Sports Night: The Complete Series (1998-2000)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Features:

• Forty-five episodes, comprising the entire run of the show
  

Isaac Jaffe (Guillaume) and Dana Whittaker (Huffman) produce a television show called "Sports Night" and it doesn't happen quite a smoothly as they would hope. The two hosts of the show Dan Rydell (Charles) and Casey McCall (Krause) have a slight ego problem and are beginning to get burned out on exactly what it means to be a sports reporter these days (you know, talking more about who's gotten arrested for what rather than what someone's batting average is). All things considered, it's really amazing that they get the show on the air every night.

Have you every wondered what goes on behind the scenes of your favorite sports show? Well, this is not really the show to show you that, but what it is is one of the best written and strongly acted television shows that really never got the ratings that it deserved. It was a critical success and it was recognized for its high standards, but the network decided that not enough people watched it to keep it on the air. It was a great character study, too--which is unheard of on television these days. So considering how good it was, I guess I should be amazed that it had a two-year life span.

Unfortunately, this DVD package doesn't really give you anything except the television show as it existed during both years of its life. There are not even any text-on-screen character or actor biographies; no interviews with the cast, crew, or creator; nor is there anything that resembles a behind-the-scenes featurette. The cast seemed to have such great fun shooting the thing, it's just an absolute shame that there's nothing to support this wonderful source material. Even a commentary of sorts by the creator or some of the cast during the first episode (which seems to be par for the course these days when dealing with a TV show boxed set) would have been a godsend.

So, if you watched the show during its original run on TV and enjoyed it, you will at the very least want to pick this one up as a rental. However, if you are like me and really saw the show for the once-in-a-blue-moon phenomena that it is, you will want to add it to your shelf permanently despite the lack of special features. Just be ready to drop it and trade it in for a "special edition" if they ever get around to it.