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Hey cool, I didn't know this was on Netflix. Tell me Martin Sheen is as funny later on as he is in the first few episodes.
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Jul 19, 2014 23:36
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Now that I think about it, does he get less funny after Season 4? At that point everything becomes more serious I feel like.
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Jul 19, 2014 23:37
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Overall the show becomes less funny. That's actually what I think is the biggest problem with season 5. They take a bunch of people who are friends and joke around with each other and make them all grimdark and angry. They eventually lose the anger for the most part, but I don't think they capture the comedy again.
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Jul 19, 2014 23:39
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FISHMANPET posted:Now that I think about it, does he get less funny after Season 4? At that point everything becomes more serious I feel like. Really? Pres. Bartlett, paralyzed from the MS, gets bored of the constant b.s about how he gets off the plane and just tells his bodyman to carry him off. Followed by him putting up with b.s at the China meetings until he just calls out the Premier on knowing english and comments about how he'd love to spend some time with the former premier. The current Premier just looks at him like "Motherfucker I know this game" and they head off to negotiate the North Korea talks. To me, that constant attempts to make everything super dramatic were a touch of humor all their own.
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Jul 19, 2014 23:44
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Asiina posted:Overall the show becomes less funny. Boo. The comedy that comes out of the absurd situations they find themselves in is what I like about the show from the first few episodes. The rapid-fire verbal jabs remind me of MASH.
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Jul 19, 2014 23:47
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That's not to say it gets bad. No part of the show is ever "bad" it just changes in tone after a while.
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Jul 20, 2014 00:01
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Part of the change early on may be that Bartlett was originally intended to be kind of a side character. Then Martin Sheen went over really well with audiences so they decided to write him in more.
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Jul 20, 2014 00:30
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withak posted:Part of the change early on may be that Bartlett was originally intended to be kind of a side character. Then Martin Sheen went over really well with audiences so they decided to write him in more.
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Jul 20, 2014 00:34
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Hoops posted:From what I've heard that decision was changed straight from the pilot. His speech at the end went over so well that the whole series was re-tooled after that. I don't know what the time difference from when the episodes aired to when they were filmed, but the whole "Let's make a show about the White House w/o the President" suffered from not having the essential aspect of a President along with having an all white cast caused a lot of complaints, leading to the role of Charlie being created to deflect said criticism.
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Jul 20, 2014 00:44
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Asiina posted:That's not to say it gets bad. No part of the show is ever "bad" it just changes in tone after a while. Writer churn and the original creative force leaving changes the tone of the show toward melodrama and grimdarkness? I suppose my MASH comparison isn't too far off.
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Jul 20, 2014 21:12
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Melodrama? Yes, absolutely, at least in season 5. But grimdarkness, that really is a stretch.
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Jul 20, 2014 21:18
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DominoDancing posted:Melodrama? Yes, absolutely, at least in season 5. But grimdarkness, that really is a stretch. Shutdown Twenty Five Gaza
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Jul 20, 2014 21:24
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Asiina posted:Shutdown If you don't get a twang of guilty pleasure out of this cheesy rear end scene, you might not be alive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyXHA7xiChc
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Jul 20, 2014 21:32
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Asiina posted:Shutdown Oh come on, none of these are grimdark. Fincher's Seven is grimdark. These are just very "dramatic", some scenes even slightly cheesy as FrozenVent demonstrated. The West Wing is at its very core much too optimistic to ever turn REALLY dark, even after the writers switch. The Zoey Bartlet situation surely comes closest, but even that turns out fine. DominoDancing fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Jul 21, 2014 |
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Jul 21, 2014 09:01
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Season 5 isn't grimdark it's just really boring.
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Jul 21, 2014 09:18
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Season 5 makes Josh useless for no reason, Leo a completely different character for no reason and unleashes the torrent of garbage that is Ryan Pierce. Ugh.
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Jul 21, 2014 12:05
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Season five is just plain bad. There are many reasons for it, most of them entirely believable and even reasonable. And there's a salvageable episode or two in there. But it's a bad season of a good show.
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Jul 21, 2014 14:07
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The primary bad episode I can think of is I believe from season six where all the shots are focused in weird places and the dialogue is stunted as hell, but I can't for the life of me remember which one it was. All in all, the show suffered from a case of Twin Peaks when Sorkin decided there was too much pressure happening or whatever (re: caught with drugs or something idk). EDIT: Actually, you can equate the steady degradation of Bartlett to Ben Horne's psychotic break pretty easily. Mind you, I still liked the show past S4, but it does slow down pretty significantly in terms of how quickly the dialogue is snapped out, as well as the quality in directors. Toby's arc, though, is  in the worst ways.EDIT mach 2: Yeah you really can't say anything is 'grimdark' in any season, considering the setting. It'd be wildly, if not laughably unrealistic if bad poo poo didn't happen, or happen to be dealt with. Old Boot fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Jul 21, 2014 |
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Jul 21, 2014 15:07
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I thought it lost it for a while after season 4. But once Will Bailey was no longer the head of the campaign, he brought some of that old charm back. His stint as the Press Secretary where he just constantly bullshitted the press corp was pretty good.
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Jul 21, 2014 16:52
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Season five's (and some of season six's) problem is that it underscores West Wing's gradual shift between the balancing of light subject material to momentous subject material. Early West Wing is funny, smart people dealing with mundane situations (cartographers for social equality, CJ's root canal, Sam wants to date a call girl, Butterball Hotline, Stackhouse Filibuster ruins the gang's vacation plans, Ainsley is afraid to meet the President) in which individual episodes are framed by funny events and spiced with dramatic moments that usually stretch across multiple episodes. Later West Wing is still funny, smart people but now they have to deal with important, stressful situations all the drat time (Shut Down The Government, the most famous North Korean asks the President to defect, we have to Save Social Security forever, let's fill two Supreme Court seats in one episode, President Bartlet visits tornado victims all day, let's fix Israel and Palestine). These momentous events become the framework for the individual episodes, and the humor/silliness is seen in only brief respites where the audience can catch its breath. It's not as if the later seasons are not funny, or the early seasons are not dramatic. It just comes down to the right balance. The early episodes have it - "the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight" is more poignant for coming after we watched Toby, Josh, and Donna putz around in the Midwest for entire episodes.
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Jul 21, 2014 17:16
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Yeah, I mean one of the funniest, if not the funniest, parts of the entire show if when they all resign when cj becomes chief of staff. That bothers me though, before Leo's heart attack, Bartlett wants a list of names and Leo agrees. After the heart attack it's like "oh no its totally cj"
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Jul 22, 2014 22:39
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nagel posted:Yeah, I mean one of the funniest, if not the funniest, parts of the entire show if when they all resign when cj becomes chief of staff. I always thought that Bartlett wanting a list was his more formal way of saying gently caress YOU Leo, and that making him find his own replacement was a way to show him how serious he was about accepting his resignation. Then as things went on, he knew that CJ would be the best choice.
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Jul 24, 2014 21:49
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I think he was expecting Bartlet to back down but when he said says "I'll need your successor in place before you leave" he just stammers "I'll get you some names."
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Jul 24, 2014 22:20
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This show seems so quaint sometimes. We've got to keep <thing> that happened 12 hours ago out of the hands of the press! Flag burning is the most pressing issue! How will we ever get a Hispanic on the bench? Is the internet really the future?
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Jul 27, 2014 19:39
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The Republican Speaker becoming Acting President was already pretty outrageous in the show's timeframe, imagine John Boehner becoming Acting President today. There is a safe full of "Repeal Obamacare" executive orders somewhere out there, waiting for the right moment. Or imagine a candidate like Vinick running for the Republican nomination.  Hell, or what about that guy Bartlet ran for re-election against ("Are you going to pay it back?"). He wouldn't survive the primary. Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Jul 30, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 12:29
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Antti posted:Hell, or what about that guy Bartlet ran for re-election against ("Are you going to pay it back?"). He wouldn't survive the primary. That's funny, I seem to recall George W Bush winning two terms (and it's blatantly obvious that Ritchie was a thinly disguised reference to bush). Never underestimate the will of the American People to vote in direct opposition to their best interests. The Lord Bude fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Jul 30, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 12:49
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The VP in the show had resigned so the House Speaker was the next in line. Vinick was closely based on John McCain.
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Jul 30, 2014 12:50
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Mu Zeta posted:Vinick was closely based on John McCain. The biggest irony of all.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:25
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It's spooky how well the show predicted the 2008 election-lineup. An Obama-inspired minority candidate vs. a moderate McCain substitute, the former with an older VP to lend experience to the ticket, and the latter with a young tea party candidate trying to drag everything to the far right.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:47
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Slashrat posted:It's spooky how well the show predicted the 2008 election-lineup. An Obama-inspired minority candidate vs. a moderate McCain substitute, the former with an older VP to lend experience to the ticket, and the latter with a young tea party candidate trying to drag everything to the far right. I guess I need to watch season 7 again, because I didn't remember that Vinick's running mate was even a character.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:51
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He's only in a few episodes. Ultra conservative guy that is known for being tough on criminals. He says in a speech that the Bartlet Presidency has become sclerotic. Get it?
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Jul 30, 2014 13:53
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Naw that was some random Republican congressman during the republican convention wasn't it? Vinick's VP candidate was the slimey we're-all-pals-so-long-as-you-do-what-I-say sop to the religious right after the reverend they originally wanted pre-emptively turns it down. Just hit season five in my yearly re-watch.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:57
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The convention guy doing the speech is the VP candidate. I know the one you're talking about but I don't blame you for mistaking him since all the Republicans blend together in the last couple seasons.
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Jul 30, 2014 14:12
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Just got to S6E08 on my rewatch - "In the room", where Penn and Teller do a magic trick involving the flag of the United States and the Bill of Rights. Are the staff of the President of the United States really so stupid that they believe that a pair of magicians REALLY burned an American flag?! Seriously, everybody is going around like it's a foregone conclusion that a flag was really burned! Of course it wasn't; they're loving magicians! loving rear end holes.
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Jul 30, 2014 17:58
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brylcreem posted:Just got to S6E08 on my rewatch - "In the room", where Penn and Teller do a magic trick involving the flag of the United States and the Bill of Rights. I think they care more about the optics of the situation.
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Jul 30, 2014 18:08
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brylcreem posted:Just got to S6E08 on my rewatch - "In the room", where Penn and Teller do a magic trick involving the flag of the United States and the Bill of Rights. Have you ever read a newpaper/watched a tv channel that was controlled by vermin like Rupert Murdoch? What actually happened is irrelevant. What appeared to happen is the only thing that mattered here.
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Jul 31, 2014 04:32
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The Lord Bude posted:Have you ever read a newpaper/watched a tv channel that was controlled by vermin like Rupert Murdoch? What actually happened is irrelevant. What appeared to happen is the only thing that mattered here. It really doesn't even take that much which is what Sorkin was attempting to illustrate with the Newsroom, and hosed up.
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Aug 1, 2014 00:26
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6cDvtsRSQk I love the west wing. If it weren't for alan alda the last couple of seasons would suck. withak posted:It appears that this guy is a really, really big fan of "Seventeen People". That is an amazing website. Baloogan fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 01:51
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Does Ainsley ever do anything other than serve as a Republican strawwoman for the main characters to argue with about whatever Sorkin's pet issue is this week?
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Aug 15, 2014 06:19
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Luigi Thirty posted:Does Ainsley ever do anything other than serve as a Republican strawwoman for the main characters to argue with about whatever Sorkin's pet issue is this week?
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Aug 15, 2014 06:21
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