Sorkin on the Small Screen Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sports Night

Sorkin didn't write either "M*A*S*H" or "Sex and the City". "Sports Night" debuted on HBO in 1998: "The West Wing" debuted on NBC the following year.

Answer: Timothy Busfield and Matthew Perry

Timothy Busfield had a significant supporting role on "The West Wing", playing Danny Concannon, a reporter who had a romantic relationship with C.J. Cregg. On "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" he starred as director Cal Shanley.

Matthew Perry had a limited role in "The West Wing" on seasons 4 and 5, playing an attorney who uncovered misconduct by the Vice President; and he co-starred with Busfield on "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip".

Answer: The West Wing

"The West Wing" aired for seven seasons, 1999-2006. The series won nine Emmys in its first season, at the time a record for the most Emmys won by a show in one season.

Sorkin did not write "White Collar" or "Law and Order: SVU". "Sports Night" ran for two seasons.

Answer: False

Sorkin left "The West Wing" after its fourth season. Different reasons for his leaving have been offered--the show's ratings dropped a bit and Sorkin was admittedly always late in delivering scripts, which in turn caused budget overruns. However, Sorkin has stated that his four years on "The West Wing" were the best of his career.

Answer: Requiring actors to deliver his dialogue word for word as written.

Sorkin is famous for expecting word-for-word adherence to what he writes. He has said that he loves the sound of dialogue, and he is also known to work on scripts until they're as perfect as can be-so on-the-spot changes to his work don't thrill him.

Answer: Behind-the-scenes look at a late-night TV comedy show

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" only ran for one season. Initially it received high praise from critics, but it was never popular with viewers, and as the season progressed, its critical reviews became less enthusiastic. It was cancelled in May 2007, but despite this, the show received five Emmy nominations in July of that year.

Answer: The Newsroom

"The Newsroom" engendered a lot of negative reactions from critics and viewers alike, although it had an equal following who thought it was a great show. Its issues centered around the show's using recent actual issues (the BP oil spill in the Gulf, the Boston Marathon bombing, Occupy Wall Street, to name a few), but dealing with them in an enlightened manner that was only possible because they were written after time had provided some distance and perspective on how the news media could have handled them. To some, this made it look as if Sorkin was preaching to the media, and the series' reputation suffered as a consequence.

Answer: Thomas Schlamme

"Walk and talk" is a device in which two or more characters walk somewhere having a conversation. The walk and talk is typically filmed in a single long camera shot. Schlamme is at times given credit for originating the technique, but whether he did or not, he unquestionably has used walk and talks through his career in television. Sorkin's writing style fit like a glove with walk and talk filming and the pair became well known for the walk and talks in both "Sports Night" and "The West Wing".

Schlamme left "The West Wing" when Sorkin did.

Answer: Comedy

Aaron Sorkin is often hilarious, and he is masterful at juxtaposing drama and comedy in such a way as to maintain an even tenor and avoid excessive gloom and doom in the most serious of episodes. If you haven't seen it, one excellent example of his use of humor occurred in episode 4 of season 1 of "The West Wing", when President Bartlet takes too many painkillers for a back condition and comes into a meeting of senior staff pretty much in la-la land.

Answer: The short turnaround required to write episodes was not a good fit with his writing methods.

In shows where there are multiple writers, it is not uncommon for Writer A to complete the script for Week One; Writer B to do Week two; Writer C to do Week 3, and so on, starting over with Writer A after the last writer has done a script. This gives much more time to work on the scripts, but Aaron Sorkin worked primarily alone, so he had to produce scripts in a single week.

Sorkin has stated a number of times that having to produce scripts for weekly shows was difficult for him. He would have preferred more time to perfect his work. Often, he was known for having difficulty getting started on scripts, he was late getting drafts to the casts for read-throughs, and acknowledged that he hardly ever got the final script completed on time.