Sports Night (1998)

The best place to go after The West Wing, and a clear rehearsal for it. This half-hour follows the staff of a late-night sports show on the fictional Continental Sports Channel, with Peter Krause and Josh Charles as the anchors and Felicity Huffman as the producer holding it together. You do not need to care about sport: the show is about deadlines, loyalty and getting it right on air. ABC insisted on a laugh track, which fades through the first season and is gone by the second, so the early episodes jar a little. Two seasons and 45 episodes make it an easy binge. Thomas Schlamme won an Emmy for directing the pilot, and the corridor energy he later brought to the White House starts here.