you know "tww" is one of my top-five most used tags...
So, like I've been saying for the past few days, I'm in the middle of working on a TWW fic. And... the thing is, re-reading it? I feel like I'm projecting a lot of my issues about the way the show has been since season four onto Sam.
"You can't replicate that, Josh. It happened. We worked for the greatest president in the last fifty years and it was incredible. It was breathtaking. It's something that I'll hold onto for the rest of my life, but it's over and it's been over for years. I want different things now. It can't be like it was back then, and you can't walk back into my life after four years and expect us to pick up where we left off."
That completely describes my current relationship with The West Wing as an entity. You can tempt me with Sam, with believeable dialogue, with Deb Cahn and Brad Whitford, with reunions and banter and humor and idealism, but none of it's the same. You can't replicate what this show really was back then.
There are a couple other instances where Sam criticizes Josh's insistence that things can be as good as they used to be, even though the golden age of Bartlet is long since passed. And of course, there's the pre-requisite (in my fics, at least) mention of how this isn't the way they planned it, this isn't the way it was supposed to end, it was supposed to be Sam in the Oval, not Matt Santos.
I know, I know, I keep harping on this, "Sam was supposed to be President one day, goddammit!" thing but... god, he totally was. He totally and completely was. Is. Whatever. The thing is, I'm writing the idol_reflection essay for Sam, and I'm rewatching all of his greatest scenes and... they make it so obvious. It's so obvious that Sam and Josh are the Jed and Leo of their generation. And that just makes the whole "Josh thinks Santos is the real thing!" storyline so unbelievable to me. I mean, it was unbelievable the first time, but... yeah. Bartlet was the real thing. Sam would have been the real thing. Santos is... Saint Santos. I don't even know what he is anymore.
(Hey, remember last year when I actually liked Santos? What happened with that?)
Anyway. I need to get some actual work done at some point. And buy a Mother's Day gift ::shifty eyes::
"You can't replicate that, Josh. It happened. We worked for the greatest president in the last fifty years and it was incredible. It was breathtaking. It's something that I'll hold onto for the rest of my life, but it's over and it's been over for years. I want different things now. It can't be like it was back then, and you can't walk back into my life after four years and expect us to pick up where we left off."
That completely describes my current relationship with The West Wing as an entity. You can tempt me with Sam, with believeable dialogue, with Deb Cahn and Brad Whitford, with reunions and banter and humor and idealism, but none of it's the same. You can't replicate what this show really was back then.
There are a couple other instances where Sam criticizes Josh's insistence that things can be as good as they used to be, even though the golden age of Bartlet is long since passed. And of course, there's the pre-requisite (in my fics, at least) mention of how this isn't the way they planned it, this isn't the way it was supposed to end, it was supposed to be Sam in the Oval, not Matt Santos.
I know, I know, I keep harping on this, "Sam was supposed to be President one day, goddammit!" thing but... god, he totally was. He totally and completely was. Is. Whatever. The thing is, I'm writing the idol_reflection essay for Sam, and I'm rewatching all of his greatest scenes and... they make it so obvious. It's so obvious that Sam and Josh are the Jed and Leo of their generation. And that just makes the whole "Josh thinks Santos is the real thing!" storyline so unbelievable to me. I mean, it was unbelievable the first time, but... yeah. Bartlet was the real thing. Sam would have been the real thing. Santos is... Saint Santos. I don't even know what he is anymore.
(Hey, remember last year when I actually liked Santos? What happened with that?)
Anyway. I need to get some actual work done at some point. And buy a Mother's Day gift ::shifty eyes::