Catching up with the Guys from SportsNight

I don't know about you, but the final episode of the last season of SportsNight left me wanting something more.

Sure, their little fictional network was saved by that mysterious guy in the bar, but what happened to those guys in real life? The least they could have done is produced a real sports show to compete with SportsCenter, right?

Anyway, seven years after the show's last episode, I figured it was time to catch up with some of the guys (Felicity Huffman, who played Dana Whitaker, stars in Desperate Housewives, and Sabrina Lloyd, who played Natalie, has made a career out of bit roles in television and on the big screen).

Joshua Malina (Jeremy Goodwin) has been reeled in for a new ABC pilot called Big Shots. After a good run as the geeky numbers guy on SportsNight, followed by a four-year stint as Will Bailey on the West Wing (also created by Aaron Sorkin), Jeremy may have a little difficulty pulling off the "cool guy" role. The show airs Thursday, so we'll see.

Peter Krause (Casey McCall) is moving on to a show called Dirty Sexy Money, which appears to be ABC's attempt to push the limits of what is acceptable on network television. After SportsNight ended, Casey was nominated for multiple Emmys and Golden Globe Awards as Nate Fisher on Six Feet Under, a gig that appeared to demand all of his time. Just like SportsNight, though, all good things must come to an end; the new show airs Wednesday.

Josh Charles (Dan Rydell) was easily my favorite actor on the show, but he has had the roughest post-SportsNight career of the three listed here. He's been in a handful of movies (the most noteworthy of which is S.W.A.T.) and played a short role in the TV show Six Degrees. Now he's in a new show called In Treatment, which is set to debut on HBO in January.

It's great that these guys have work so they can put food on the table, but let's be honest. In SportsNight, you had something special, where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.