Debate Camp

[sunclouds33]

I love this episode *so* much. It has basically all of the ingredients of a great TWW episode- humor, effectively mixing personal and political storylines, heart, tons of exciting storylines, character development, interesting methods of time and telling a story, etc.

Comments

[sunclouds33]

That's why I love S7, too! It's all about my love for horse-race elections. I have my issues with S7- the poorly written leak story, hardly any Jed and as per the post-Sorkin years, a weaker, less admirable Jed Bartlet and my dislike for all three of the end-game ships- Josh/Donna, CJ/Danny and Will/Kate. (If you can call Will/Kate "end-game".)

However, the election was phenomenal. I love me some Arnold Vinick. Lou Thorton and Annabeth Schott both make me so happy. The Russia v. China plot was major interesting if a little underwritten. All of the old recurring characters came back en masse including Sam and Real Abbey Bartlet because she was missing in action during Season 5-6. The season ends up becoming bigger than the sum of its parts because it's good stuff dramatically outweighs the bad stuff by a ton and even some of the bad stuff (Toby as the leaker, an erratic, problematic Josh in the latter days of the campaign, Santos as a jerk) ended up being major interesting even on my many rewatches even if I wasn't "loving" it as a viewer who wants to see positive stuff on this show.

I hope that I'm still covering the show in Season 7. I have a lot of feelings. ;-)

[jean_c_pepper]

I hope so too. I agree that the leak story was stupid, sketchy, poorly written and not really believeable. In fact, the only benefit of the leak story is that you see a real interesting aspect of the Andy/Toby relationship.
And, the reason there is little Jed is that at that point I think most of the actors were done with their contract and limiting their appearances. At least, Martin Sheen and Richard Schiff.
I liked Josh/Donna finally hooking up. I also really liked the way it was done with them being very ackward and strange with each other. I also liked that Danny and CJ got together. Partly because the show didn't give them a lot of screen time but assured us they were together. but also, we've had 7 years of Cj/Danny, CJ/Simon, CJ/Marco(the Matthew Modine character), CJ/the park ranger. It's nice to see a man that could handle CJ. Will/Kate seemed more to me to be a "We're bored, let's go to bed" type thing-like friends with benefits. I could take it or leave it, although the scene where she is staring at his ass is pretty funny!

The China/Russia thing gave them a chance for Santos to ask Vinick to be his Secretary of State and also for both campaigns to react to a potential global crisis.

I also enjoyed Ellie/vic. I love the little inserts about her life(her best friend being flagged by the DEA, vic's band playing "baby got back") plus the whole forshadow when Jed and Abby are talking about how happy they are that Ellie is marrying a man and how they want more grandchildren and then them finding out she is pregnant.

The funniest scene in that arc is the one where Will is holding the dresses and Kate and CJ are meeting with Ted Barrow and it's Barrow who realizes that Ellie is pregnant from the dietary restrictions. CJ and Kate are all "huj? What?" Second to that is the scene where Vic goes to the oval office and Debbie asks him if he wants a valium. The look on his face screams "please tell me you have some!" It's mean of Jed to make him shake hands with all the dignitaries in his office but Vic needed to grow a bit of a backbone too.

But yes, it's the campaign and the opposing force s that I love the most-with the nuclear tragedy thrown in to tip the balance.

I think Abbey's literal and figurative disappearance is not out of character given her daughter was kidnapped and her husband began having actual MS symptoms. I find her most annoying in "The Wakeup Call' but CJ needed to tell her what was what. I find that the show weakened by not showing Jed having many MS symptoms in season 7.