I have been watching The West Wing for the first time, thanks to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sartorias cunningly screening "Excelsis Dei" and "Noel" for me. (So I was a little spoiled for some things.)
I have avoided discussing it online because I didn't want my in-box to fill up with tedious political arguments. Please do not reference real-life politics in comments.
As a FICTIONAL WORK, I am enjoying it greatly - some of the most well-crafted TV I have seen, ever, structurally and in the alchemy of dialogue and performance:
The careful set-up of the rain, the switched location of the speech, Sam's assurance that he has not forgotten to give the President the new lines, culminating in President Bartlett announcing, indoors, "As I look out across this magnificent vista..."
The secret plan to fight inflation.
President Bartlett (making a slippery slope argument against Toby arranging for a military funeral for a Korean War veteran): "What if all the homeless vets decide to come out of the woodwork?"
Toby: "We can only hope, sir."
BUT! I just hit the episode in which a completely insufferable character was introduced in an insufferable manner: Ainsley, the perky blonde Republican, who shows up Sam (usually amusing) and CJ (NO, you don't get to show up CJ!) and was generally annoying in a way which was not fun to watch. And then the awful conclusion in which she says how utterly wonderful everyone was - it was pure Mary Sue, and I don't mean for her. It was the classic Mary Sue speech in which someone else praises how wonderful she is, only in this case she was praising the entire ensemble. It was dreadful.
Does she stick around? For how long? Does she continue to be the Voice of Bad Writing? Say it ain't so!
The West Wing: The Complete First Season
sartorias cunningly screening "Excelsis Dei" and "Noel" for me. (So I was a little spoiled for some things.) I have avoided discussing it online because I didn't want my in-box to fill up with tedious political arguments. Please do not reference real-life politics in comments.
As a FICTIONAL WORK, I am enjoying it greatly - some of the most well-crafted TV I have seen, ever, structurally and in the alchemy of dialogue and performance:
The careful set-up of the rain, the switched location of the speech, Sam's assurance that he has not forgotten to give the President the new lines, culminating in President Bartlett announcing, indoors, "As I look out across this magnificent vista..."
The secret plan to fight inflation.
President Bartlett (making a slippery slope argument against Toby arranging for a military funeral for a Korean War veteran): "What if all the homeless vets decide to come out of the woodwork?"
Toby: "We can only hope, sir."
BUT! I just hit the episode in which a completely insufferable character was introduced in an insufferable manner: Ainsley, the perky blonde Republican, who shows up Sam (usually amusing) and CJ (NO, you don't get to show up CJ!) and was generally annoying in a way which was not fun to watch. And then the awful conclusion in which she says how utterly wonderful everyone was - it was pure Mary Sue, and I don't mean for her. It was the classic Mary Sue speech in which someone else praises how wonderful she is, only in this case she was praising the entire ensemble. It was dreadful.
Does she stick around? For how long? Does she continue to be the Voice of Bad Writing? Say it ain't so!
The West Wing: The Complete First Season
Tags:
