'Sports Night' (ABC, 1998-2000)
The angle: The staff of an upstart sports cable-news show tries to compete with the big boys. (Sorkin’s first foray into TV news was inspired by the 1990s heyday of ESPN’s SportsCenter.)
The anchors: Newly divorced dad Casey McCall (Peter Krause) and slightly neurotic Dan Rydell (Josh Charles), who share one of TV’s coolest offices.
Sample soundbite: Dan, teasing one night's story lineup: “We’ll bring you the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and because we’ve got soccer highlights, the sheer pointlessness of a zero-zero tie.”
