speeches and votes
The West Wing 3.11 100,000 Airplanes
I watched this episode (and just this episode) in a fairly exhausted state, but I think I followed it fine. Really striking that Sam got the A-plot and the framing device. It was also striking that the state of th union address build-up was so demanding, as it hadn’t interfered with the events of the previous ep, when Sam had them all chasing up that silly book’s inaccuracies, but that’s a minor point.
My big overall impression was that you could tell they had a bigger budget because of all of the extras, and it even felt as though there were more people than in previous post-SotU parties. There were also lots of people in the busy montage scenes.
I sort of really wanted more Toby, with his appetite for pie and mix of acuity (about the President) and cluelessness (telling Josh what he did. I mean, I thought he was correct, but what Josh did with the info was predictable.)
But we found out about Sam’s fiancée, who reminded me a bit of Tea Leoni (from the podcast, I learned that she was the woman off Monk, which I watched some episodes of at the beginning), and they eventually got to hash out the end of their engagement, sort of, after a lot of Sam being quite rude if not hostile to her, and her questions weren’t that annoying (though Josh Molina was right about the lack of note taking and research.) Sam had warned CJ and then said that he wished he hadn’t been shadowed that night, when he was tired and tense, but it was an effective lead into the flashbacks and to telling us about where Sam (koff, Robe Lowe and Aaron Sorkin?) was (were) at now. There really was a sourness between Sam and his fiancée that wasn’t there between, say, Toby and Andi. Of course, we haven’t seen Leo and his ex either. There was almost a feeling that the didn’t know each other at all, although Lisa sure read him in the end. For me, I thought Sam’s main source of frustration was that he wasn’t serving an ‘in this decade’ President, because Bartlet was the first President since the civil war to be censured (oh, Sam welcome to our timeline) for being ‘casual with the truth.’ And idealistic Sam was a little heartbroken, especially because he had to face the failed enagement too. The podcasters seemed t think a lot of things were going on, but I thought it came down to the President letting Sam down.
I loved the flashback scene to those on the outside finding out about the censure and Josh had to pull rank and knowledge on them. I thought maybe the Ed and Larry gags were a little much, but I loved Joey Lucas (also her hair style and her ferocity as we saw Sam and Josh put pressure on her, and that she saw the situation more clearly, because she was a step further removed than the senior staff.
I liked that Donna’s thing about incomprehensible manuals being more of a passing ‘almost made it into the speech’, and wasn’t that whole ticket a callback? The curing cancer thing, well, I was confused that all Abbey’s friends were oncologists - I didn’t think she was, but I may misremember. However, I could well imagine the scene when she took Jed to task for pulling the Commander in Chief card to get them to obey and talk to him simply. (Even if that phone call was clearly keeping a lid on the budget.) Toby and Joey read Bartlet right, and pragmatism caught up with him and Sam, though, gain, I thought Molina made a fair point about how Bartlet could have made some mention of curing cancer; it wasn’t all or nothing.
And then the explanation for Amy not talking to Josh (although it was an ‘I’m not talking to you, but I’m not avoiding you’ mixed message. And he deserved it. Jjust because Toby ha told him, didn’t mean he had to spout it like that (or possibly at all. Like Amy said, she’s smart, and behaviours like dragging her to the photocall would have got through to her eventually.) I was also a little disapproving of both Josh and Amy that they were going on dates once he’d admitted his feelings and she’d kissed him AND SHE WAS STILL DATING THE SENATOR. Tacky, guys.
But then I was amused by how clearly Donna was peeved because Josh was pursuing Amy.
I mainly took the scene where CJ was offering sexual favours to Sam or Carol, and Sam’s ‘let me be a voyeur’ comeback, as a sign of her/their ebullience, instead of getting outraged about harassment at the workplace. Who was celebrating the success of the speech with who was notable - Toby really wanted to dance with CJ. Gorgeous shot of CJ’s face framed by Toby and Sam facing each other.
3.12 The Two Bartlets
I watched this a few days later.
Nicely picked up on everything that’s been brewing with the team split in two, those on the plane and those on the ground. ‘Bunch of workaholics’ was my main thought at the early start and then ‘eww’ at the coffee grounds. I bet that in setting up his living room much later that Josh didn’t buy fresh coffee. Totally understandable that Amy freaked out and ran from Congressman Photo Ops over the mattiage proposal (who hadn’t noticed she was starting to doubt him or not serious enough to be more than flirting with Josh.) I was on his side for snapping at Donna about wanting to avoid jury duty - it wasn’t as if she was thinking that it would be a busy time at work (although when would it not?), although her dating someone new felt both brave after the Cliff thing, but was clearly motivated by Josh/Amy. And though Josh’s gesture to make up for having to pull out of the holiday and how he did it was very sweet, UB40? I was pleased when the podcast also quibbled at that music choice.
On the plane, I felt for CJ. From her side of the conversation, it was pretty easy to divine what was going on - there wasn’t much mention of this when we last heard about her father, so that seems like a quick deterioration. (I actually remembered this storyline, which is ironic as it is to do with memory.) I felt sorry for her wish hat he’d had a more comfortable life, even if I’m not convinced it was medically valid to think that was a factor in his dementia. I hadn’t really considered that take in the podcast on this as to whether her father had just been passed over for less qualified people (CJ was very specific on the African American women.) Knowing about this as she blithered a bit too brightly about the butter museum hurt. Toby gave better family advice (than romance.
And Toby was increasingly sympathetic over The Question. (I went, “Oh yeah, I half remember that name,” when Ritchie was mentioned, as I await to see if more comes back when we see him.) I loved the accumulation of context, as CJ and Bartlet seemed to imply that it was too early to go full rebuttal, although it was clear that both Bartlet and Toby thought Richie was going to end up being his opponent. I was still undecided as to whether Bartlet just wanted to have a quiet day until he gave his answer, and then Toby made his case.
And I’d thought that it was telling that Leo was based n Washington, dealing with a national security issue (which like affirmative action, showed that the staff had different views on different policies, and the podcast really highlighted the subtlety of this episode) but by the final meeting, it didn’t matter, we were back to Toby playing Bartlet’s conscience and daring to speak truth to power.
I mean, his bit about them always speaking about Bartlet with respect when he was the one who referenced Uncle Fluffy and Dr Jekyll was a bit cheeky, but oh how his assessment of what Bartler was doing and why felt absolutely true based on what we’d seen from those early flashbacks. And he was both brave and deferential in the scene. Interesting, all these years on, that Sorkin was inspired by Gore.
Sam was back to having relatively lightweight stuff to do - Josh did come off as self-involved when Sam was trying to tell him about his meeting. I think my heart swelled a little less than it should have at this poor deluded man, carrying on his father’s business, because I was mainly ‘ugh’ at the connections that got him the meet in the White House when Sam could have been doing better things with his time. (Well in theory.) Of coure, looking back, there were references to three child-father relationships.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/475388.html.
I watched this episode (and just this episode) in a fairly exhausted state, but I think I followed it fine. Really striking that Sam got the A-plot and the framing device. It was also striking that the state of th union address build-up was so demanding, as it hadn’t interfered with the events of the previous ep, when Sam had them all chasing up that silly book’s inaccuracies, but that’s a minor point.
My big overall impression was that you could tell they had a bigger budget because of all of the extras, and it even felt as though there were more people than in previous post-SotU parties. There were also lots of people in the busy montage scenes.
I sort of really wanted more Toby, with his appetite for pie and mix of acuity (about the President) and cluelessness (telling Josh what he did. I mean, I thought he was correct, but what Josh did with the info was predictable.)
But we found out about Sam’s fiancée, who reminded me a bit of Tea Leoni (from the podcast, I learned that she was the woman off Monk, which I watched some episodes of at the beginning), and they eventually got to hash out the end of their engagement, sort of, after a lot of Sam being quite rude if not hostile to her, and her questions weren’t that annoying (though Josh Molina was right about the lack of note taking and research.) Sam had warned CJ and then said that he wished he hadn’t been shadowed that night, when he was tired and tense, but it was an effective lead into the flashbacks and to telling us about where Sam (koff, Robe Lowe and Aaron Sorkin?) was (were) at now. There really was a sourness between Sam and his fiancée that wasn’t there between, say, Toby and Andi. Of course, we haven’t seen Leo and his ex either. There was almost a feeling that the didn’t know each other at all, although Lisa sure read him in the end. For me, I thought Sam’s main source of frustration was that he wasn’t serving an ‘in this decade’ President, because Bartlet was the first President since the civil war to be censured (oh, Sam welcome to our timeline) for being ‘casual with the truth.’ And idealistic Sam was a little heartbroken, especially because he had to face the failed enagement too. The podcasters seemed t think a lot of things were going on, but I thought it came down to the President letting Sam down.
I loved the flashback scene to those on the outside finding out about the censure and Josh had to pull rank and knowledge on them. I thought maybe the Ed and Larry gags were a little much, but I loved Joey Lucas (also her hair style and her ferocity as we saw Sam and Josh put pressure on her, and that she saw the situation more clearly, because she was a step further removed than the senior staff.
I liked that Donna’s thing about incomprehensible manuals being more of a passing ‘almost made it into the speech’, and wasn’t that whole ticket a callback? The curing cancer thing, well, I was confused that all Abbey’s friends were oncologists - I didn’t think she was, but I may misremember. However, I could well imagine the scene when she took Jed to task for pulling the Commander in Chief card to get them to obey and talk to him simply. (Even if that phone call was clearly keeping a lid on the budget.) Toby and Joey read Bartlet right, and pragmatism caught up with him and Sam, though, gain, I thought Molina made a fair point about how Bartlet could have made some mention of curing cancer; it wasn’t all or nothing.
And then the explanation for Amy not talking to Josh (although it was an ‘I’m not talking to you, but I’m not avoiding you’ mixed message. And he deserved it. Jjust because Toby ha told him, didn’t mean he had to spout it like that (or possibly at all. Like Amy said, she’s smart, and behaviours like dragging her to the photocall would have got through to her eventually.) I was also a little disapproving of both Josh and Amy that they were going on dates once he’d admitted his feelings and she’d kissed him AND SHE WAS STILL DATING THE SENATOR. Tacky, guys.
But then I was amused by how clearly Donna was peeved because Josh was pursuing Amy.
I mainly took the scene where CJ was offering sexual favours to Sam or Carol, and Sam’s ‘let me be a voyeur’ comeback, as a sign of her/their ebullience, instead of getting outraged about harassment at the workplace. Who was celebrating the success of the speech with who was notable - Toby really wanted to dance with CJ. Gorgeous shot of CJ’s face framed by Toby and Sam facing each other.
3.12 The Two Bartlets
I watched this a few days later.
Nicely picked up on everything that’s been brewing with the team split in two, those on the plane and those on the ground. ‘Bunch of workaholics’ was my main thought at the early start and then ‘eww’ at the coffee grounds. I bet that in setting up his living room much later that Josh didn’t buy fresh coffee. Totally understandable that Amy freaked out and ran from Congressman Photo Ops over the mattiage proposal (who hadn’t noticed she was starting to doubt him or not serious enough to be more than flirting with Josh.) I was on his side for snapping at Donna about wanting to avoid jury duty - it wasn’t as if she was thinking that it would be a busy time at work (although when would it not?), although her dating someone new felt both brave after the Cliff thing, but was clearly motivated by Josh/Amy. And though Josh’s gesture to make up for having to pull out of the holiday and how he did it was very sweet, UB40? I was pleased when the podcast also quibbled at that music choice.
On the plane, I felt for CJ. From her side of the conversation, it was pretty easy to divine what was going on - there wasn’t much mention of this when we last heard about her father, so that seems like a quick deterioration. (I actually remembered this storyline, which is ironic as it is to do with memory.) I felt sorry for her wish hat he’d had a more comfortable life, even if I’m not convinced it was medically valid to think that was a factor in his dementia. I hadn’t really considered that take in the podcast on this as to whether her father had just been passed over for less qualified people (CJ was very specific on the African American women.) Knowing about this as she blithered a bit too brightly about the butter museum hurt. Toby gave better family advice (than romance.
And Toby was increasingly sympathetic over The Question. (I went, “Oh yeah, I half remember that name,” when Ritchie was mentioned, as I await to see if more comes back when we see him.) I loved the accumulation of context, as CJ and Bartlet seemed to imply that it was too early to go full rebuttal, although it was clear that both Bartlet and Toby thought Richie was going to end up being his opponent. I was still undecided as to whether Bartlet just wanted to have a quiet day until he gave his answer, and then Toby made his case.
And I’d thought that it was telling that Leo was based n Washington, dealing with a national security issue (which like affirmative action, showed that the staff had different views on different policies, and the podcast really highlighted the subtlety of this episode) but by the final meeting, it didn’t matter, we were back to Toby playing Bartlet’s conscience and daring to speak truth to power.
I mean, his bit about them always speaking about Bartlet with respect when he was the one who referenced Uncle Fluffy and Dr Jekyll was a bit cheeky, but oh how his assessment of what Bartler was doing and why felt absolutely true based on what we’d seen from those early flashbacks. And he was both brave and deferential in the scene. Interesting, all these years on, that Sorkin was inspired by Gore.
Sam was back to having relatively lightweight stuff to do - Josh did come off as self-involved when Sam was trying to tell him about his meeting. I think my heart swelled a little less than it should have at this poor deluded man, carrying on his father’s business, because I was mainly ‘ugh’ at the connections that got him the meet in the White House when Sam could have been doing better things with his time. (Well in theory.) Of coure, looking back, there were references to three child-father relationships.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/475388.html.