photo: sportsnight.net
Sports Night
The Apology
Season 1, Episode 2
Brittany W. & JD – Associate Staff Writers
brittanyw@thetwocentscorp.com
jd@thetwocentscorp.com
This week on Sports Night: Casey is lamenting his public perception, Natalie is feeling even more amorous than before, and Dan having a rough week. Not only is he being stalked by a fitness professional, but he’s also gotten himself into trouble with the network.
This is Brittany W. along side JD. Those stories, and more, under the link.
In Sports Night’s poignant second episode, Dan makes some comments in an Esquire article regarding the legalization of marijuana that get him in hot water with the network. The network suits want him to do an on-air apology for what he’s said, and our normally glib co-anchor seizes the moment to reveal a vulnerable side of himself regarding the death of his younger brother. Meanwhile, Casey takes the same article as yet another sign that his partner is cool and he isn’t, leading him to try and figure out why, and Jeremy dives headfirst into his new duties while Natalie admits that she has feelings for him…to anyone that will listen.
Brittany W: This is probably my favorite episode of Sports Night, owing to two things, the first being that my favorite character on the whole show is Dan. I’ve always identified with him, being the opinionated, sarcastic, sometimes incredibly insecure one. His love of the Baltimore Orioles is pretty much on par with my own love of my baseball team, the San Diego Padres. A lot of what he goes through on the show, I identify with. In this episode, we jump directly into his brain and see the core of who he is, no punches pulled. He gives one of my all-time favorite lines, something I still quote today: “Actions are immoral. Opinions are not. And I won’t apologize for mine. Discussion is good, and for those of us fortunate enough to be the subject of magazine articles, it might be our responsibility from time to time to try and raise the level of debate.” He’s impassioned about what he believes in, because as we come to find out in one the most tearjerking scenes on this show, he is a recovering addict. He went into recovery because of one thing: his younger brother, Sam, took after him in all things — including the drug use, which ultimately ended his life in a car accident. Dan feels responsible for his brother’s death, and it’s him that he apologizes to.
The second thing is that this is an issue that’s immensely personal to me as a person. I lost a childhood friend of mine in a car accident, and while there were no drugs involved or foul play, I felt incredibly responsible for his death. Watching this episode helped me deal with my own personal tragedy, and gave me a chance to see through Dan’s eyes. It’s a perfect example of how television can raise awareness of important issues and make us feel. This episode was important in my life on so much more than an entertainment level.
JD: This is also one of my favorite episodes of the show, though I’d be hard-pressed to pick an overall favorite. I find it interesting, however, that the same words and actions on a screen can be interpreted so differently sometimes, and yet have both/all opinions be perfectly valid in their own way. It all depends on personal experiences, I suppose. I have been, in my life, very familiar with addiction and addicts. I have watched this episode several times, and rewatched it a couple times this week, and have never come away with the impression that Dan was a recovering addict. His emotional reaction to being accused of it initially was more disbelieving that that of a caught man. He said in his apology that he “smoked a lot of dope”, but a lot of teenage kids party and drink and smoke pot and aren’t addicts.
Regardless, Dan is absolutely right. I happen to agree with not only his reasons for making the statements he did in the magazine, but more importantly, that those in the public spotlight should use their publicity to “raise the level of debate”. The same could be said of televisions shows, and here’s just one example of how Sports Night does exactly that (on several occasions–other memorable ones for me being the morality of hunting, the persecution of the victims of sexual harassment, and racism). In fact, there are a few lines at the end of a scene in this episode that have always stuck in my mind for that reason, and it deals with a separate issue than that of the drug issue. When Isaac tells Dan to give an apology, and Dan draws an ill-thought-out comparison to himself and Rosa Parks, Isaac calls him on it later. “Because I love you, I can say this: no rich young whit guy has ever gotten anywhere with me comparing himself to Rosa Parks.” (Isaac tends to deliver lines like this a lot, actually, ones that stick with you for ages after you see the episodes. In fact, there’s another one of those for me in the episode coming up, but I’ll save that for then.)
Brittany W:The gravity of the above plotline is skillfully balanced out by some incredibly humorous subplots. Natalie publicly and repeatedly proclaims her love for Jeremy, and her feeling that Casey and Dana ought to get together. Meanwhile, Jeremy attempts to cut his first baseball highlight…and only gets it down to eight and a half minutes, including the seventh-inning stretch. And Casey, in all his adorable neuroses, wants to know why he’s not cool. The answer may have something to do with the fact that he listens to the Starland Vocal Band. To this day, neither me nor any of my friends who watched Sports Night can listen to the Starland Vocal Band (not that we did before) without laughing hysterically.
On the whole, “The Apology” is a prime example of how Sports Night balances thought-provoking happenings with heartwarming humor and character interactions. Right off the bat, with this controversial second episode, the show proves that it’s actually going to make us think and feel, and not just sit back and do nothing for half an hour. Sadly, shows like this are now in short supply.
Stay tuned next week when we review The Hungry and the Hunted.
