“Gabriel Macht is sturdy but dull as the restless Spirit. Samuel L. Jackson chews the graphic scenery as Octopus, while Scarlett Johansson seems to get lost in that same scenery as his weirdly docile sidekick Silken Floss. Eva Mendes plays jewel thief Sand Saref as a one-note temptress, while Paz Vega as a French assassin and Jaime King as an underwater nymph go for the same effect. How many vamps can a movie contain? Sarah Paulson comes as close as any to an actual character, playing a doctor who lovingly patches up the fast-healing Spirit. Dan Lauria’s hard-boiled police chief and Stana Katic’s amped rookie cop never shake free from being cliches. Louis Lombardi appears multiple times as cloned Octopus henchmen. One thing about ‘The Spirit’ is that it’s never dull. Then again, the same can be said of Chinese water torture.”

There’s barely a mention of her in Variety’s similarly unenthusiastic take:

“If this summer’s ‘The Dark Knight’ raised the bar for seriousness, ambition and dramatic realism in the comicbook-based superhero genre, ‘The Spirit’ reps its antithesis: Relentlessly cartoonish and campy, it’s a work of pure digital artifice, feverishly committed to its own beautiful, hollow universe to the exclusion of any real narrative interest or engagement with its characters. … Pic rapidly introduces the Spirit’s flamboyant archnemesis, the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson), who seems just as immune to bodily injury as the Spirit is; voluptuous gold-digger Sand Saref (Eva Mendes), with whom the Spirit shares a troubled, sepia-toned history; pugnacious police commissioner Dolan (Dan Lauria) and his daughter, Ellen (Sarah Paulson), a doctor who has long carried a torch for the masked crusader. … There’s a lot going on here, but none of it sticks — not the shopworn plotting nor the arch, stilted dialogue. The actors often seem to be delivering their lines in ironic quote marks, suggesting a straight-faced sendup of noir and comicbook conventions that, whatever the intended effect, falls mostly flat.”

Will you be catching The Spirit despite the early lack of enthusiasm? If you do, report in with your opinion — of the movie, and of Paulson’s performance.

Studio 60, Sarah Paulson, The Spirit

In the other corner, President Josiah Bartlet.

Lots of West Wing names on the list of those opposing the call from the leadership of the Screen Actor’s Guild to authorize a strike. Bradley Whitford, Janel Maloney, Rob Lowe, Marlee Matlin, Mary McCormack, Alan Alda, and Kathryn Joosten are among those who signed on to a letter stating, in part, “We feel very strongly that SAG members should not vote to authorize a strike at this time. We don’t think that an authorization can be looked at as merely a bargaining tool. It must be looked at as what it is — an agreement to strike if negotiations fail. We support our union and we support the issues we’re fighting for, but we do not believe in all good conscience that now is the time to be putting people out of work.”

Martin Sheen, though, is on the other side of the issue, as one of 31 “solidarity signers” lending his name to a statement that says “I support the Screen Actors Guild National Board of Directors request for members to vote YES to empower the National Board to decide whether to call a TV/Theatrical contract strike, and if so, determine its timeframe. We must arm our negotiating committee with the collective unity and strength of the Screen Actors Guild members.”

It’s certainly true that if a union doesn’t have the power to strike, it doesn’t have much power at all. The faction opposing a current strike is proposing the threat of one in three years, but that’s not going to help much around the negotiating table now.

But I think the anti-strike-authorization faction has a point that this is not a time when a strike is going to be met with much sympathy by anyone. Besides the fact that the economy’s in sad enough shape already without the entertainment industry and its support services shutting down, the injuries to viewing habits inflicted by the writers’ strike still haven’t healed. You don’t want to get people out of the habit of commiting themselves to television shows for good.

Would you have patience for another strike? Do you think there needs to be one whether viewers can stand it or not? Tell whether you side with Josh or the president in the comments.

I caught the great West Wing episode “Two Cathedrals” on Bravo this morning, and … wow. While I have some misgivings about the MS/scandal story arc in general, there’s no denying that it was responsible for some of the series’ most powerful episodes.

A couple of days ago, there was the re-run of “17 People,” with that great opening scene of Toby slowly figuring out there was something up, the sound of a ball thrown against the wall running through it like a heartbeat. The counterpoint in that episode, between Sam and Josh trying to bring the funny to the correspondent’s dinner speech while Toby is having his heart broken in the Oval Office, between the lightweight political concerns of the moment and really serious deep shit, just increased the building sense of doom.

This is a show that’s justly praised for its torrents of words, but there are some moments that just play on actors’ facial expressions — Richard Schiff’s throughout “17 People,” or John Spencer’s reaction shots after Leo is told of Mrs. Landingham’s death in “18th and Potomac” — that, no cliche, are worth a thousand words. Another wordless moment that gets me every time is the way Charlie takes off his raincoat when he sees that the president is not putting on his at the storm-swept culmination of “Two Cathedrals.” A perfect small gesture of undying and unquestioning loyalty. Then swooping into that long sequence set to Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms,” the staff gathering behind their leader to go out together into the maelstrom. Watch it again in the YouTube video above.

I was particularly interested this time, watching “Two Cathedrals,” to reconsider the performance of Kirsten Nelson as young Mrs. Landingham. On previous viewings, I had no other knowledge of the actress, and have always been blown away by how well she interpreted the part — not imitating Kathryn Joosten’s performance as the Mrs. Landingham we knew and loved, exactly, but channeling her uncannily into a younger version. The voice and vocal inflections and facial expressions and manner of challenging Jed are just so perfect. Now, of course, I’ve seen her in many episodes of “Psych” as an entirely different character, police chief Karen Vick, and I wondered if it would color my appreciation of the performance. But nope. She’s still young Mrs. Landingham to me, awesomely so.

Love the way those flashbacks, which could have been annoying, echo back and forth into the present struggles of Jed, with the cigarette on the church floor, the imagined conversation with old Mrs. Landingham that changes his mind about running, and of course, the hands-in-pockets-turn-head-smile that gives away his decision in an ending that, if you’d been paying attention, wasn’t a cliffhanger at all. Fantastic work all around.

West Wing, Two Cathedrals, Bravo

Casey: We’ve been having some very bizarre computer problems. Have you noticed that? The LC wire’s been getting numbers wrong.
Natalie: (entering) What do you need?
Casey: Messersmith won the gold medal in the pole vault with a leap of 238 feet, 6 inches?
Natalie: That doesn’t sound right.
Casey: Yeah, it lacks the ring of truth, yes.
Natalie: 238 feet, 6 inches in the pole vault. … That’d be a record, wouldn’t it?
Casey: Yes, it would.

Casey: Why are you staring at me?
Dan: Because it’s time.
Casey: It’s not time.
Dan: It is time. It’s past time.
Casey: It’s not past time.
Dan: It’s well past time. You need to start meeting women.
Casey: I’ve met many women.
Dan: No, you haven’t. No, you haven’t met many women. That’s why I’m here.
Casey: Oh, boy, I like the sound of this.
Dan: You got married at 23 to a woman you met when you were 19.
Casey: I know, I was there.
Dan: So you agree?
Casey: To what?
Dan: You agree that it’s time.
Casey: You said it was past time.
Dan: Well, it is past time.
Casey: Then I’m screwed.
Dan: I’m gonna help you out.
Casey: Oh, thank God for that, Danny. Thank God for you.
Dan: Thank God, indeed.
Casey: Indeed I do.
Dan: Do you know why I can help you out?
Casey: Why?
Dan: ‘Cause there’s still time.

Dan: A lot’s changed since you’ve been out there.
Casey: Out where?
Dan: There — out there. Where the women are.
Casey: Everybody still wears shoes, right?
Dan: Do they ever.

Dan: You know the biggest difference?
Casey: Biggest difference between what?
Dan: Biggest difference between women then and women now?
Casey: What?
Dan: You’re on television.

Isaac: I want to start grooming you.
Dana: I don’t understand.
Isaac: You heard me.
Dana: You want to start grooming me?
Isaac: Yes.
Dana: You better be talking about my hairstyle, Isaac.
Isaac: Don’t go nuts.
Dana: I am not going nuts. I’m just saying that’s the only kind of grooming that I’m prepared to talk about at this particular moment.

Dana: How do you know I even want your job?
Isaac: Everybody wants my job.
Dana: Not me. I think your job stinks. You get to create your own show and make all the decisions and have a big staff and make a lot of money. That’s not for me, Isaac. I like to answer to people. I don’t want to create. When I get a thought in my head, I like it to die right there.

Isaac: Dana, that was a near-death experience at Christmas. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Luther so mad.
Dana: You embarrassed him on television. He’ll get over it.
Isaac: He may get over it, but he certainly won’t forget it.
Dana: Look, he yelled, he screamed, but he didn’t fire you. If he was gonna fire you, he’d have fired you.
Isaac: You don’t fire a black executive during a race-related public-relations problem. You wait awhile.

Dana: I won’t tell anyone you’re grooming me. Goodbye. (Walks out of the office) He wants to groom me.
Natalie: What’d you say?
Dana: I said I didn’t want to be groomed. I said everybody here is very happy with the jobs they have right now. Right?
Natalie: Sure.
Dana: Natalie?
Natalie: Yeah.
Dana: You’re thinking about how you’d redecorate my office right now, aren’t you.
Natalie: I was not!
Dana: Yes you were.
Natalie: I was totally not at all.
Dana: In your little mind, you were measuring for new curtains.
Natalie: I was not measuring for curtains.
Dana: You’d keep the curtains?
Natalie: And dump the plants.

Sally: I’ll see you later, Casey. Dan’s going to want to warn you about me.

Dan: I know I said it was time, but just to be clear about something — it’s not time for that. It’s not time to dally with Sally.
Casey: Dan …
Dan: That was an unfortunate rhyme, but still.
Casey: What’s your problem with Sally?
Dan: Look at her. I don’t think she’s of this world.
Casey: You don’t think she’s of this world?
Dan: I do not.
Casey: What world do you think she’s of?
Dan: She scares me. She’s too good-looking. Nobody’s that good-looking. I’m not that good-looking.
Casey: Do you really think she was flirting with me?
Dan: And her beauty comes from a very strange place. Have you noticed that?
Casey: The places her beauty comes from weren’t that strange to me. I can identify almost all of them.
Dan: Don’t do it, Casey. She’s got an agenda.
Casey: You think she wants a job on “Sports Night”?
Dan: No, I think she wants to rule all of metropolis.
Casey: You see the job she does on “West Coast Update.” She’s a very skilled producer.
Dan: Of course she’s skilled. She’s satan’s handmaiden.
Casey: She’s not satan’s handmaiden.
Dan: On the entire planet, have you ever seen anyone with eyes like that? Huh? She’s a Stepford producer.
Casey: I say she’s a very nice person.
Dan: I say she has no reflection.

Sally: Can I be blunt?
Isaac: There’s evidence to suggest you’re capable of it, yes.

Sally: May I give you my credentials?
Isaac: I see no way of stopping you.

Sally: As we speak, one of your LC wireframes is misprocessing data while two of your associate producers stand over the monitor, attempting to have phone sex.
Isaac: God, please don’t tell me which two.
Sally: Just think about it.
Isaac: All right. My guess is it’s Jeremy and Natalie.

Dan: Stop thinking about Sally!
Casey: I’m not thinking about Sally.
Dan: This is science fiction. I’m all alone on this. I stand completely alone. Sally is an alien. Do you understand me? At night, she peels off her body and lives on Steve Guttenberg’s boat.
Casey: And you can’t get anybody to rally around that theory?

Dana: Flirt with me. Tell me why you like me better than Sally.
Casey: I do like you better than Sally.
Dana: Tell me why.
Casey: I don’t understand.
Dana: I don’t think you’re ever going to have sex again. I gotta go.
Casey: You’re smoky.
Dana: I’m sorry?
Casey: The difference between you and Sally — you’re smoky.
Dana: I’m smoky?
Casey: You’re smoky. You’re a lot of other things, too, but you’re smoky.
Dana: I don’t know what that means, but I like the sound of it.

Elliott: I’m a team player, Isaac. Always have been, always will be. But everyone here moves up one notch and you make this woman senior associate, I’ll lead a mutiny the likes of which will sink this show for good.
Isaac: Okay. Kim?
Kim: When I get Natalie’s job, is there a union regulation that prevents me from making Elliott my man slave?

Isaac: Dana, the things that I say in my office stay in my office.
Dana: Natalie’s my second in command. She’s the only one I told.
Natalie: Jeremy’s my boyfriend, he’s the only one I told.
Jeremy: I told many, many people.

Isaac: Finally, I’d like to say that while there are many programs here at CSC, and there’s nothing wrong with healthy competition, we are all a family, and we are to treat each other with professional respect.
Sally: I think I can speak for everyone on the “West Coast Update” team when I say we have nothing but respect for each and every man and woman who works on “Sports Night.”
Dan: He’s talking about you, you freak.

Natalie: Casey says she’s smoky.
Jeremy: She is smoky.
Natalie: Am I smoky?
Jeremy: You better believe it. I’ll tell you what else you are. You are a slow drink of whiskey.
Natalie: Say some computer things — right now.
Jeremy: Listen, seriously, those new herbs you’ve been taking — I think you should stop.
Natalie: I’m a slow drink of whiskey?
Jeremy: Among other things, yes.

Did I miss one of your favorites? Add it in the comments.

Sports Night, Smoky, dialog

As they prepare for the evening’s show, Dan announces to his partner that it’s time: Casey’s ready to start dating again. He needs to start meeting women, and Dan’s going to help him out, whether he likes it or not. There’s still time for him to find someone. Casey, on the other hand, is more concerned about the computer glitches that are creating ridiculous sports records in the Sports Night copy.

After the show, Dana stops by Isaac’s office, all freaked out because he sent a note saying he wanted to see her. He never sends notes. What could it mean? Isaac explains that he wants to start grooming her to take over his job, and she should start coming to monthly executive lunches. Dana will hear nothing of him going anywhere or grooming her for anything; she likes her job, and wants him in his. But Isaac’s worried that the public shaming he gave the boss in the previous episode only appears to have blown over, and Luther Sachs is waiting to fire him until it doesn’t look like he’s doing it over a race-related issue. He tells Dana that he wants the show to go to the person he wants it to go to, and asks her to keep quiet about it.

Yeah, like that’s going to happen. Dana’s barely outside the office before she’s blabbing to Natalie, who immediately starts imagining herself in Dana’s job. There’s about to be a lot of that going around.

Casey doesn’t really have to go looking for women, because one of them has found him: Sally’s in the office, flirting with maximum unsubtlety, putting her foot on his chair under the pretense of discussing old basketball injuries. Dan breaks it up and sends her on her way, and tries to warn Casey to watch out. Casey, however, had no idea he was being flirted with, and tends to disagree with Dan’s assessment that Sally is an alien, a Stepford producer, Satan’s handmaiden.

Meanwhile, Natalie’s trying like crazy to get Jeremy to flirt with her — or rather, to describe to her what’s wrong with the computers in suggestive tech speak in some sort of nerdish version of phone sex. The fact that he’s as clueless about it as Casey was pulls the plug pretty quick.

But not so quick that Sally doesn’t use their dallying as proof of the lack of professionalism on the Sports Night staff, and proof that she and her staff ought to take over when Dana gets bumped up to Isaac’s spot. She makes this argument to Isaac, who wants nothing less than to be lobbied by the woman. He assures her there are no job shifts ahead, though she’s pretty sure she heard there was.

Uninterested in Dan’s desire to fix him up with Yoko Ono, Casey seeks Dana out for some advice about flirting. She knows Sally’s flirting with him, because Sally’s always flirting with him, and suggests that Casey practice some return flirting with her now. He’s spectacularly bad at it, but just when she’s about to split, he comes up with something good: She’s smoky. That stops Dana in her tracks; she doesn’t know what it means, but she likes it. He explains that it means classy, sexy, and Dana’s fully flustered. Natalie notices what’s going on, and when Dana explains later that it was a class in flirting, she asks if Jeremy can join.

Joining in the prospective job shuffling are Kim and Elliot, who now come to Isaac arguing that if Kim gets Natalie’s job, Elliot will either quit or become her manslave, depending on who you’re talking to. That’s it — Isaac calls a meeting to insist that he’s not going anywhere, and berate Dana for betryaing his confidence. Dana explains that she only told Natalie, her second in command. Natalie explains that she only told Jeremy, her boyfriend. And Jeremy? Jeremy explains that he told many, many people.

That having been settled, Dana is free to remain unhinged by Casey’s flattery, allowing him to use any mixed metaphor he wants as long as he can throw around terms like “smoky.” In the control room, Jeremy redeems himself, too, assuring Natalie that she is not only smoky but “a slow drink of whiskey.” That and a little nerdspeak will take him far.

Sports Night, ABC, Smoky, recap

“Smokey” marks the beginning of the Dana-Casey-Sally triangle, or really, the Gordon-Dana-Casey-Sally rectangle of shirt-swapping doom. I’m with Dan about Sally being some sort of evil alien force. It’s the tallness and aggression and the blind self-confidence. If she were setting her tractor beams on a friend of mine, I’d be frightened, too.

Speaking of clueless, how does a guy like Casey, who didn’t know fantastically unsubtle Sally was flirting with him, come up with something like “smoky” to unhinge Dana? Guess it’s that sort of thing that’s allowed him to keep her off-balance all these years. Love that Jeremy not only knew what it was but was able to add “a slow drink of whiskey” to the evocative conversation, even if he didn’t get Natalie’s geek-speak/phone sex connection.

Isaac looked pretty clueless to be telling Dana something and expecting her to keep it private, but it was worth it for his snipes at Sally and then smackdown of the whole staff. And, of course, for Jeremy’s great line: “I told many, many people.”

I let some time go by in my re-viewing of the first season here, between episodes 10 and 11, and now I can’t remember, thinking back to the earlier ones — was Kim always this snippy? Funny snippy, I mean, but between her saying “Who gives a damn?” to all Jeremy’s play of the year suggestions in the previous episode and wanting Elliot to be her man-slave in this one, she seems to have stepped up her game. Maybe Sally’s been coaching her.

Sports Night, ABC, Smoky, review

First, an item from a column by Anna Griffin on OregonLive.com: “The Spouse and I just finished the second season of 30 Rock on DVD, which makes this month’s Vanity Fair cover story on Tina Fey timely and fascinating. Also fascinating: New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote the thing. A year or so ago, her ex-boyfriend, Aaron Sorkin, had a Dowd-like character show up on the set of his SNL-inspired drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, to do a Vanity Fair-esque piece on the fictional show and its producers. Now the real VF has the real Dowd doing a real story — as real as celebrity journalism gets, at least — on the real creator of a show inspired by SNL. It’s too much meta for this early in the week.”

That Dowd-inspired character was Martha O’Dell, played by Christine Lahti. Personally, I’ve never gotten into 30 Rock, partially because I’m already DVRing more things than I seem to be able to find the time to watch, partially because I’ve never been able to get over holding a grudge that it survived and Studio 60 didn’t. Amusing coincidence (or editorial in-joke) on the writing assignment, though.

And from James Poniewozik’s Tuned In blog on Time.com comes the question: “What brilliant-but-canceled show would you like to see remade?” A reader wrote in about the Cupid remake, with Studio 60’s Sarah Paulson replacing Paula Marshall and Bobby Cannavale stepping in for Jeremy Piven to give the tale another try after it tanked on ABC ten years ago.

The reader mentions Sports Night as a show somebody might get it in their head to remake, and while I agree with a commenter that Aaron Sorkin needs to be writing for TV again, I can’t even begin to imagine that story with a different cast. I don’t want to. Studio 60, on the other hand … While I like it just fine the way it was, I think there may be other interpretations of Harriet in particular that might have worked better, something with a little more Ainsley Hayes to it. Should somebody be bringing the show back with new actors in ten years? Share your recasting thoughts in the comments.

Dana: Jeremy, tell me what’s happening in Chatanooga. Tell me quickly, tell me succinctly, bullet points, we’re on the air in less than two minutes so don’t give me a valedictory address, talk to me as if I’m a small child. Tell me what’s happening in Chatanooga.
Jeremy: I don’t know what’s happening in Chatanooga.
Dana: Okay, tell me a little more than that.

Natalie: That was Brian in Chatanooga.
Dana: Alright, tell me what he knows, bullet points, I can feed it right to Casey and put it in the tease. Casey, stand by, I’m going to fill the tease. What does he know.
Natalie: He doesn’t know anything.
Dana: Stop standing by, Casey.

Dan: We’ll bring you the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, and because we’ve got soccer highlights, the sheer pointlessness of a zero-zero tie.

Isaac: What’s going on in Chatanooga?
Dana: We don’t know.
Isaac: We don’t know?
Dana: We don’t know.
Isaac: We don’t know anything?
Dana: We don’t know much.
Isaac: But fundamentally we’re still a news-gathering organization, right?
Dana: Sure.
Isaac: So what’s the problem?
Dana: We’re not very good.

Dan: I need to give interviews. I like to give interviews. It’s the only chance I get to talk to a huge group of total strangers.
Casey: Except for that hour every night you’re on television.

Joy Behar: Before we went to commercial, you were saying that you and Dan write together.
Casey: Yes.
Star Jones: How does that work?
Casey: Well, I take the nouns and verbs, Danny handles the adjectives and prepositions, and anything with an umlaut, we toss a coin.

Monica: Excuse me, Mr. McCall.
Casey: Yeah.
Monica: I’m sorry, is this a bad time?
Casey: For what?
Monica: I’d like to ask you a question, but if you’re preparing a show, if this is a bad time, I can come back.
Casey: What’s your question?
Monica: What’s my name?
Casey: What’s your name?
Monica: Yes.
Casey: Uh, what are we doing right now?
Monica: If this is a bad time, I can just come …
Casey: I’m sorry, I’m not very good at remembering names.
Monica: Who was the number-two man on the Boston Red Sox staff in 1977?
Casey: That was Ferguson Jenkins.
Monica: My name is Monica. I’m the assistant wardrobe supervisor for Sports Night as well as two other shows here at CSC. I think you hurt the feelings of the woman I work for. Her name is Maureen, and she’s been working here since the day you started.
Casey: (uncertainly) Well, I know Maureen.
Monica: Can I ask you another question?
Casey: I’m sorry I didn’t know your name.
Monica: (holding up tie) Do you know what color this is?
Casey: (shrugging) Well, it’s gray.
Monica: It’s called gunmetal. Gray has more ivory in it, gunmetal has more blue. Can you tell me which of these shirts you should wear it with?
Casey: I don’t know.
Monica: No, you don’t. There’s no reason why you should, you’re not expected to know what shirt goes with what suit, or how a color in a necktie can pick up your eyes. You’re not expected to know what’s going to clash with what Dan’s wearing, or what pattern’s going to bleed when Dave changes the lighting. Mr. McCall, you get so much attention and so much praise for what you actually do, and all of it’s deserved. When you go on a talk show, and get complimented on something you didn’t, how hard would it be to say, “That’s not me. That’s a woman named Maureen who’s been working for us since the first day. It’s Maureen who dresses me every night. And without Maureen, I wouldn’t know gunmetal from a hole in the ground.” Do you have any idea what that would have meant to her? Do you have any idea how many times she would have played that tape for her husband and her kids? … I know this is when it starts to get busy for you. I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time. Please don’t tell Maureen I spoke to you. She’d be pretty mad at me.
Casey: I won’t. Monica.

(Deciding on the play of the year.)
Kim: Women’s ice hockey.
Jeremy: You’re kidding.
Kim: The U.S. women’s team won the first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey, and there were over 4,000 fans in the arena to see them do it.
Jeremy: They beat a bunch of Slovakian cocktail waitresses, and there were over 4,000 people at my cousin Jacob’s bar mitzvah.
Elliot: Whadda you got?
Jeremy: Mark McGuire hits 70.
Kim: That’s a little obvious.
Jeremy: Our goal isn’t to be cunning, is it?
Natalie: Can we keep this organized? Pros and cons.
Jeremy: Well, the pro is he broke an unbreakable record, and the con is, Kim likes women’s ice hockey.
Natalie: What’s next.
Jeremy: Jeff Gordon.
Kim: No.
Jeremy: Why?
Kim: ‘Cause it’s NASCAR, and who gives a damn?
Jeremy: Who gives a damn?
Kim: How many people give a good damn?
Jeremy: Well, it’s the world’s most popular sport, so … probably more than 4,000.
Natalie: Next.
Jeremy: Alright, Austrian skier Hermann Maier.
Natalie: Pros.
Jeremy: He got up from one of the most horrific accidents in Olympic history and won the gold medal two days later.
Natalie: Cons?
Kim: It’s downhill skiing.
Jeremy: And?
Kim: Who gives a damn.

Isaac: Exaudio, Comperio, Conloquor. That’s a Latin phrase that translates, “To listen, to learn, to speak.” Those words are carved into the stone arches that form the entrance to the undergraduate library at Tennessee Western University. This afternoon, an extraordinary young man named Roland Shepard made what had to have been an excruciating decision. He said he wasn’t playing football under a Confederate flag. Six of his teammates chose not to let Shepard stand alone. And I choose to join them at this moment. In the history of the South there’s much to celebrate, and that flag is a desecration of all of it. It’s a banner of hatred and separatism. It’s a banner of ignorance and violence and a war that pitted brother against brother, and to ask young black men and women, young Jewish men and women, Asians, Native Americans, to ask Americans to walk beneath its shadow is a humiliation of irreducible proportions, and we all know it. Tennessee Western has produced some outstanding alumni in the last hundred years, people of wisdom and vision, strength and compassion. One of them is Luther Sachs. Luther Sachs owns Continental Corp, which owns the Continental Sports Channel, which you’re watching right now. Luther Sachs is a generous alumni contributor to Tennessee Western, with a considerable influence over its chancellor, Davis Blake, and its Board of Trustees. Luther, you’ve got a phone call to make. You’ve got to call Chancellor Blake and tell him “Take down that flag,” or he can stop looking for your checks in the mail. You’ve got to put these young men back in the classroom, and I mean pronto. These boys are going to make you proud one day, Luther. I challenge you to do the right thing. Not an unreasonable request to make of a man whose alma mater declares, Exaudio, Comperio, Conloquor. To listen, to learn, to speak. In the meantime, God go with you, Roland Shepard, and you six Southern gentlemen of Tennessee. God’s not done with any of you yet.

Dana: Isaac, I can’t even … that was … I …
Isaac: Alright! We’ve lost radio contact with Dana.
Jeremy: Isaac, no kidding. Play of the year.

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Sports Night, The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee, dialog

As they prepare for the show, Dan and Casey discuss Jerome, who is a camera operator, not that Casey would know. In fact, Casey has a noted lack of recognition for all the various anonymous staff folk who flit about putting the show together. Dan thinks Casey should have more respect for the team. Meanwhile, in the control room, there’s an awareness that something is happening in Chatanooga, but nobody knows what it is. Dana wants to know, Isaac wants to know, but there’s no information forthcoming, except that it involves black athletes and a Confederate flag.

The next morning, Casey’s preparing for an appearance on The View, which he’s pretty sure is a news show and Dan’s pretty sure is a cooking show. Dan’s still benched from doing press, but desperately wants to get back to talking to complete strangers over the air. As we view Casey with The View ladies, he talks about writing with Dan and takes credit for what are referred to as “the famous neckties.” Coos Star Jones, “A man who knows how to dress himself is a very sexy thing.”

Back at the office, Dana and the staff finally get the news from Chatanooga. An outstanding athlete and student at Tennessee Western University is in danger of losing his spot on the team, his scholarship, and his schooling because he refuses to play under a Confederate flag. After the meeting, Isaac tells Dan that he needs to do a puff piece about the Confederate flag and the tradition it represents, to please network owner Luther Sachs, an alumnus of and major donor to Tennessee Western. Dan’s not happy about it, but Isaac doesn’t want to fight with the guy. He tells Dan, “You’ve got to stop thinking of me as the champion of all things black.”

Casey’s back in his office, watching a video of himself on The View, when who should walk in but Donna Moss! No, wait, it’s wardrobe assistant Monica, come to administer upon Casey a smackdown for taking credit for what he wears, rather than giving the credit to her boss, Maureen, to whom it would mean the world. By the time she’s done with her pointed but soft-spoken tirade, Casey’s feeling about as low as that hole in the ground he can’t tell gunmetal from, and has maybe finally learned his lesson about respecting the team.

Around the conference table, Natalie, Jeremy, Elliot and Kim are brainstorming Play of the Year suggestions. Natalie wants to make a list; Jeremy mocks the making of lists. Kim suggests the U.S. women’s ice hockey for play of the year; Jeremy mocks women’s ice hockey. Jeremy mentions Mark McGuire, Jeff Gordon, an Alpine skier; Kim mocks all of them. And so it goes.

Dan’s got the puff piece done, and he and Isaac agree it’s crap. Dan wants Isaac to do an editorial in support of the protesting football player and the six teammates who have stood up with him — and have less likelihood of getting picked up by another school than the starter they’re supporting — but Isaac likes his job and fears that Luther will take it away from him. Dan says that, like those six teammates, Isaac’s Sports Night team would stand up for him. It doesn’t seem to get through to Isaac …

… but later, he comes in the control room and asks Dana to make some time for him. And when the time comes, he delivers an eloquent statement challenging Luther to do the right thing and withhold his donations unless the college does the right thing, too. Luther’s on the phone for him right after, but he goes into it with the applause, respect, and support os his staff.

And the extended staff gets some applause when Dan and Casey conclude the holiday broadcast by naming all the many people who work on the show — including Maureen in wardrobe and her assistant, Monica, who is not to be trifled with.

Sports Night, ABC, The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee, recap

But there are those nice extras, and I’m looking forward to getting into them. The episode we left off at, “The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee,” is one of the ones with a commentary — from Josh Charles, Peter Krause, Sabrina Lloyd, and episode director Robert Berlinger — but there’s nothing very dishy about it. Mostly reflections on how long ago it was, how annoying the laugh track was, and how wonderful it was working with Robert Guillaume.

This episode did indeed have a lot of Isaac goodness in it, culminating in an editorial challening Confederacy loving network owner Luther Sachs to do the right thing on behalf of some college football players who refuse to play under the Confederate flag. Although he spends much of the episode worrying about giving Sachs the excuse the man’s been looking for to fire him, he does the right thing himself and makes it pretty tough for the boss not to.

Still, despite the strength of that storyline, this will always be for me “The One With Donna Moss.” What a great performance by Janel Maloney as Monica, the wardrobe assistant who lays a smackdown on Casey for accepting credit on The View for the way Monica’s boss dresses him. According to the commentary, the actress was cast as Donna on The West Wing after this, and surely as a result of it. Also from the commentary is a confirmation that all those staffers name-checked in Dan and Casey’s sign-off were in fact staffers of the real Sports Night, the show outside the show.

Share your thoughts about “The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee” in the comments, and stay tuned this week for a recap and memorable lines.

Sports Night, The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee