God, I love Keith Olbermann. Since MSNBC runs their shows again on-line (all around the world) that's how my friends and I got the news while we were in Japan. On a tangent, I just started re-watching "Sports Night" because we got the complete DVD series shipped to us at work where I promptly stole it God, I love that show. I'm a Sorkin fangirl from way back so I have so much love for sports night. I think the laugh track issues came from Sorkin himself; he was never a fan, although the networks wanted the show to have one. I think by the second season it disappears completely.

"Sports Night"!!!! Amazon just delivered my DVDs today. I was pretty pissed off at Best Buy Tuesday because I went out of my way to rush up there at lunch based on the promise on both the phone and the website that they had them in stock. They did not. I was thirty minutes late coming back from lunch with nothing to show for it. But, Amazon came through. I can't wait to dig into the extras. God, I love that show. I'm a Sorkin fangirl from way back so I have so much love for sports night. Seriously. This show just makes me so happy. I enjoyed "Studio 60" in spite of it's many, many, many flaws, but "Sports Night" is just all love. If Sorkin hadn't been so angry when they did S60 it could have been just as perfect as this. I think the laugh track issues came from Sorkin himself; he was never a fan, although the networks wanted the show to have one. I think by the second season it disappears completely. Yeah, it goes away all together, thankfully. It's weird that their slow transition out of it made me start to barely even notice when it was there. You'd think it would be the other way around. In my mind it's hardly there at all even when it was still really prominent. One part I do remember (and I'm totally about to go watch this one) is when Gordon and Casey are talking about Gordon's case ("I killed him...I killed him dead."). For some reason when Gordon gets Casey with the whole "is that a football pool?" thing I can hear the canned laughter. You know it's a good show when the biggest flaw was a network enforced laugh track. Can you imagine if this show came around now? ABC's back to the smart and funny and quirky. They're even bringing back "Cupid", the other casualty of that awful period of celebrating lame over awesome. SN would thrive now. At least in the "good enough ratings to warrant a third season" sense of the word. eta: I changed my mind. "Eli's Coming" won the prize of being the first ep I view on this new edition. One of the many things that managed to worm its way into my brain, never to leave, was the alternate interpretation of what "Eli's Coming" meant. Thanks Dan. The song has forever been altered for me.

It's weird that their slow transition out of it made me start to barely even notice when it was there. I find that if it's really good comedy I'm able to tune it out. When I watched Friends it used to bug me, but as an HIMYM fan I barely notice it. Every so often my ears pick it up, but a lot of times I'm able to just ignore its existence. Probably because I'm so engrossed in the plot. Same with Sports Night.

I think you're right. And it's weird because I would almost expect it to be the other way. It would seem to me that if a show is excellent that a laugh track would take you out of the moment. But, it doesn't. And then it's just gone all together. I think it would be cool if the few sitcoms left that actually do tape in front of audiences would follow HIMYM's lead. They could have the audience in order to feed off that live energy, but they could screen the edited ep to an audience and use that as the laugh track. I think that keeps the HIMYM track from sounding phony and forced. Every single punchline isn't punctuated in a fake way. I do recognize the track on that show every once in awhile, but it doesn't bother me the way that some have. Back to SN, Linda Holmes (aka Miss Alli from the other place) wrote a nice review for NPR. After all those years of "the other place" having their panties in a bunch over the whole lemonlyman thing, I think I just lumped Alli in with the rest of them. http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2008/10/sports_night_my_favorite_show.html And I'm just done with "Mary Pat Shelby" and moving on to "Dear Louise". I so love this show.

It's not just a one-piece thing that Linda Holmes is doing, by the way. She and a few others are doing a regular pop culture blog, which is a nice step up. (And she was always a sensible person over there, IMHO, and one of the good writers.) On the other comedy side ... Ouch. Pushing Daisies finished behind Knight Rider in the ratings. I hope life improves for the pie maker.

It's not just a one-piece thing that Linda Holmes is doing, by the way. She and a few others are doing a regular pop culture blog, which is a nice step up. (And she was always a sensible person over there, IMHO, and one of the good writers.) Oh, no, it wasn't her inclusion there that surprised me, it was the positive Sorkin review. I actually like her writing. I always enjoyed her reality recaps, partly because I tended to feel similarly about people that she did and partly because I enjoy her writing style. Her modding was a bit much, but I wasn't interested enough in any of her shows to actually find myself no the receiving end of one of her warnings or bannings. On the other comedy side ... Ouch. Pushing Daisies finished behind Knight Rider in the ratings. I hope life improves for the pie maker. There is absolutely nothing about that that isn't wrong, wrong, wrong. Otoh, it's hard to be excited about decent ratings for shows I like because it's been flip flopping so much. I guess there's no point in me dwelling on the lower ratings since it could be the opposite next week. On another hand, I think I'll keep these things in the tivo for awhile so I'll have them should the networks freak out and cancel everything. I just finished "The Quality of Mercy at 29k." Damn, Aaron Sorkin does like to wallow in a pool full of liberal guilt sometimes. No doubt. And he wasn't subtle. Which might be annoying if the words and acting weren't so wonderful. What's Josh Charles doing these days? (Never mind, I see he did a run on "In Treatment" which I haven't seen yet.) I wouldn't mind seeing a reunion with RSL on "House." How fantastic would that be? I love Josh Charles. I was disappointed that so many people from that show went on to bigger things and he just sort of disappeared. I still haven't seen "In Treatment" either, but I do keep up with Josh's comedy work with David Wain and Co. It's fun to see him do weird and absurd. It was also good to see him in the extras here talking so fondly since the rumor was always that he was miserable. And maybe he was, but in hindsight he clearly changed his tune. It was also good to hear Sabrina Lloyd on a commentary because it sort of surprised me to find that she wasn't in any of the featurettes. I found that weird. It also seems significant that this is a show that chose to begin with Ted McGinnley and not end with him. If you wanna use Ted you might as well just bring him on right from the start. He was so great as Gordon. And I love the Sally arc. edited because "words and actings" was driving me crazy.

Wow. I can honestly say that I've never thought about the impact that 9/11 would have had on SN. And I feel very stupid for the fact that that thought never crossed my mind. It would have no doubt been something Sorkin wouldn't have been able to *not* address. Even though he put 9/11 into a bit of an alternate universe thing on TWW (and received a lot of flack for it, though I'm really not sure that many TV writers in his position would have done it differently), he still couldn't keep himself from making a statement on it. With SN being right there...it would have been almost impossible to ignore it. LE only pops up in those two episodes, unfortunately. I guess by the end of the second one they were kind of done with her, but I did like the dyamnic between Bobbi and Dan and the reversal of crazy. I wouldn't have minded seeing her again. As for the Josh Charles thing, I was a big fan of SN as it aired, but my involvement in online fandom was mainly limited to usenet. I only read the SN gossip after the show was already off the air and while it would seem impossible for the cast of the first, smaller show to be bitter about being neglected for the second, bigger show, who knows if that was real or not. Maybe it wasn't. It was just easy to believe it when the other actors spoke of the so fondly and Josh just sort of seemed to disappear. And back to the extras, I got all weepy watching the feature where they spent so much time talking about Robert Guilliame's stroke. The clips of the video they sent to him where they were assuring him he had a job while going through headshots of other actors was very cute.

The season 3 DVD for How I Met Your Mother releases this Tuesday. I'm getting it from netflix, and I'm crazy excited. I've been recording S4 to the DVR; so once I'm caught up with S3 I will be watching in real-time with everyone else! Yay! I was surprised to see there were 20 episodes last season, what with the strike. They really lucked out, I guess. How does S3 stand up? I liked S2 much more than S1, if that means anything.

Speaking of things that occur around HIMYM...Is anyone else watching Big Bang Theory? I caught a couple of episodes and wasn't that impressed last season, but I have to say they have hit a geeky stride of late. And randomly, Josh Charles is on my TV guesting on SVU now.

Just wondered if people around here are enjoying the fabulous Tina Fey on SNL. Last night with Queen Latifah as the moderator was truly brilliant. And not all that exaggerated in lots of ways. But my real question is the very weird Lennon Sisters skit they did. It was sort of funny, but what was the deal with the really weird sister with the teeny hands? I suppose I'm thick as can be, but made no sense of that character, so maybe there's some backstory I missed out on... Also, who was playing her?