Please stop me. If Angela asks me when dinner will be ready and it\u2019s almost done, I will call out something like \u201cTwo minutes back\u201d. It\u2019s a quote. I\u2019m quoting. While I\u2019m cooking.<\/p>\n
I say cooking, it\u2019s usually more heating and stirring and microwaving, but that\u2019s not the point. The point is that my everyday conversation is riddled with quotes that nobody knows, at least until Angela happens upon some film or TV show that I got it from.<\/p>\n
For it all comes from TV, radio and film. Imagine if I\u2019d read the classics when I was younger. I might\u2019ve become a weather bore every time the wind was in the east but at least that allusion could sometimes\u00a0make sense. \u201cTwo minutes back\u201d never does. Back to what?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s from Sports Night. I have no measurable interest, knowledge, experience or even really awareness of sport, but this show that first aired 20 years ago is a favourite. Imagine Aaron Sorkin\u2019s The West Wing done as a half-hour comedy and set behind the scenes of a TV sports show. This should be easy to imagine because that\u2019s exactly what this is.<\/p>\n
Take a look at this example. It\u2019s the opening few minutes of an episode and I guarantee that you\u2019ll wish it were the whole thing.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/oWFWdUl2te8<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I should say right now that you can see a lot on YouTube but the only place to get the show itself is on DVD. Well, if you\u2019re in the US you can stream it on Netflix or buy it on iTunes.<\/p>\n
Or come round to my place.<\/p>\n
I do relish its moments when characters will be in a heated argument and then, because the TV show\u2019s cameras are now live, will be smiling, happy hosts until the commercial break and wallop, right back at it. I don\u2019t know why I relish that so much, except that it\u2019s a heightened dramatic situation that\u2019s also real. I\u2019ve done that, to a vastly smaller extent, in radio, and that turn-on-a-second move from personal to professional, that mental juggling of conflicting demands on your head, it\u2019s gorgeous.<\/p>\n
It also forces arguments into bite-sized chunks which is fantastic because drama does that anyway and here the need to stop and start is imposed, it\u2019s an external pressure and you can feel the frustration. You can feel how when it\u2019s released, when they\u2019ve gone to commercial and can speak freely, that the next part of the row burns out of them. Plus even as they\u2019ve been professional and talking on air about some sports thing I\u2019ll never comprehend, you know the real drama has been continuing in their heads so when they can speak freely, the argument has moved on.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an amazing thing to me. It means the Sports Night scripts pummel through arguments and issues at an incredibly artificial rate yet specifically because of the context, it feels natural and uncontrived. It feels real.<\/p>\n
This is a comedy I\u2019m talking about and I actually hesitated calling it that because for me, it\u2019s drama. There is a very quiet laugh track in the early episodes, the result of the producers not wanting one and the network insisting and presumably some editor accidentally leaning on the volume control to minimise it. And it is also very, very, very funny.<\/p>\n
Yet it\u2019s the drama that keeps me coming back to this show \u2013 and I do keep coming back. I can visibly see me putting the DVD boxset in my car boot after having had to pay a gigantic import duty to the post office and saying aloud \u201cI hope you\u2019re worth it\u201d. That must\u2019ve been around 2001 or 2002 and it was. It is.<\/p>\n
This show about the making of a sports show runs for 45 episodes of around 22 minutes apiece. What\u2019s that? Something like 16 and a half hours of television. I watched the first one that weekend I got the DVD \u2013 and then I watched the following 44 before Monday.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve done that binge about four times since.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m in the middle of another one now. It\u2019s been years since my DVD player was even connected to my TV set but I found a way to stream any video from my Mac to my TV set so I was looking through my shiny discs for what I\u2019d want to see. I only meant to watch one episode of Sports Night. That was Tuesday. It\u2019s now Friday and I\u2019ve seen 15 episodes. Again.<\/p>\n
This is a series about the making of a show and much of it takes place during the time that fictitious sports programme is on air. It has an awful lot of commercials. And every time this show-within-a-show cuts to a commercial, a character in its gallery will announce how long they\u2019ve got before they come back from commercial.<\/p>\n
Ask me how long before I watch the next episode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Please stop me. If Angela asks me when dinner will be ready and it\u2019s almost done, I will call out … Continue reading