It is my hope that through the unfolding of the action, I shall guide the reader into revelation and wrest the universal from the specific. "Casey leaves on date/Pixley, that enchanted name/'Be honest!' cries Dan."

Okay, I got nothing.

I'm really sorry about that, that was really contrived, I'm already really throwing back the Scotch. I will get through this. I'm being pushed to the edge, but I'll fight my way out, like when the Brian Dennehy character pushes John Rambo to the edge in, uh, Rashomon I think it was. ["For God's sake, MacEachern. Go lie down." -- Sars]

Dana and Natalie are walking through the newsroom, but as bad luck would have it, they're also discussing the date with Pixley. Or at least Natalie's trying to, but Dana says she's concerned about something (not Pixley). "When we're in the office, I like to talk about work," says Dana. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was actually going to comment on that, since in this episode, for the first time ever, the characters' personal lives seem to be intruding on their professional lives. I mean, I thought I had the wrong show for a second there. Dana is concerned that they don't have enough for tomorrow's show. The schedules are empty, there are no press conferences scheduled and there's no pre-tape in the can. "Two hockey games, that's all we've got," says Dana. GODDAMMIT. What is Sports Night's problem with hockey all of a sudden, I'd really like to know? This Dating Plan already has me in a mood so I'm not of a mind to be charitable with Dana here, so I'll point out that major-league schedules are determined well in advance and this empty day should not be a surprise; it's a poor reporter who relies on press conferences for stories, two hockey games are good for at least six hours of commercial-free footage, and it's a very poor executive producer who only starts thinking about any given show less than twenty-four hours before that show airs. I'm having shirts printed that says, "Sports Night made me apoplectic."