So Tuesday night was the premiere episode of ESPN’s ‘30 for 30‘ series. The first documentary was titled ‘King’s Ransom’, by Peter Berg (creator of Friday Night Lights), about the trade of Wayne Gretzky from Edmonton to Los Angeles. (Side note: Can anyone tell me another thing about Edmonton besides ‘they have a hockey team’? Didn’t think so.)

If this is the sign of things to come, consider us excited. Our favorite thing about the show was the access that Berg was granted. This wasn’t some guesswork or what he thought or felt about the day the greatest athlete in Canada’s history was traded. This was the REAL story. All the participants who took the trade from conception to reality were in the documentary. Gretzky himself, the owner of the Edmonton Oilers, Peter Pocklington, the owner of the LA Kings, Bruce McNall, as well as other media members who were involved. One little nugget we loved but didn’t get much airtime was the fact that it was actually Jerry Buss (owner of our beloved Lakers), the owner of the LA Kings before selling to McNall, who planted the seed for the Gretzky trade years before. While seeing Pocklington at an event (at which Gretzky accepted the award for Sportsman of the Year), Buss casually said something to the effect of ‘I’ll give you $15 mil for Gretzky’ (which, coincidentally, was the dollar amount McNall ended up paying for him, along with some draft picks and players).

On the one hand, the story about Buss is just a cool piece of trivia. And one way to look at a documentary is to see it as a collection of interesting facts about a certain topic. That’s not, however, all that this documentary (and, from what we can tell, 30 for 30 in general) aims to give you. Berg’s stylized presentation of the events truly tells a story. That’s why you hear Pocklington’s account of Buss’ offer spliced with footage of Gretzky giving his Sportsman of the Year acceptance speech. Berg is forcing the audience to recognize the absurdity of the situation by placing us in the thick of it. How could Gretzky or anyone else have known that while he was up on that stage thanking everyone for their support, in that moment, in that very same room, Pocklington had Gretzky’s gratitude in one ear and Buss’ offer in the other? Berg isn’t just telling it like it is. He’s showing it. Every sudden cut seemed to serve as a metaphor for the all-to-sudden divorce between the game’s greatest player and the city that raised him. 30 for 30 offers a new take on sports narrative, pairing creative prowess with the resources of the world’s finest sports enterprise.

Moving forward in the series, we really like the fact that we might not like the next episode. If the first show is any indication, ESPN has given complete creative control to the producers, in this case Berg, just as they said they would while promoting the series. We applaud them for that. Each producer will have the opportunity to present his or her own vision. The next episode could be shot in a different way. Maybe there will be no narration. Maybe we will completely disagree with the angle the producer takes. Maybe there will be no talking and the entire episode will be shown while Dr. Dre beats play in the background (hey, Ice Cube is one of the 30 producers…you never know). The point is, we don’t know…and that’s a great thing.