How do I love Sorkin? Let me count the ways

Mere words cannot express my adoration-stroke-jealousy of Aaron Sorkin (masterful, impossibly witty scribe of The West Wing, Sports Night and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). Having only recently really got hooked on Wing (how it passed me over for such a long time, I don't know - I watched the first season back in 2006 but never got any further), I was suddenly inspired to revisit his other properties.

Stop one, naturally, was the triumph that is Sports Night's "The Apology", an episode that starts off sparkling with trademark Sorkin wit but culminates in a totally unexpected, out-of-left-field emotional blockbuster of a speech from anchor Dan Rydell (the criminally underused Josh Charles). For two whole minutes (and that's a long time in television), Dan delivers an on-air response to a magazine that misinterpreted a comment of his as being pro-cannabis legalisation. What begins as predictable in its apologetic and formal nature quickly digresses into moving and raw catharsis, as the heretofore unknown drug-laced past of Dan and his younger brother is laid out for all the world to see. The concluding revelation, while not particularly surprising, still manages to the make the spine shiver: Charles' delivery is perfectly timed, Sorkin's language perfectly judged. For a TV character we've known for just two episodes at this stage, it's almost unbearably heartbreaking, and significantly, it feels real.

In many other shows, such a move would seem hackneyed - hell, even in the self-aware, irony-laced likes of Boston Legal, such tone shifts are jarring; to imagine it in a traditional multi-camera sitcom is cringe-inducing. But here, it works without reservation. The Sorkin trademark walk-and-talk rat-a-tat-tat dialogue is so audibly recognisable - after a few episodes, it becomes as familiar and comfortable as your favourite pair of shoes - a change in pace allows for subtle emotional impact without our characters being forced to deliver sappy cliche. It's an effect Sorkin would perfect later on in The West Wing, but it started here, in this very episode.

Next up on my recap of Sorkin's work will probably be the season 2 finale of Sports Night, "Quo Vadimus". Up there with the finest "last episodes" ever, it's home to that immortal line: "If you can't make money out of Sports Night, you'd better get out of the money-making business". Never a truer word spoken..