Sorkin's Good 'Sports': 'Sports Night'

IS THE CANNED laugh track the worst innovation in the history of television?

The pilot episode and the first several episodes of the short-lived series "Sports Night" are punctuated by canned chortles, and it almost ruins the show. Aaron Sorkin, who penned the play "A Few Good Men" and created "The West Wing," writes sophisticated dialogue full of quick banter, witty repetitions, and the kind of lengthy monologues for which television rarely finds time. "Sports Night" inspires brainy chuckles, not outright knee-slappers. It's not a laugh-track show.

And yet, the canned laughter resounds throughout the first season, trying to convince us the show's wit is slapstick; the result is that the episodes seem less funny than they actually are. Fortunately, the laugh track gradually disappears, with only a few disembodied guffaws in the last episode. By the second and final season, it has disappeared altogether and the jokes speak for themselves.

"Sports Night" was not the first television comedy too fast-paced and subtle for a laugh track, but it was nevertheless an ambitious series when it debuted in 1998. Ostensibly a workplace sitcom, it's set at a fictional sports network whose flagship show is called "Sports Night" (based on ESPN's "SportsCenter").

The show itself (not the show-within-the-show) is less interested in sports than in the stress involved in writing and producing a news show. Despite the headaches trying to keep up with games and stats, the tight group of researchers, producers and announcers -- played by a dynamic ensemble cast Felicity Huffman, Peter Krause and Robert Guillaume -- not only love the intensity of their jobs, but are also good at what they do.

The characters, not the laughs, drive the show, and therein lie its critical success and its commercial failure. Despite protests from fans, "Sports Night" was canceled after its second season, but this new full-series set, which collects all 46 episodes along with a wealth of bonus features, argues convincingly that it opened up the networks for ambitious, form-breaking comedies like "The Office," "Arrested Development" and "30 Rock." In other words, "Sports Night" gets the last laugh.

Written by Express contributor Stephen M. Deusner
Photo courtesy Touchstone Television