It's 1991. You're a fan of edgy TV comedy. A new series is announced, created by Alan Zwiebel of SNL and It's Garry Shandling's Show. It's going to star Ryan O'Neal and Farrah Fawcett - okay, that sounds interesting. Also in the cast will be Paul Feig, Brian Doyle-Murray and the always excellent Lane Smith. Now you're even more interested.

CBS must have had high hopes for this show, because it aired opposite Cheers. At first, that is. After 3 or 4 weeks, it was banished to the Siberia of Saturday night at 10:30. I never could understand why. The show was quirky and funny, as you would expect from the personnel involved. Farrah and Ryan were better than I expected, especially Farrah, who could do comedy after all, as it turned out.
So, what happened? What I assumed at the time was that, since the show hadn't toppled Cheers in its first three weeks, CBS was giving up on it. This certainly would have been typical behavior for CBS. But maybe there's something else. I've seen reports that Ryan O'Neal was difficult behind the scenes, firing writers and such. If this is true, it could also explain the network's actions, ditching a production that's in trouble.

That still doesn't explain the network's decision to show the episodes out of order. There was an evolving storyline, in which Gayle (Farrah's character) first hated Bobby (Ryan's character), and they would eventually fall in love.
The way CBS aired the series, they were in love one week, then she hated him the next, and he was proposing the next - very disorienting for the viewer.

This show was a very original and quirky comedy. The nature of the humor isn't easy to describe on paper, but it had a surreal quality that was very similar to It's Garry Shandling's Show.

One of my favorite aspects of Good Sports was Lane Smith's character, "R. J. Rappaport". He was a southern cable TV mogul (but not Ted Turner - they used some fun methods to establish this, like having him talk about his rivalry with Turner.) Gayle and Bobby were anchors on his sports cable network - one of many Rappaport networks, apparently. At one point, Richard Belzer shows up as a host on the Rap-HA-port comedy channel. There were lots of digs at cable TV, and lots of guests shots by sports figures.

The show was not without problems. Even when the episodes are viewed in order, the courtship betweeen Gayle and Bobby seems to develop much too quickly. Paul Feig's character, called "Leash", was supposed to act as a leash for Bobby, who was prone to irresponsible acts. Feig is very funny, but the character disappears about halfway through the run. Also, O'Neal's delivery of the comic material could have used a little more subtlety.

Good Sports was very original, and it had a lot of potential. I wish it had been allowed to develop; maybe it could have been a big success.