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Along with the secret plan to fight inflation, I nominate the Butterball hotline as the funniest scene in the show. Bartlet posted:"I'm Joe Betherson...sen. That's one 't', and with an 'h' in there" I cannot think of another programme that managed to combine comedy and drama as well as they managed. It probably helped that the casting was about as perfect as you can get.
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Jul 7, 2011 22:48
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Tom Tucker posted:One of the biggest 'faults' people find with The West Wing is the 'give speech, problem solved' mentality. This was especially noticeable during season 7, where Santos would be put in some ridiculous political situation and somehow come out of it by making the perfect speech and every stands and applauds. The worst example of this has to be the one where an Hispanic cop shoots a black kid, and Santos ends up in a church at the end giving a tedious 'power of forgiveness' speech. In one of the most cliched and poorly written scenes in the whole show, the congregation starts of being sullen and disapproving before being gradually won over and coming to cheer him at the end. It's the only individual scene I skip through when diong a re-watch (I pass by Access entirely).
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Jul 25, 2011 21:16
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t3ch3 posted:Of course it has a bobsled chase. It has almost every single Winter Olympics event in it. That was its marketing gimmick. Personally, I always find the helicopter assault event to be the best part of the Winter Olympics. Excluding the curling, of course.
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Sep 3, 2011 21:49
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James R posted:Toby being the one who released the information about the military space shuttle that could've rescued the astronauts in trouble was also a crock of poo poo. Everything we learn in series 1-4 tells us that Toby is idealistic, but incredibly loyal. Not once, but twice he shouts at Leo as he believes Leo has questioned his loyalty (the second time being when Leo sets him up with a 'lifeboat' job at a news firm. There is no way he does that to his President and staff in a million years, and again.. John Wells needs a dry slap. Dick. I don't know about that. Toby always seemed to believe in a higher loyalty to the spirit of good governance, openess, and the right of the people to know what their leaders are doing and to hold them accountable. Remember how furious he was when the MS thing came to light, and he realised that there had been a coup de tat. I don't think it is too unreasonable to think he might break ranks when learning that his boss would be letting people die in space in order to allow the millitary to hide their new secret weapon. Especially as the reason they didn't want to use the shuttle was because one of the trapped was a Russian who would spill the beans about their new toy. Whilst he could possibly accept that the American astronauts would be willing to die for the secret, Toby really doesn't strike me as someone who would accept his government cold-bloodily sacrificing the Russian's life to cover up the US millitary's dodgy dealings. I think the plot line could have worked a lot better if they emphasised the moral diemnsion more, but instead his motives were never properly scrutinized. The whole thing was rather clumsily written, which stands out all the more in an otherwise taughtly written show.
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Apr 21, 2012 20:31
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Joementum posted:The difference is that he wouldn't have tried to hide doing this for months. Fair point, but I don't think the overall idea was irredeembly bad. To me it just seems that the entire plot line didn't go through enough draughts to sort out those sort of problems, or to properly develop his motivation for us. Granted these are pretty major flaws when it comes to story telling. I do however think that the last seen with Bartlet was brilliant, up there with any of the other great emotional one-to-ones. Sheen really got the anger and despair across, and the put down he gives when Toby hands him his resignation letter ("What is this, your third?") always felt very powerful to me.
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Apr 21, 2012 22:00
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gohuskies posted:Will sucks because during the primary he pushes Russell as "the one who can win in the general" despite the fact that when Bob was chosen, he was pushed on the WH by the Republicans specifically because they thought he was a crappy potential nominee and he'd be easy to beat, and Will (and everyone else) knew this at the time. Er, this is emphatically not the case. He wasn't part of the group that selected Russell, so didn't know that he was selected specifically for his mediocritry. It's also worth noting that various top democrats were also pushing for him in order to avoid creating a strong challenger for themselves. In any case, from Will's perspective the president (a man he admired, respected and trusted completely) must have had faith in Russell to have apointed him to such a crucial office, setting him up as the most likely successor to his legacy. Considering his relative inexperience with Washington politics and his Bartlett hero worship, it's not unreasonable for his character to have assumed the "hidden depths" motive rather than political expediancy. Of course, on occasion Russell did show competence, which would give Will reason to keep believing.
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Aug 5, 2012 18:25
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gohuskies posted:Will and Toby wrote the speech making fun of Russell that accidentally got put into the teleprompter when Bartlett was announcing it. Will wasn't in the room when Russell got pushed on them, but he knew that Russell sucked. And Russell only showed competence once as far as I recall, when he suggested that the nuclear test may have been Israeli, and that was as much luck as competence. Hence why he questioned Leo as to why they would be willing to put Russell a heart beat away from the presidency and in pole position to succeed Bartlett in a couple of years. It seems rather harsh to condemn Will for the crime of trusting his idols. If Russell wasn't fit for office, he should not have been selected regardless of the political difficulties in finding someone better. In fact, if Russell was as useless as some people percieved him, surely it was gross negligence from Bartlett & Co to appoint him. Rather than accept that they would be willing to put the country/world at such a position, he chose to believe that there was a good reason. Besides which, when he joined Russell there were no other credible candidate in the field. I can't recall the exact timeline, but I don't believe Santos had even been introduced, and Hoynes was still in disgrace. He saw Russell, the vice president, chosen deputy and presumed successor to the popular Bartlett, as the best chance to keep a democrat in the White House. Once he became Russell's manager, he naturally did what he could to achieve that. Basically, gently caress the haters. Will is great. I'm British too! Perhaps it's only us who appreciate him.
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Aug 5, 2012 19:40
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Khablam posted:Podcasts tend to penetrate older demographics pretty well actually. Presumably last century.
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Mar 28, 2017 17:47
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