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I got linked this when I woke up: ... and had to go watch the episode (S3: Gone Quiet) for context. Now I think I need to watch the whole of series 3. Again. Why is this show so immensely re-watchable?
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May 16, 2012 13:26
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Alter Ego posted:"Ya lost yer boat in the wrong part of the world, Mr. President." McNally: "Mr. President, submariners understand that if they sink it won't be a rescue, it'll be a recovery. They measure risk and rewards not just in terms of their own lives, but in terms of national interest" Bartlet: "Well, that's great. I assess the national interest by the number of people alive, not dead" drat, I love any episode that has Nancy doing her thing.
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May 16, 2012 14:40
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Slashrat posted:I was rewatching the series and just got to this episode. Was surprised that this gem didn't seem to have been mentioned in the thread yet I think it's been mentioned a few times in passing,but thanks for the link  Every scene with Babish in is a delight.
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May 24, 2012 13:52
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El Grillo posted:Also yeah I really dig Kate Harper and Will... but I don't know why. They just seemed to work, in the most bizarre fashion. I have a big thing for Kate Harper, but remain rather uninterested in Mary McCormack in other roles. I think it's a fantastic accolade for the actor to be able to create a fanciable character in this way. I found their relationship oddly touching in some ways, and I don't exactly know why.
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May 24, 2012 17:32
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Joementum posted:Just thought you guys would like to know that CJ's doing The Jackal tonight. Pointless watching if Richard Schiff isn't there to react to it.
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Sep 18, 2013 01:55
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Marley Wants More posted:You know you're a true fan when instead of just thinking the "Jackal" scene was dumb, you think there must be something wrong with you because you think it was dumb. My problem with the scene is it was massively overhyped. OK, so it's a given Sorkinism that characters endlessly repeat something ahead of revealing it's significance to the audience, but in relation to a performance it just boosts false expectations. The best part about it is seeing Toby react to it.
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Sep 18, 2013 17:32
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FISHMANPET posted:I'll agree that it falls down when we're just supposed to take as given that characters are smart. But there's a lot of cases, like Equatorial Kundu, speaking about the civil war. We don't see any of the atrocities, we're told about them. I think it works well for the West Wing because we've got the same detachment from events that the staff does. He's not in Kundu, he's hearing about it from aides, and reading reports. How do you "show" people sleeping in each other's homes? It has much more impact when it's told. Josh is billed to us over and over as this great political operative, but for the majority of the shows run he is treading water at best, and being resoundingly beat every few episodes. It's far from my biggest peeve (with a show I have watched through many times) but it's a little tiresome at times. When Sorkin tells but doesn't show, and we really wanted to actually see it (full speeches, arguments, plausible things you expect to see) it can be pretty jarring when it keeps happening. There's so many examples over the 7 seasons of there being a massive build up to a confrontation, only for the confrontation itself to be rather lackluster, too. Even the MS story pretty much faded out as a political ramification. A whole season of buildup, cliffhangers of senior staff looking stern with the "come at me" lines, Toby pontificating as hard as possible, John raising his eyebrows to his hairline, and the story peters out with a censure and Abby deciding not to practice medicine. The show is superlative during the build up to these things, but I'm not surprised Sorkin leans on "tell don't show" because quite often what gets shown isn't as captivating.
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Sep 19, 2013 10:01
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TheBigBad posted:Just listen to NPR. 
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Sep 30, 2013 00:37
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FISHMANPET posted:I know this was sold to Rob Lowe as the Rob Lowe show, but from early on it's been much more of the Bradley Whitford show. He's the only person whose assistant is in the main cast, he's the one that talks to an auditorium of students while Mendoza is in jail, and we see the beginning of the Bartlett campaign through his eyes in the season 2 opening. Though in the pilot (which we knew was planned to be more about the cast) we open with Sam, the main plot is not only around Sam, but Sam's lovelife, which is pretty much always how the 'lead guy' is set out. Then Bartlett went and owned so much fundamentalist rear end he took the role; they realised what they had and ran with it. That's how I've always seen it, anyway.
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Oct 27, 2013 12:59
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"Will is in the opening credits! Oh poo poo, that’s about as good of a sign that he’s joining the cast as one could get. I love everything about this idea" Yeah, about that buddy. I completely forgot this blog was around after finding it the first time, time to read through and look for other gems 
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Nov 2, 2013 23:26
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FISHMANPET posted:Although I don't understand what unfunded mandate means in this scenario. An unfunded mandate is when the federal government tells the states to do something but doesn't provide any money. How would that even be a counter to "we think the states can handle it themselves?" There wouldn't be any mandates to fund. The "can I have my money back?" line is then implying the problem you're seeing with it - they'd need to remove [existing] funding for it to be an unfunded mandate. It kinda fits the purpose of the term, but it's a bit rhetoric-ey both ways.
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Nov 8, 2013 02:46
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The best line is when Josh asks why Abby cut off his tie, and Bartlett just quips "I don't think we have that kind of time"
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Nov 8, 2013 17:30
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Most TV shows on IMDB have a very low sample population on a per-episode basis, it's not unusual that even well-known shows will say certain episodes are below the voting threshold.
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Dec 7, 2013 19:05
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Yeah, looking at it the majority of the episodes have ~150 votes cast on them. I wouldn't suggest that sample was relevant enough to start quoting decimal places for.
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Dec 7, 2013 22:11
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Counterpoint to your counterpoint https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J1NHzQ1sgc&t=62s 
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Dec 8, 2013 02:18
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Heh, I know. But it's like a whole minute of clunky setup in an episode which is otherwise pretty fantastic.
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Dec 8, 2013 02:28
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I found this whilst looking for the new podcast https://soundcloud.com/thecrackpotsandthesewomen Bless them for trying.
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Mar 24, 2016 02:04
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Joshua always chewed the dialogue a bit too much. I found his off-the-cuff press statements particularly unconvincing.
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Apr 3, 2016 11:34
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I tried to get a friend into WW but she stopped twice in the first season because Mandy irritates her too much. I kinda want to jump her ahead to the end of the season / season 2 but then she won't care about the characters enough for Gunmen. In short Mandy ruins everything.
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Apr 5, 2016 11:01
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TheBigBad posted:Well no. It means that it requires some maturity to watch something you don't like and still appreciate it on it's merit. The problem with Mandy, is that she was abandoned the moment there was chemistry between Donna and Josh. That's the general complaint about how Sorkin writes women, and the reason my GF abandoned WW. I partly agree with you, as I put up with it, but surely you can appreciate other people have different reactions to the same thing? quote:Editing it so they will like it doesn't respect the work
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Apr 6, 2016 10:50
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TheBigBad posted:CJ and Zoey Barlet and Mrs. Landingham and Donatella Moss, and Margaret, and Abbey Bartlet and Nancy McNally and of course- our girl: Ainsly Hayes All of these characters have multiple stories where they have an emotional, not logical, reaction to something and need to be 'saved' by a male at some point, who swoops in and uses power and/or logic. Nancy not really because she's just in episodes for two lines, but the rest definitely. You can also take that same problem and look at the agency of female characters in Newsroom where it's the same problem again. Probably worse there; it makes several female characters completely insufferable. All the women in the Sorkin-verse are meant to be competent. We're told they are. However none get a plot where they actually get to leverage this. Amy kinda does, but is more often than not beaten by Josh. Women having multiple plots where they have to seek the forgiveness of a male colleague is a common theme across both; Mackenzie basically just has one plot for every episode: be relatively good at her job, but screw up and need to be forgiven. Every freaking episode. Also her entire character arc is this. No scenes where we watch in awe as someone kicks rear end (show, not tell) feature a female character doing it, that isn't undermined somehow later. CJ is the general exception in that she has more positive stories than negative, but that's largely because Dee Dee Myers had a very large hand in scoping out plotpoints there. This isn't just some thing people parrot, it's a long-held criticism by many people with differing reasons why.
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Apr 9, 2016 14:54
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My comment was 'how Sorkin writes women' so citing a show written by Sorkin isn't "apples and oranges" it's literally a salient example. The fact it's ~15 years later and he has the same problems just makes it worse.quote:The boys get trumped by the other boys too. This is all completely aside from 'smart woman does something dumb = cute' that's endlessly pervasive. e: your rap-sheet tells me you're never going to understand the problem, so I'm gonna stop.
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Apr 10, 2016 15:15
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TheBigBad posted:You probably should stop because you haven't actually leveled a reasonable criticism I already made several points but you dismiss them as "  " whilst ironically enough leaping to the same excuses which ignore frequency and context as you find elsewhere.There's no point debating any of this with someone who goes between non-ironically calling out "white knights" when you make a lovely comment about women and later explaining why something isn't misogynist because "there are worse examples". I have made reasonable criticism you're just never going to agree as it seems pretty important to you to get into arguments explaining why something isn't sexism, when the majority would look at the same thing and think "probably is". e: FWIW I don't think WW intends to be sexist, so misogynist as an entity it definitely is not. I just think it reflects the writing of someone who doesn't have a great track record with women trying to write what he considers 'strong women' and failing pretty poorly by letting his own biases slip in. This is a guy who has used a thin-veneer of fiction to smear ex-girlfriends in his writing and who has some pretty lovely things to say in his emails, which got leaked. Khablam fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Apr 11, 2016 |
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Apr 11, 2016 00:38
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I'm sorry, you're right! It just so happens that in every Sorkin piece of writing the know-nothing audience stand in is female. Just like, wow what are the odds that is a thing though.quote:Clearly what he wrote in emails a decade and half later proves he could not write women in the late 90s early 2000s the four years he created and wrote the show Come on dude. Just stating "no they are fine" constantly isn't a thing. quote:He grants agency based on station in the hierarchy of the fictional White House portrayed
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Apr 11, 2016 10:38
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It's generally considered convenient to write characters specifically to serve as a sort of literary false flag; so that anyone having a problem with X will be rebutted by someone saying "well this character is for X". Not towards issues of women at all, but this was so incredibly pervasive in The Newsroom it made it hard to watch, and I nearly slammed my head into a desk when the liberal mouthpiece of the show self-identified as Republican. I can't count how many times people use that poo poo in the real world like it means anything. e: 
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May 2, 2016 21:17
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Mandyville works better if everyone just forgets about the character and doesn't mention it. On my first ever watch I think I got to the 3rd DVD of season 2 before I noticed she has been missing a while. Then wasn't on the cover. Heh.
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Sep 24, 2016 00:21
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If having heard the usual way Josh and Hrishi talk to one another / banter with guests, you still think that their comments are "churlish", you might be completely tone deaf.
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Nov 4, 2016 04:37
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ninjahedgehog posted:Aaron Sorkin and Rob Lowe: if you guys have it in you, a Netflix sequel miniseries about CA Governor Seaborn's presidential campaign with be really nice to watch right now. Starting a re-watch of WW on January 20th
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Nov 12, 2016 01:02
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If it ever happened, it would be in the form of a Seaborne presidency given how Sorkin wrote him to be a wunderkind-to-president before leaving the show. I can't imagine Sorkin accepting seasons 5-7 as cannon.
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Mar 24, 2017 11:37
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Thwomp posted:Didn't House of Cards film a scene in the National Cathedral? It also involved yelling at God. It felt very "inspired" to put it kindly.
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Mar 25, 2017 17:19
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Very unlikely. The guy is 6'3"
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Mar 26, 2017 22:45
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Basticle posted:Man, are they ever gonna get Martin Sheen on the podcast? Two Cathedrals would have been the one to do it Yeah, safe to assume they tried and it hasn't happened. He's a busier actor than the other guests they've had.
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Mar 28, 2017 12:14
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Podcasts tend to penetrate older demographics pretty well actually. Sorry your parents are from another century I guess.
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Mar 28, 2017 16:42
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He was a democrat who campaigned for Michael Dukakis. Calling him 'super conservative' is silly. He sat on the fence about Trump/Clinton, and some cast members got upset he didn't support Clinton. That's about the lot of it.
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Mar 31, 2017 10:25
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Josh Lyman posted:What kind of rear end in a top hat sits on the fence for Trump/Clinton? The undecideds in the 2016 election were the highest in modern history, and many other celebs and even ex-presidents didn't pick a side. So, he's in company.
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Mar 31, 2017 10:37
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I always wonder if that's in itself a sad comment on the US foreign outlook. 'We'll just make up a fake African-sounding country and make it have genocide going on'. Can you imagine if they made fake US state names for stories, or fake EU countries for the same? I never got why they needed to make a fake country up. It's as bad as all the durkadurkastan poo poo 24 pulled.
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Apr 6, 2017 00:14
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WampaLord posted:Because if you use a real country and imply that bad poo poo is happening there, that country's ambassador gets all mad and yells at the network. And how does this not apply for all the non-african countries that "do bad poo poo" in the show? Or states, etc? It just sits bad with me that a writer can just say "oh all THOSE countries are like that right?"
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Apr 6, 2017 02:50
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The line never stood out to me, because in the UK & Europe that's every election result ever. I never know why US politicians don't discuss (most of) the rest of the world when someone says 49% isn't a mandate; the rest of the world gets poo poo done with 3+ primary parties and the winning party netting 38% or something.
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Apr 7, 2017 12:57
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I'm glad they both bounced hard off the idea of making up generic countries to fill a stereotype. Qumar & Equatorial Kundu are lovely stand ins. I liked the episode when I first saw it, but it does not stand up to any scrutiny at all. CJ is put across as a histrionic woman complaining about a women's issue, when we've seen her character already be so much smarter. Why not give her a logical argument? There's a huge case to be made that trade, of arms or anything, can be used as leverage to bring about human rights; whether or not this works or not would make a more interesting discussion than the weird single-issue situation the episode presents. Also any decent podcast app will give you a 30s skip option. The ads are all about 2mins so skip 4 times.
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Jun 2, 2017 10:16
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pokeyman posted:Also I'm rewatching the show for the nth time, and I don't know if it's the podcast or the changing times or what, but it's really hitting me how Sam does not miss an opportunity to be a piece of poo poo sexist. It would be an interesting character flaw except the show takes his side in every instance. I know that's not a revelatory observation or anything. Dude's just relentless. He's Sorkin's Mary Sue. myron cope posted:I haven't finished this episode of the podcast yet, but one thing that stuck out to me was them being mad that CJ had to be the one talking about the women's issue, and it would have been nice to have Sam or someone else be the one who is advocating for it here. My problem is I feel like if it was Sam's issue (or any of the men) they would have probably been mad about how the show always needs a man to solve a problem and doesn't let the women contribute. The whole subject shouldn't have been attempted in ~45mins because you end up with this half-pitched piece where half the valid readings of what you're seeing have issues. I like the podcast, because instead of just rolling my eyes at the bad optics in the episode we get to discuss it. Khablam fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Jun 4, 2017 |
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Jun 4, 2017 00:19
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