so, about the west wing...

[EJFan]

EJ, just wondering if you guys conned any women into the bet, or is it just gonna be one of you ol' bastards that's gonna end up streaking?

*hangs head in shame at the sudden realization that we didn't think this through entirely too well*

 

[silverwhisper]

hey, we sure as hell aren't going to exclude any ladies that are interested... :>

ed

 

[Guest]

 

[Eilan]

somehow i can picture you sitting in a lawn chair or on a beach towel in front of your PC... a cooler of smirnoff ice by your side... your eyes riveted on the monitor and your family walking past from time to time, wondering what's goin' on with moms.

That sounds appealing.

My husband would just shut the bedroom door and tell the kiddies that ol' mom's finally flipped.

 

[midwestyankee]

So...

I was a steadfast fan of TWW for its first three seasons, or until Alan Sorkin left the show, whichever came later (the memory is the second thing to go). Recently I got hooked again with the Bravo channel reruns of last season.

I've been avoiding this thread because I've been slow about watching my taped episodes from the current season and didn't want to read any spoilers. I guess I needn't have been concerned as this has mostly been about the prospect of streaking on the HT.

Anyway, one quick question that comes from having missed a couple dozen episodes. What is the job of the character played by Mary McCormack? Based on some of what I see her do, it appears that she works for Toby (or did), which would put her into Sam Seaborn's old spot. But Sam was never a player in the Situation Room so that role can't be right. I also wondered if she was the new National Security Advisor, but that doesn't seem right either since Nancy McNally is still around and the McCormack character takes a lesser seat at the Sit Room table. So: all you TWW gurus who stuck it out longer than I did through the badly fallow years, what's her role?

Now, on to the subject of the election. The Matt Santos campaign is getting a ton more air time that Vinnick's, which could be a clue. On the other hand, we could be in for a surprise. Another clue, though this has an alternative explanation: at the beginning of the episode that begins with the dedication of the Bartlett presidential library, Josh ***** is the last regular to show up and his purpose is to announce that "the President is here." This could be taken to mean that Brad is now working for the new president, or it could mean that Brad is working for Bartlett in his retirement.

My guess: Santos in a squeaker.

 

[EJFan]

i can't remember mary's character's title other than she's a commander in the military and oversees all of the CIA and special military ops. she's, to the best of my recollection, the president's point-woman when it comes to national security and whatnot.

i agree with your opinion on the opening episode. as i mentioned to SW in an email, however, i think that it was an intentional misdirection to have josh tell bartlett that the president had arrived.

there are a LOT of ways the whole thing could tie together and you make an excellent point suggesting that josh is working for bartlett in his retirement. i think that if josh had won the election with santos, he'd have been WITH "the president" rather than with bartlett when he made that statement.

just my opinion, and i think i'm pretty much the single voice here for vinick... but i'm stickin' to my guns.

what do you make of the investigation? i think toby's covering for CJ... or at least that she's more involved than we know at this point.

 

[midwestyankee]

i can't remember mary's character's title other than she's a commander in the military and oversees all of the CIA and special military ops. she's, to the best of my recollection, the president's point-woman when it comes to national security and whatnot.

i agree with your opinion on the opening episode. as i mentioned to SW in an email, however, i think that it was an intentional misdirection to have josh tell bartlett that the president had arrived.

there are a LOT of ways the whole thing could tie together and you make an excellent point suggesting that josh is working for bartlett in his retirement. i think that if josh had won the election with santos, he'd have been WITH "the president" rather than with bartlett when he made that statement.

just my opinion, and i think i'm pretty much the single voice here for vinick... but i'm stickin' to my guns.

what do you make of the investigation? i think toby's covering for CJ... or at least that she's more involved than we know at this point.

OK, so Mary is sort of a deput NSA. That makes sense.

Now, as for the leak investigation, I am at a slight disadvantage because I missed last week's episode (thought I'd taped it but was misinformed). The leak seems to be completely within Toby's character, and doing so as a solo makes a lot of sense to me. The the NYT reporter also appears to be one of CJ's favorites is a red herring. Toby and Bartlett have had their differences over the years and I thought that Bartlett was right on the money when he told Toby that he felt that Toby had always thought himself to be morally superior to Bartlett. I say it was Toby in a solo move. I think that Toby may have taken a prompt from CJ based on their conversation in which he revealed that his brother had occasionally told him of secrets in order to beat Toby at one-upsmanship. That conversation left the opening that Toby knew about the military shuttle all along, so that means that he could have been the leaker without CJ's involvement in any other way.

 

[EJFan]

ok, MWY. i agree with you about toby.... i still think CJ has something in the mix as well. time'll tell.

do you (or SW or anyone) know what the name of the 9-11 episode was???? i'm talking about the one with the school kids tour when they had a lock-down... the kids were in the kitchen or something and all the staffers came to talk to them one at a time about terrorism and whatnot. any clue? i wanna say it was called "lock down" or something but i can't remember.

 

[lizaveta]

ok, MWY. i agree with you about toby.... i still think CJ has something in the mix as well. time'll tell.

do you (or SW or anyone) know what the name of the 9-11 episode was???? i'm talking about the one with the school kids tour when they had a lock-down... the kids were in the kitchen or something and all the staffers came to talk to them one at a time about terrorism and whatnot. any clue? i wanna say it was called "lock down" or something but i can't remember.

Wasn't that Isaac and Ishmael?

 

[silverwhisper]

i believe that's correct.

ed

 

[EJFan]

thanks guys... i want to look out for it on bravo in case they show it again at some point. i don't remember it well, but aside from the episode where bartlett's personal secretary died and they had the funeral (where he called God a bastard), that one was my favorite.

what did we think of last night's episode???

the kerry parallels continue... just substitute "abortion" for "swift boat." we have a 527 organization slamming santos just as we had one slamming kerry for viet nam. add to that the repeated mention of "values voters" and i still have no incentive to change my chioce.

i liked the "take a left at the crucible" line that CJ used. funny.

 

[lizaveta]

Ooh, Two Cathedrals, always a fave. Also love 17 People (when Toby finds out about the MS) and the showdown between Leo and Bartlet in A Proportional Response. Yummy TV!

Definitely an interesting ep last night. All hail the return of Janel Moloney! And in fine fashion, too; the J/D resolution can't come quickly enough for me. Garofolo's Lou is such an amazing addition to the cast, and her character is just what the campaigns needs to counter Josh's unsure new coat and Vinick's Gianelli. Was pleased to see those two crazy kids together last night.

Can't believe we didn't see some conversation between Leo and Josh about Toby, or even someone and Donna, but I suppose we can't have everything. Certainly recalls the days of "Josh not giving two hoots about Leo's heart attack." Thoroughly unpleasant.

Obviously they had to do something about Vinick seeming too good to be true, but I think they went overboard with that last week and tried halfheartedly to bring him back to good graces last night. Didn't do it for me. And the script got a bit tangled up in itself with all the abortion rights factions, didn't it? Eh, all's well that ends well.

Good ep overall. I'll be interested to see what happens next week. I'm going to ask my sister to tape the west coast ep for me to find out if there were many differences (although I'm sure there will be boatloads of transcripts all over the web before it even airs in PST).

How did the ep go for you?

 

[silverwhisper]

didn't see it yet!

[runs from thread, screaming]

ed

 

[EJFan]

didn't see it yet!

[runs from thread, screaming]

ed

in all honesty, you should troutsmack YOURSELF for this indiscretion. don't you think?

 

[Guest]

 

[silverwhisper]

or, the lit version, the circle-smack?

ed

 

[manofsteel52]

Or a cluster smack!
I just found this thread, geez... I wish I'd seen it earlier. Didn't know anyone else liked that show so much.

 

[silverwhisper]

EJ: OK, saw it last night. i'm not sure i agree re: santos-as-kerry, but i do believe that sorkin was pretty ticked off about those ridiculous swift boat charges. there's clearly similarities to what we saw in the last campaign, but c'mon, what democrat in his right mind actually wants to model a fictional character after john kerry? the man inspired unqualified indifference from the democratic voters and failed to demonstrate in any way that voting for him meant anything other than a vote against bush.

personally, i think santos is intended as a rebuke to kerry.

ed

 

[midwestyankee]

EJ: OK, saw it last night.

Same here. I watch on tape delay because the Sunday night time slot is always filled with busy-ness and household stuff.

Personally, i think santos is intended as a rebuke to kerry.

ed

I like this interpretation. Apparently the Santos character was a successful Marine jet pilot (also a sly rebuke to war-dodging pilot G W Bush). He is also a plain speaker, something that Mr. Kerry was not.

I also like the way the script gives Santos such wonderful opportunities to spell out the core issues in a few sentences, as he did when meeting briefly with the representative from the NARAL clone organization. He did the same thingwhen talking about intelligent design in a classroom meeting with teachers.

Have always liked Jeannane Garofalo (The Truth About Cats and Dogs was hilarious) and she is now the perfect foil for Giannelli, though I don't think it's realistic for a campaign strategist to switch sides like that.

This was another one of those episodes where you find yourself wanting more as soon as the closing credits hit the screen.

 

[silverwhisper]

MWY: i buy gianelli changing teams. didn't some campaign advisor do the same IRL?

ed

 

[midwestyankee]

MWY: i buy gianelli changing teams. didn't some campaign advisor do the same IRL?

ed

I suppose it could have happened - and now I wonder if you're thinking of Dick Morris, who worked for Clinton initially but is now decidedly on the red-state side - but it seems to me that these people become so thoroughly engrossed in the issues as seen by their side that it must be difficult to take the opposing view in order to fight the war from the other side.

 

[EJFan]

EJ: OK, saw it last night. i'm not sure i agree re: santos-as-kerry, but i do believe that sorkin was pretty ticked off about those ridiculous swift boat charges. there's clearly similarities to what we saw in the last campaign, but c'mon, what democrat in his right mind actually wants to model a fictional character after john kerry? the man inspired unqualified indifference from the democratic voters and failed to demonstrate in any way that voting for him meant anything other than a vote against bush.

personally, i think santos is intended as a rebuke to kerry.

ed

you have to have allowances for the fact that the real kerry was running against an incumbent and the santos version of kerry is not. i feel as though the santos campaign is evolving in much the same was as the kerry campaign did.

 

[jerseyman1963]

Who wins?

While clearly those who have watched TWW since the beginning, or came later but caught up via Bravo, know that the last 2 seasons have not been up to the level Aaron Sorkin established, I have to say that I am tremendously pleased by the last half of last season and the start of this season. Nothing has yet been up to the level of the "great" episodes, like Two Cathedrals, but I' say they're consistently running a 7 or 8 out of 10 again. Thank goodness, because I almost tuned out a while back and it was painful to me. Leo's heart attack was so hammy I expected George Clooney to come running through the woods with a defibrilator to save him, but John Spencer and his crew seem t have gotten much closer this season to finding their own voice in a way that honors the incredible almost literary voice Sorkin brought to the game.

Anyway, who wins? We don't really know, do we? I have to sayn that's a tribute to the writers, the fact that we're even talking about it. Yes, it just makes sense that it would be Santos, but almost any viewer can see it going the other way. They've done a brilliant job of creating two characters who are each in different ways Bartlett heirs, who are, as we found out this lastest episode, a pro life Democrat and a pro choice Republican. And the casting of each was great too.

But as to the question at hand, who wins, I don't really know, but some theories I heard lately.

One is what I call the VP Casting Theory. Santos has the better VP, we know a lot about Leo and almost nothing about Sullivan, Vinick's guy, so the casting theory says that Santos is it.

Another theory I heard last week was that Santos is going to be assasinated and Vinick will win. While that sounds outrageously over the top, you could imagine the scenario. It's the kind of melodrama John Spencer excels at (watch anything from the later episodes of ER and you'll know what I mean) and it would have Robert Kenedy overtones, and if you've watched TWW for any length of time you'll know that the show has in the past excelled at evoking political history like that.

The last theory is that Vinick wins, and this is the most interesting, because this scenario would take real balls for the writers to even go there. It would be a real Hail Mary pass in an attempt to make the show into one of those unique shows that could go on and on forever (think Law & Order). However, this theory is not without merit. First of all from the real news media we know that almost all of the original cast has signed up to continue their roles for at least a while, so you would see everyone in new roles, i.e. Bartlett in retirement a la Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter; Josh working for a Senator or something like that; and we already know from this year's opening episode that Toby is teaching at Columbia, CJ and Danny are living in CA, and Will Bailey runs for and gets into Congress. And last, Bartlett becoming a major character was an accident. Sorkin's original concept was that the show would focus on the White House staffers, and the President would be an incidental character, and occassional walk on, but Bartlet/Martin Sheen was so compelling in the pilot and opener, and scored so high wth the audience, that things went in another direction, so it's not inconceivable that Vinick could win and we'd see more of the staff.

I don't really have a prediction yet, but you gotta hand it to them that they've established a level of "game" again in the writing of the show that we're even guessing, let alone talking about it!

 

[australwind]

As promised when you first started this thread, I have stayed away because I didn't want you guys to spoil any surprises for me when they finnally got around to screening it here in Oztralia!


Just thought I would pop in to tell you


I'm Still Waiting!!!!!!


I can't believe how poorly this great show has been handled over here by the TV execs.....Putting the boxed DVD sets on my Christmas wish list!

 

[EJFan]

I can't believe how poorly this great show has been handled over here by the TV execs.....Putting the boxed DVD sets on my Christmas wish list!

if i were you, i'd move.

i wish there was something we could do for you because it really IS improving, as a few have pointed out. it's been quite a while since i've gotten to the end of an episode and thought, "NOOOOOO!!!! they can't stop NOW!!!!" but i've done that every week this season.