Just saw where TWW is likely leaving Netflix next year and moving to a new streaming service called HBO Max
Has anyone else been enjoying The West Wing Weekly? I drive a lot for my job, so I’ve heard them all over the course of the last 6 months. Josh Molina is great and the other guy is alright, but I love the series so he’s tolerable. They get incredible guests, too
In the shadow of two gunman parts 1 and 2. When I first started watching I borrowed the season 2 box set from my sister. I just overwatched it the first 4 episodes on that side so for a while I’d skip those first four during rewatches.
oh man that’s the campaign flashback and what’s next origin. The josh/Jed origin flashbacks are some of my favorite moments from the show.
Jed at the airport offering to fly back with Josh for the funeral and everything moments after winning the Illinois primary is one of my favorite moments.
Just watching this and gotta say I’m a little confused and disappointed that the season 1 finale / season 2 opener just turned into a weird blood bath war movie. But I’ll keep watching
Yeah, seasons 2 and 3 are amazing. Be doing yourself a disservice if you stopped now. I do agree end of first is not the best. Always bugged me the two gunmen used revolvers from high up in a building.
The whole purpose of the S1 finale was to set up the beginning of S2 and to be able to use In The Shadow of Two Gunmen as a narrative device to go back and tell basically the origin stories of the characters we'd just watched a season of TV of. Sorkin talked about it in an episode of The West Wing Weekly: SORKIN: Sure. It’s a great thing to talk about. A couple of things. First of all the show wasn’t really a hit until season 2. It was doing fine. It was...It was I think in the top 20 probably. Not right away, but somewhere in season 1 it was in the top 20. What happened was, back then there were summer reruns. The network got two bites of the apple. There really aren’t summer reruns anymore because things that they fill in – reality shows, and they even launch new shows in the summer – take that spot. But people who had been hearing about the show had – it had been gathering buzz – were able to catch up to it over the summer. We also had a big cliffhanger at the end of the first season, which was going to pay off at the premiere of the second season. And as a result suddenly our season premiere in season 2, we were number one that week and seldom fell out of the top five. And I’m mentioning this, only because when you have that, it’s a little easier to do the show. You have a little more room, you get a little more money to do the show, you’re forgiven for going over budget, you’re forgiven for being behind schedule. So that’s one of the things that happened. Another thing I can tell you is that the season 2 premiere was one of the very few instances – it might, in fact, be the only instance – of my knowing what I was going to do ahead of time. That I had gone to Tommy sometime in March; we would usually wrap the show at the end of April, we’d be the last show of all the shows to wrap. We’d wrap at the end of April with our last show airing sometime, 3rd week of May. But I went to Tommy in March and I said that I had this idea. It was what anyone else would consider a vague idea, but for me – Josh can attest to this – it’s like the most specific thing that I’d ever come up with, which was at the end of the first season there would be a shooting. There’d be an attack, we wouldn’t be quite sure who got shot in the chaos, but that the premiere of the second season, which I envisioned as a two-hour episode, we would see how all these people came together on the campaign and the idea really sprang from the fact that the pilot takes place one year into Bartlet’s first term as President and going along I really felt like gee, it seems like there were a lot of good stories that took place before the pilot happened and I’d like to find a way to tell those stories. So that’s what we did with the second season premiere and it’s something I would go back to from time to time, in Bartlet for America, and a couple of other times that I would decide just to tell a story that took place before the series started.
Been on a binge re-watch on Netflix. Forgot how great this show was and how many great cameos there were as well. It’s great to watch a competent president again as well, even if it’s just pretend. Finally, Janel Moloney does something for me in a weird kinda way.
Currently in season 4 of my first watch. I’m at election night. That debate against Ritchie was quality.
with the danger of sounding a bit too shutdown fullcasty the administration has more of a "do crime" attitude
Going through another rewatch out of boredom. First four seasons are so good. I'm halfway through season five and I'm not sure I can make it. It's just a completely different show. The episodes themselves aren't necessarily bad, but it's like they just decided to take all the characters and make them less likable. Still, Two Cathedrals is the best episode of TV I've ever seen, and there are some great episodes in the early seasons I kind of forgot about that I thoroughly enjoyed. I also realized I didn't give enough love to Toby in my previous viewings. Not sure why I missed it previously. Probably just forgot some of it because of how they ruined the character in the last three years.
I can watch 6 and 7 because I like Josh enough as a character to root for him to win. Other than that, it's kind of a big waste of so much talent, IMO. Outside of the inexcusable stuff that's been discussed here a lot, both of those seasons are basically cases where they swung for the fences and you could tell what they were going for, but they just didn't have the people (Sorkin, mainly) in place to pull it off.
toby is the best character probably because he seems the most real and not just platonic ideals of certain archetypes most notably Bartlett
As I'm going through season 5 and CJ is bitching in every episode about either not being in the loop or because she disagrees with Leo/Bartlett about decisions, it's even more ridiculous to me that Leo somehow believed that CJ was the only person on that staff capable of filling that role (not to mention how stupid and out of the blue it was that Bartlett fired Leo, and then let him pick his replacement).
I think the last line for Toby that Sorkin wrote was him in the Oval talking to Bartlett about his kids as Bartlett is about to be relieved, and Toby says something like "There's not a person in this room who wouldn't rather die than let you down." Knowing his ultimate fate in S7 and how the new team viewed his relationship with Bartlett, that one hit home as just one more reason why that final story was bullshit.
I just hated when Leo and Bartlett were on the verge of disliking each other. Worst part of the entire series imo. That and of course making Toby the leak
What they did with Toby at the end....CJ as chief of staff scenario....and Bartlett v. Leo were awful awful story ideas. Just awful and does not fit with anything the show had done at those points in time. Even the non-Sorkin years. Made no sense. The Toby storyline, in particular, was unforgiveable. I forget if it's been mentioned here, but Richard Schiff discussed it on the podcast (moreso than i've heard him discuss it anywhere else) and he said they (showrunners, i guess) did it to him on purpose out of spite and just didn't like him. i'm forgetting some details
Started again last night. I've never actually made it through the entire series but made the wife sit down for episode 1.
Donna is underrated hot and probably the best looking member of the cast today. Ageless Rob Lowe notwithstanding.
Sorkin always used the Josh/Donna relationship really well to explain the politics to the audience. They'd have these 30 second walk and talks where Josh explains the sides of the debate in an entertaining way.
"Let's say your cut of the surplus is $700. I want to take your money and combine it with everybody else's money and use it to pay down the debt and further endow social security. What do you want to do with it?" "Buy a DVD player." "See?" "But my $700 is helping employ the people who manufacture and sell DVD players. Not to mention the people who manufacture and sell DVDs. It's the natural evolution of a market economy." "The problem is, the DVD player you buy might be made in Japan." "I'll buy an American one." "We don't trust you." "Why not?" "We're Democrats." "I want my money back!" "You shouldn't have voted for us."
I love pretty much all of Sorkin's work but it's always fun to go back and label the character similarities across his shows. Bartlett and Will McAvoy somehow having the exact opposite belief systems, yet nearly being the same person, always amuses me.
Sorkin takes a decent amount of heat for not being able to write female characters. Like Donna being “dumb”, so Josh has to explain everything in ways she can understand. I personally never had a problem with his writing, but I sort of see what they mean once it was pointed out.
I don't get that at all. CJ? Dr. Bartlett? Amy? Ainsley? All smart and witty. Donna came into the job with no experience or even a college degree. Josh had to mentor her and she wound up becoming Santos press secretary.
Donna's the audience. Josh isn't explaining things to Donna to make her look dumb. Josh is explaining things to me and you.
Yeah and CJ got to womansplain to Sam why he shouldn't sleep with a call girl. They all had their moments regardless of gender.
the bar for sorkin is very high for obvious reasons and his reflex when writing women characters deserves criticism. especially on shows/movies where he has complete control which he did not on west wing (or social network) so it was held in check to a degree, newsroom is an example where he just gave in to all his urges and it's really obvious.
He had entire characters for the entire arc of Newsroom that never worked. Most of the time, every character at least had some moments; there were multiple on Newsroom that just missed the mark for the entirety of the show/the appearances.