Sports Night

On advice of a fellow Quaker, a woman whose judgment I trust on such matters, I've been reviewing early episodes of Sports Night, a TV series.

I consider this series linked to Control Room (the movie) in that both the TV series and the movie are about life in and around a TV control room, the source of a nationally and/or globally syndicated show, in both cases a reality show, but in the TV series case, offered as a comedic fiction scripted by talented screen writers, and revolving around sports, relationships and generally lighter fare.

Control Room, in contrast, is about war time coverage of extremely violent events -- not sports by a long shot -- and the genre is that of documentary, not clever sitcom, not fiction.

Some of the writing talent behind Sports Night was later behind West Wing, the fictional series about a president and company in the White House.

I've found Netflix a good resource for catching up on series I'd missed, what with living overseas, studying a lot in college, holding demanding jobs and so on. I'm way behind on my TV viewing. Never seen a Sopranos (don't worry, I'll get to it). But thanks to Netflix, I've worked through some middle seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and all of season one of the HBO series Six Feet Under (which has an important cast member in common with Sports Night by the way).