30 Days of The West Wing: Day 12
Here is the meme in case anyone else would like to join in:
Day 1: Favorite Season
Day 2: Favorite Episode
Day 3: Favorite Song Used In An Episode
Day 4: Favorite Female Character
Day 5: Favorite Male Character
Day 6: Favorite Friendship
Day 7: Favorite Romance
Day 8: Least Favorite Female Character
Day 9: Least Favorite Male Character
Day 10: Least Favorite Season
Day 11: Least Favorite Romance
Day 12: Least Favorite Episode
Day 13: Favorite Bartlet that isn't the President
Day 14: Favorite Secret Service Agent
Day 15: Episode You Like That Others Hate
Day 16: Character You Relate To The Most
Day 17: Character Who Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time
Day 18: Character You Like That Others Hate
Day 19: Best President Bartlet-centric Episode
Day 20: Best Leo McGarry-centric Episode
Day 21: Best Toby Ziegler-centric Episode
Day 22: Best C.J. Gregg-centric Episode
Day 23: Best Joshua Lyman-centric Episode
Day 24: Most Harrowing Scene
Day 25: Favorite The West Wing Quote
Day 26: Two Characters You Wanted To Get Together That Never Did
Day 27: Cutest/Most Adorable Moment
Day 28: Character You Love To Hate
Day 29: Episode You Hate That Others Love
Day 30: What You Think Made TWW So Great
Day 12: Least Favorite Episode
For this one, I'm definitely doing a top five list and then my actual choice. The West Wing has 155 episodes, so it just seems more reasonable to do that. For me, the episodes I like least aren't the ones with parts that I dislike or disagree with, like, say, The Benign Prerogative or Han. Even when I totally loathe something that happens, the fact that it moved me to care makes it a better episode than the ones that are utterly forgettable. So for this list, I have to refer to an episode guide to find the ones I've forgotten. :)
My top five in no particular order are: "Six Meetings Before Lunch" (Season 1), "The War at Home" (Season 2), "The Two Bartlets" (Season 3), "The Long Goodbye" (Season 4), and "Access" (Season 5). There weren't any from Seasons 6 and 7 that made the list because they focus on so many storylines at once that there are parts I really enjoy in every episode.
Six Meetings Before Lunch is the episode right before Let Bartlet Be Bartlet, so it is both kind of irrelevant with the coming changes and also really depressing, as the whole staff feels hopeless and that spreads to the viewer a little. The War at Home picks up where the previous episode left off after the State of the Union speech, and the storylines just feel like they drag on a bit. I'm especially bored by the missing DEA agent storyline. The Two Bartlets has some nice Josh/Amy moments, but it ends with Toby challenging the President, and I strongly dislike that part and the President's therapy that follows through the next episode.
The Long Goodbye and Access are both CJ-focused episodes, and my two least favorite episodes in the entire series. I love CJ (like CJ loves dry rub!), I promise, but there are great episodes focused on her, like Liftoff, and then there are these. The Long Goodbye is amazingly acted and very moving, but it is so far removed from the West Wing and so slow that I struggle to get through it. Access is the token episode every long-running modern series has that approaches the characters and events from a different style and perspective--in this case a documentary following CJ around--but unlike other shows, this one doesn't make the episode central to the season in a way that requires you to watch it or miss important things. It's the opposite, actually...the episode takes places much earlier in the timeline, as though the filmmaker had to keep it secret for national security concerns and could only release it after it became totally irrelevant. That makes the episode TOTALLY IRRELEVANT too, unfortunately, giving me the ability to skip it guilt-free.
As those who know me know, I am a marathon purist; I don't believe in skipping scenes or episodes that I don't like, and I believe that shows and movies have a natural flow that makes them better when you watch them as they were intended...but when I marathon TWW, I watch the beginning of The Long Goodbye when CJ is still involved in the White House, and then, around the time she meets her ex-boyfriend in Dayton, I just stop watching. I have diligently watched the entire despondent, glacially-slow episode multiple times, and just reached the point where I couldn't do it anymore. It didn't get better, I didn't appreciate it more--this episode is the West Wing equivalent of any artistic film you force yourself to watch because it's just so amazing, but never truly appreciate when you could be watching something else you really love.
However, my least favorite TWW episode of all time is Access, because after seeing it once I basically never watched it again. It's awful; the camera work is choppy, the interviews with actors playing characters being interviewed are bizarre (look, I'm watching Janel Moloney be interviewed in-character as Donna! I think I'd rather just watch Janel Moloney be interviewed as Janel Moloney), and nothing that happens matters. At all. If you want to gain further insight into CJ's character, watch Liftoff or Here Today or The Women of Qumar. You don't need to watch this. At least not twice.
There are no important character interactions that you'll miss, nothing about CJ that you haven't already figured out on your own...and while you do meet a character named Jack, who is later rude to Donna because she takes his place in the Gaza trip, you don't need to see him ramble in this episode to understand in the next one that he works for CJ and doesn't like Donna. He's never seen again after that and wasn't terribly likable in the first place, so I say good riddance. Maybe if he'd actually gone to Gaza and then died, his appearances would matter, but he doesn't, so they don't. Lol. I sound really mean...but disposable, bitchy, gay characters are such a cliche that TWW should be above that.
And...icons! :) Today, 3 more icons featuring couples I do like. These are a little odd.
Thanks for reading. :)
See you tomorrow for Day 13!
Day 1: Favorite Season
Day 2: Favorite Episode
Day 3: Favorite Song Used In An Episode
Day 4: Favorite Female Character
Day 5: Favorite Male Character
Day 6: Favorite Friendship
Day 7: Favorite Romance
Day 8: Least Favorite Female Character
Day 9: Least Favorite Male Character
Day 10: Least Favorite Season
Day 11: Least Favorite Romance
Day 12: Least Favorite Episode
Day 13: Favorite Bartlet that isn't the President
Day 14: Favorite Secret Service Agent
Day 15: Episode You Like That Others Hate
Day 16: Character You Relate To The Most
Day 17: Character Who Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time
Day 18: Character You Like That Others Hate
Day 19: Best President Bartlet-centric Episode
Day 20: Best Leo McGarry-centric Episode
Day 21: Best Toby Ziegler-centric Episode
Day 22: Best C.J. Gregg-centric Episode
Day 23: Best Joshua Lyman-centric Episode
Day 24: Most Harrowing Scene
Day 25: Favorite The West Wing Quote
Day 26: Two Characters You Wanted To Get Together That Never Did
Day 27: Cutest/Most Adorable Moment
Day 28: Character You Love To Hate
Day 29: Episode You Hate That Others Love
Day 30: What You Think Made TWW So Great
Day 12: Least Favorite Episode
For this one, I'm definitely doing a top five list and then my actual choice. The West Wing has 155 episodes, so it just seems more reasonable to do that. For me, the episodes I like least aren't the ones with parts that I dislike or disagree with, like, say, The Benign Prerogative or Han. Even when I totally loathe something that happens, the fact that it moved me to care makes it a better episode than the ones that are utterly forgettable. So for this list, I have to refer to an episode guide to find the ones I've forgotten. :)
My top five in no particular order are: "Six Meetings Before Lunch" (Season 1), "The War at Home" (Season 2), "The Two Bartlets" (Season 3), "The Long Goodbye" (Season 4), and "Access" (Season 5). There weren't any from Seasons 6 and 7 that made the list because they focus on so many storylines at once that there are parts I really enjoy in every episode.
Six Meetings Before Lunch is the episode right before Let Bartlet Be Bartlet, so it is both kind of irrelevant with the coming changes and also really depressing, as the whole staff feels hopeless and that spreads to the viewer a little. The War at Home picks up where the previous episode left off after the State of the Union speech, and the storylines just feel like they drag on a bit. I'm especially bored by the missing DEA agent storyline. The Two Bartlets has some nice Josh/Amy moments, but it ends with Toby challenging the President, and I strongly dislike that part and the President's therapy that follows through the next episode.
The Long Goodbye and Access are both CJ-focused episodes, and my two least favorite episodes in the entire series. I love CJ (like CJ loves dry rub!), I promise, but there are great episodes focused on her, like Liftoff, and then there are these. The Long Goodbye is amazingly acted and very moving, but it is so far removed from the West Wing and so slow that I struggle to get through it. Access is the token episode every long-running modern series has that approaches the characters and events from a different style and perspective--in this case a documentary following CJ around--but unlike other shows, this one doesn't make the episode central to the season in a way that requires you to watch it or miss important things. It's the opposite, actually...the episode takes places much earlier in the timeline, as though the filmmaker had to keep it secret for national security concerns and could only release it after it became totally irrelevant. That makes the episode TOTALLY IRRELEVANT too, unfortunately, giving me the ability to skip it guilt-free.
As those who know me know, I am a marathon purist; I don't believe in skipping scenes or episodes that I don't like, and I believe that shows and movies have a natural flow that makes them better when you watch them as they were intended...but when I marathon TWW, I watch the beginning of The Long Goodbye when CJ is still involved in the White House, and then, around the time she meets her ex-boyfriend in Dayton, I just stop watching. I have diligently watched the entire despondent, glacially-slow episode multiple times, and just reached the point where I couldn't do it anymore. It didn't get better, I didn't appreciate it more--this episode is the West Wing equivalent of any artistic film you force yourself to watch because it's just so amazing, but never truly appreciate when you could be watching something else you really love.
However, my least favorite TWW episode of all time is Access, because after seeing it once I basically never watched it again. It's awful; the camera work is choppy, the interviews with actors playing characters being interviewed are bizarre (look, I'm watching Janel Moloney be interviewed in-character as Donna! I think I'd rather just watch Janel Moloney be interviewed as Janel Moloney), and nothing that happens matters. At all. If you want to gain further insight into CJ's character, watch Liftoff or Here Today or The Women of Qumar. You don't need to watch this. At least not twice.
There are no important character interactions that you'll miss, nothing about CJ that you haven't already figured out on your own...and while you do meet a character named Jack, who is later rude to Donna because she takes his place in the Gaza trip, you don't need to see him ramble in this episode to understand in the next one that he works for CJ and doesn't like Donna. He's never seen again after that and wasn't terribly likable in the first place, so I say good riddance. Maybe if he'd actually gone to Gaza and then died, his appearances would matter, but he doesn't, so they don't. Lol. I sound really mean...but disposable, bitchy, gay characters are such a cliche that TWW should be above that.
And...icons! :) Today, 3 more icons featuring couples I do like. These are a little odd.
Thanks for reading. :)
See you tomorrow for Day 13!