Anyway, I thought it might be neat to do these once in a while--particularly the ones I’ve recently binged. If they’ve eaten my brain for weeks at a time, I should probably give them some sort of tangible due diligence. So I’ll start off with the shows I’ve watched in their entirety in 2020 thus far: #TheWestWing, #Justified, #TheCrown, #CriminalMinds, #MissFishersMurderMysteries, #AvatarTheLastAirbender, #TheLegendOfKorra. Once I’ve moved from that, I’ll probably go back and forth with old fandoms and shows I’ve recently been digging. We’ll see how this goes. (I also want to vaguely note there are book series, comics, and games that I could babble about, but we’ll see if I want to expand into those other media. Plus the movie fandoms, if I want to double up on the review posts. I only have so much time, after all.)
(Side note: I’mma just use hashtags instead of italics for show names and the like, largely because when I write these up, I’m including HTML tags because the RTF interfaces for my blog(s) are sometimes a mixed bag--when I put HTML in, at least I know what’s going to show up. Hashtags are just plain faster, and also easier for me to note when I’m revising these in plaintext.)
SO. #TheWestWing. Let’s get this started.
Logliney Stuff:
A one-hour drama that aired on NBC for seven seasons (1999-2006) that focused on the goings-on of the senior staff of an idealized but plausibly flawed president. There are righteously passionate arguments, the too-quick banter of smart people with poor social skills, and an excess of sincerity. #TheWestWing won, like, a bajillion awards because it managed to collect a cast of initially low-key genius actors and an excessively detailed crew that refused to ever phone things in. They were, however, primarily white in their casting and didn’t always understand they were doing feminism wrong a lot of the time.
What’s Up With That:
I picked up this show right from its initial run on NBC, as I’d been super into Sorkin’s #SportsNight on ABC. I watched the entire run in real time--is that a thing we still do as a society? And I’ve done at least two full rewatches that I can remember: Once, when I first started my PhD, and most recently, this summer o’ social isolation. This past time was because I discovered The West Wing Weekly podcast and I decided to watch along as I listened along, and it was great. (Except every single time when the hosts and guests would rhapsodize about Sorkin’s phenomenal grinding, and I’d just be like…but the cocaine?)
Metatext-Type Stuff:
I dug this show enough that I slowly collected the first few seasons on DVD before online streaming went big. This is also one of the VERY few shows that I actually watched with my mother. (Mom’s wicked smart, but since most of her workdays were spent in full-brain mode, she preferred to kick back by watching hack shows that let her disengage.) I think Dad even watched a couple of times with us, and Dad pretty much only watches sports, cable news, and action movies. (Hence the slant of my movie-watching choices.)
Character Natterings:
Not in any conscious particular order!
- President Bartlet:
There’s a delightful level of hubris with Martin Sheen’s Barlet. Like, what are you gonna do with a guy who can do an impromptu cursing of God in Latin? The only reason it’s mostly bearable is that everybody acknowledges what a charming but inexorable pedant he is, and they try to escape as much as humanly possible. (But also: How could this guy not, in any way, recognize how incredibly and utterly wrong the whole MS deception was? I mean, Abby was triply worse, but geez.)
- Leo McGarry:
"Because I'm tired of it: year after year after year after year having to choose between the less of who cares. Of trying to get myself excited about a candidate who can speak in complete sentences. Of setting the bar so low, I can hardly bear to look at it. They say a good man can't get elected President. I don't believe that. Do you?"
P.S. This is just a quick reminder we currently live in a dystopian hellscape. Carry on.
- Josh Lyman:
Brilliant, hella smart, completely awful with women. "I'll just walk around some more and see if I can get into a pick-up meeting."
Every single storyline this man is given will break your heart eventually.
- Donna Moss:
Donna. Donna. You can do 3000% percent better at every front in your life, but in the end, I cannot do anything except bellow, GET IT, GIRL. (Do I feel weird that I am defining her by her relationship? That’s actually kind of her arc--that she realizes she deserves 3000% better, and that’s when she decides she also doesn’t have to wait anymore.)
"I'm just sayin' if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for a beer."
"If you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights."
- CJ Cregg:
Flamingo of my heart, queen of the podium. As Charlie tells her, "You're a smart, savvy woman who could easily consider world domination as her next career move." And here's the thing: I think she does it.
- Sam Seaborn:
In a better universe, Sam is the Deputy Chief of Staff for Santos, and then Ainsley Hayes returns to be White House counsel and they spend the next eight years bickering happily through the hallways. They never, ever date.
- Toby Ziegler:
"It's not the battles we lose that bother me, it's the ones we don't suit up for." This man is infuriating, and also:
>
- Charlie Young:
Every scene with Charlie and Bartlet hanging is the best scene, and twice a season they will fill your heart with joy.
- The New Class:
Uh, I know there were other regulars later on in the series--Josh Malina, stalwart Sorkin player right up at the top--but I didn’t really become emotionally invested in them. EXCEPT AINSLEY. Ainsley Hayes, we did not get enough of you.
The Shipping News:
I know Josh/Donna is, for the most part, an unhealthy codependent relationship, the chemistry between these two was fanbait and I obvs could not resist.
I remember, during the last couple of the seasons, I was into Toby/CJ, but now I am 100% charmed with CJ/Danny. I liked Sam/Mallory while it was happening. Sam/Ainsley would have been fun in, like, a season and a half when Sam got over himself. I was largely positive toward any other canon pairings and was anti- to basically nothing. (Cliff/Donna is sweet but brief; Donna/Christian Slater is unfortunate.)
Live for the Memory:
The pilot episode is a great one, but Charlie Young appeared in the third episode, “A Proportional Response.”
“In the Shadow of Two Gunmen,” both parts, is a great mix of dread and nostalgia.
“Two Cathedrals,” man. It’s always been “Two Cathedrals.”
And I cannot emphasize this enough glee: They did not actually translate the Latin in the episode--the subtitle was added by whoever made this vid.
“The Supremes” is delightful. I could not find the scene where Glenn Close’s and William Fichtner’s characters have their lively debate, but it’s still one of my favorite scenes of the series.
Every time I found a scene, I remembered another scene in another episode. This show is chock-full of verklempt and hope.
World-building Obsessions:
All of this would have to take place in a universe that is not ours, because apparently there used to be this thing called bipartisanship where people could disagree intellectually while still holding to the same values. WEIRD. And while they dabble in ethically grey areas, as one must when dealing with the governments of imperialist nations, Our Heroes are almost inevitably right, and inevitably righteous. It gets tiring after a while, but wouldn’t I love to live in that world?
What the Hell, Show?:
The problem with the brilliance of Aaron Sorkin’s writing is that once you’ve caught on to his quirks, it’s impossible not to see them. Also, dude has some SERIOUS issues with women being competent in both their professional and their personal lives, so he inevitably makes them hopeless in their personal lives. The memorable women of his shows are pretty much because he lucked into some frickin’ marvelous actors. (Seriously, guys. Allison Janney is a miracle.)
Also: So white, this show. So white.
Capacity to Fic:
I don't actually think I have any specific fic ideas despite, uh, my musings about post-series Sam & Ainsley. Maybe that's it, though--I don't feel like I have anything to fic during the series proper. In those time gaps between what we know and in the time thereafter, maybe sometime I'll be inspired.
Does This Suffice?:
I am absolutely probably going to watch the entire series run at least four more times in the next decade.
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