Sunday, July 17, 2005

I'M DAN RYDELL, ALONGSIDE CASEY MCCALL: I've been rewatching my Sports Night DVD's recently--all of you have seen Sports Night, which is probably the best sitcom of the past decade, right?--and several things have struck me. Not just a reminder of the greatness, and a renewed wondering of exactly why no member of the cast ever got an Emmy nomination (the winners in categories where folks could/should have been nominated included Helen Hunt and John Lithgow) and how "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz" managed to beat "The Apology" for best writing for a comedy series. Also, you notice odd coincidences, such as the fact that on both Sports Night and Six Feet Under, a major plot point is Peter Krause's character's bad marriage to a woman named Lisa. And you wonder why the hell NBC didn't have the brains to bring in the Sports Night writers once Sorkin left West Wing--most of them are working on NBC shows already (Scrubs, Will and Grace), so it wouldn't have been such a big deal.

But what I hadn't realized is just how many guest stars went on to bigger and better things--Janel Moloney, Lisa Edelstein, and a brunette Teri Polo turn up in various places. H!ITG! (and successful writer in his own right) Clark Gregg turns up But the biggest surprise is Brenda Strong as villainess Sally Sasser--a face you don't recognize immediately, but a voice you will, as she's spent this season playing Mary Alice Young on Desperate Housewives, and has turned up from time to time as the late Mrs. Brown on Everwood. In both of those roles, Strong plays the model of domesticity, but Sally Sasser is a gleeful, slutty, maneater, and Strong digs into it with all of her teeth. It makes you admire her all the more for shifting gears so dramatically. (And interestingly, it adds some texture to the Lynette/Mary Alice relationship on Housewives knowing the actress' background.)

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