#rewatching the west wing

[personalvirtualmuseum]

Coming here to share the good word that Allison Janney is hot as hell. Not exclusively as CJ Cregg, but especially as CJ Cregg. Thank you for your time.

[mandalamarigold]

I love how they kept John Spencer in the opening credits for the entire seventh season. That might be the only thing I like about it. I still despise the Toby leaking national security information storyline. It just doesn’t work for me, amongst other season seven things. But that’s it, that’s a ballgame. The West Wing, until our paths cross again.

[dearemma]

THE WEST WING 2.02 / 2.22

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[midnight-els]

Why did you go to Notre Dame?

The West Wing (1999-2006) | 2x07 "The Portland Trip"

[madlori]

West Wing rewatch

(Yes I posted about this last night and then deleted it - initially i was thinking I might do a episode-by-episode reblog but ain't nobody got time for that)

There's a new book out called "What's Next" about the making of TWW and I thought it was time for a rewatch (it's been awhile - for some time there it was too depressing to watch it). I'm on episode 4, so here are some thoughts.

No other show has ever done "initial character introductions" as well as the pilot episode of this one. There's a lot of characters, and they're all so clear from minute one.

Even in their first episode appearances, it is SO CLEAR that Moira Kelly sticks out like a sore thumb. There's a thing with Sorkin's writing that you can either get it in your mouth, or you can't. She can't. The energy is off. She doesn't match the others' freak. Every time I've rewatched this show, this fact is more and more obvious.

Bingeing also reveals some of Sorkin's writing crutches...like the "characters repeat the same line several times to different characters or even to the same one for comedic effect" thing he does all the time.

I'm not here to suck Sorkin's dick or anything but damn, a lot of this dialogue is amazing.

The dramatic technique in the pilot of everyone talking about the President but nobody seeing him until That Entrance he makes is freaking genius.

God, Sam Seaborn is a douche in these first few episodes. His patronizing, aggressive behavior towards Laurie is really inexcusable - happily a lot of the other characters call him out on this but I always feel like the show's kind of on his side.

Also...Sam. You spent several years with Leo McGarry almost 24/7 on the campaign trail, and somehow were not aware that his daughter is an adult and not a 4th grader? Paging narrative continuity.

John Amos as Admiral Fitzwallace is one of my favorite recurring characters. The scene where Leo's asking him about the optics of hiring Charlie, a young black man, to be the President's personal aide and he just has no time for it. "I have plenty of real battles to fight, Leo. I don't have time for the cosmetic ones." Good advice, that.

This show does not work without John Spencer.

Martin Sheen somehow conveys all at once that this President is both very smart and very naive at the same time, as well as that his personal ethics may not be entirely compatible with his job.

God, every time Mandy shows up it's like a needle-scratch and the entire scene grinds to a halt.

Charlie is a great character but I always suspected that after the pilot, they suddenly realized they had an all-white cast (well, apart from Martin Sheen who is Hispanic but isn't playing one here) and were like...um let's add a character who isn't. Maybe that'll be discussed in this book I'm reading.

[writing-is-hard-af]

Cannot get over the random hyperfixations Sam gets just because someone mentions something to him and how they take over his interests entirely for whole episodes. Truly a character for the people. And by the people I do indeed mean me.

[bookofjudith]

I want you to want me

[moomin279]

The thing about the west wing is that they're are all pathetic nerds and watching this show as a teenage girl really influenced who I find attractive

[haaam-guuuurl]

But why haven't we gotten a West Wing spin off about Charlie Young's presidential campaign/ first term yet?

[mandalamarigold]

I’m more of a Bartlet’s first term in office kinda girl.

[saglaophonos]

lord knows i watched the west wing at an age where i was far too young to really grasp it on a political level but if i understood anything it was that jeb bartlett and leo mcgarry were ground fucking zero of old man yaoi

[sesamestreep]

you want me to listen to classical music? the thing that gave josh lyman a panic attack??

[all-that-jazz-93]

I wanna get back into The West Wing and I wanna get back into White Collar and I wanna get back into American Dragon: Jake Long but I can't do any of those because I'm currently still on my Agent Carter bullshit and my stupid-ass ADHD brain only allows me to be obsessed with one TV show at a time

[onekisstotakewithme]

CJ: I thought what I’d do is kiss you, you know, on the mouth, and then I’d just... get past it. I’d just get past it and then I’d be able to give my work the kind of concentration it really deserves. Narrator: she did not get past it. Narrator: in fact, she married him.

[madlori]

West Wingin' It

No TV show has ever successfully been able to use "New York Minute" as background music and this show is no different. It's too bombastic and cringe. It's always intrusive. They just want the lyrics "somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail." This show even used it as the episode title. The song itself blows.

Bartlet really is kind of awful to Ellie, his middle daughter, in the previous episode. It's a sharp contrast to how he is with Zoe.

I keep forgetting about some of these guest stars. Felicity Huffman!

One of the things that has NOT aged well about this show is the casual misogyny. In what universe is it supposed to be cute and charming for Sam to tell Ainsley that people think she was hired because she's a "leggy blond sex kitten?" And then Bartlet repeats it! Also Emily Proctor is tiny and not leggy. And earlier in the series when Leo tells Hoynes that CJ didn't tattle on him because "she's a good girl." GROSS, LEO. They do a lot of commenting on various womens' beauty but never for the men despite the fact that literal Rob Lowe is there. They do it when Matthew Perry shows up, if I remember, and I guess there's some swooning over Lord John. It just hits different.

That being said, the scene of her doing the bossa nova in a bathrobe in the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue is pretty cute.

Despite this being not a great episode, it features my favorite Big Block of Cheese Day scene, namely the Cartographers for Social Equality.