most people don't."
2.3 "Cliff Gardner": Early season two has two main storylines: the staff bucking under notes from network higher-ups and tinkering by ratings expert Sam Donovan (William H. Macy); and Dana's plan to make Casey date around for six months before they can be together. This episode contains the most transparent meta-allegory about the criticism of this show for being "too smart," and Sam, until now treated with suspicion, gets a heroic climactic scene. Casey and Dana are annoying as is their wont.
2.21 & 2.22 "La Forza del Destina" & "Quo Vadimus": The team worries about their jobs when the network is sold, a meta-episode about the show's cancellation that ends on a sweetly optimistic note.
Bonus Episodes
Sports Night episodes build on each other with a fair amount of arc advancement in each episode and they are all pretty good, so this is a good show to just marathon. Here are some fairly randomly chosen highlights!
1.4 "Intellectual Property": The Casey/Dana plotline kicks off as Casey passive-aggressively hates Gordon. More importantly, after getting in trouble with accounting (Yeardley Smith, better known as the voice of Lisa Simpson) for singing "Happy Birthday" to Casey, Dan assigns everyone a public domain song. "It's against the law to be vaguely gay?"
1.8 "Thespis": An even-more-bottley-than-usual episode taking place behind the scenes of a single episode in which everything seems to go wrong, which Jeremy attributes to haunting by an ancient Greek spirit of theatrical mischief. Isaac worries about his pregnant daughter, and we learn about Dan and Casey's backstory.
1.12 "Smoky": Dan wants Casey to start dating, until Casey goes off on his own and flirts with rival showrunner Sally (Brenda Strong); Isaac grooms Dana for his job. "Natalie's my second-in-command, she's the only one I told." "Jeremy's my boyfriend, hes the only one I told." "I told many, many people."
1.19 "Eli's Coming": Dan worries that the girl he likes will go back to her ex. A sense of building dread characterizes this episode which ends with everyone's trivial problems put on hold when the news comes in that Isaac has had a stroke.
2.6 "Shane": In classic goofy-turns-suddenly-serious Sports Night fashion, Dan experiences "some kind of nervous collapse" when he can't pronounce the name Yevgeny Kafelnikov.
2.8 "The Reunion": Dana's pro-football player brother is involved in a drug scandal, Natalie asks Dan's advice going for a co-anchor job, and Casey is Isaac's Secret Santa. "Almost anything that would summon the energy for me to speak is more important than your cheese grater experience."
2.19 "April is the Cruelest Month": Casey and Dan's relationship is tense in the wake of the otherwise boring two-part "Draft Day" episode, in which Dan spitefully goes off-script to make Casey look dumb on air; Dana worries about job cutbacks after a meeting with finance (John de Lancie, aka Q from Star Trek: TNG); the staff recommits to teamwork. Highlights: the control room rehearsing Jeremy's Passover pageant.
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