Sports Night

Before The West Wing and Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip, Aaron Sorkin cut his TV teeth with Sports Night. Despite winning Emmys and introducing audiences to Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialog, the sitcom, set in an ESPN-type sports network, was canceled after just two seasons. This 10th anniversary edition calls attention to the creator’s penchant for taking viewers behind the scenes of hitherto unfamiliar environments and the way professional colleagues bond as family when they share a common passion. In the supplemental interview “Looking Back,” Sorkin and director/executive producer Thomas Schlamme devote an inordinate amount of time to discussing the laugh track that the network insisted on in the first season (but was mercifully canned for the second). The show’s technical innovations, including use of a contiguous set well-suited for Sorkin’s trademark walking and talking sequences, is the basis for its own supplement, as is a review of the show by the real-life hosts and staff of ESPN’s Sports Center. There also are eight episode commentaries by cast and crew as well as a 34-page episode guide with an introduction by Sorkin.

Shelf Talk: Sorkin is one of the most popular TV creators/writers of the past decade, and this eight-disc, 45-episode set is a welcome successor to Disney’s bare-bones release in 2002. Sports Night is a bona fide cult favorite, and many of its stars, including Peter Krause (Six Feet Under) and Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives), have gone on to bigger and more popular TV projects over the past decade.