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shallowness5.13 The Warfare of Genghis Khan
I missed Sam hard in this ep, (although I certainly didn’t remember ‘Galileo’ as well as they did on the podcast.) Josh was made to take NASA seriously thanks to a lady astronomer with moxie, if we’re putting a positive spin on it, but talking about Josh finding her attractive and listening to her as a result was icky. I hadn’t thought about the inappropriateness of the gift of the telescope, but yeah, I doubt that Donna could have afforded it.
I did like that, despite failing to impress Leo when he briefed him, Bingo Bob was the one who knew the thing that led them to the Israelis having launched the nuclear test, especially as we’d got another round of Toby’s hostility to Will, (and the podcast made the fair point that Toby should just get over it.) That had been sharpened by the administration’s general disdain for Russell. When Bartlet did remember him, it was a ‘Yeah, as your Veep, he should know this/have been in the first meeting’ moment, and that said a lot.
At first I thought Russell was going to get space, but no, space was for Josh to ultimately do a voiceover over the Israeli Prime Minister coming over for a talk with Bartlet. I liked that one of Bartlet’s points after the episode title was uttered during the episodes was that Khan had attacked the Persians.
As they talked about what was then the future on the show, and is now the past, I was forced to try to remember where we are now on nuclear weapons and space. (Don’t ask me, I’d probably get it wrong.) Toby got to be smart, being in the loop, and thus figuring out Russell’s role, and arguing persuasively, as far as I was concerned, that they needed a better way of dealing with such situations (I mean, what were the CIA and State doing not knowing Israel’s capability?)
This was in contrast to CJ, feeling ruffled by the talk show host and what he was saying being truer than she liked. They touched on this in the podcast, but from 2023, I remember how shocking Bartlet’s omissions about his MS were, but given what we’ve lived through, well, we’re sadly used to a much greater magnitude of untruth.
I love Claudia Jean Cregg, but I was exasperated by the Ben calling thing. The podcast’s takedown of her parts of the story feeling like a romcom, as well as how the two bigger storylines didn’t really combine were harsher than I’d felt when watching it, but as I listened, I didn’t think that they were that unfair.
And Charlie’s due care for his President was adorable.
I suppose an Iranian ambassador would observe that the nuclear scientists they kept mentioning were Jews. I wondered if coming down hard on the Iranians, who knew they hadn’t done anything, would lead them to suspecting the Israelis.
5.14 An Khe
My first thought, because I watched these two episodes as a double bill, was ‘ugh, another military crisis’ episode. The military crisis was to frame Leo’s loyalty, but still. (When the congressman with military experience slapped Josh down, my mind raced ahead to how Josh wouldn’t have that background as a future chief of staff and I don’t recall Santos would either. But then, neither did CJ when she got the job.)
The news cycle had moved on and Toby and Josh now wanted CJ to do the chicken show. About an episode after I’d got exasperated by the whole Ben thing, he finally came to the White House and missed CJ, because she was triumphing over the cocky fast-talking presenter (I liked that it was over defending Abbey, after being dubious about her decision to volunteer when she’d first heard about it). With the slow reveal of what Ben looked like, I was expecting him to be horribly disfigured or something extraordinary. Like the podcasters, I found him…somewhat underwhelming, and the fact that I don’t remember him AT ALL is telling. Also, the whole thing with the bikini to her assistant? Ew.) On the podcast, they found a lot about this episode underwhelming – a bit more than I did when watching it.
So, we had flashbacks to Leo’s torrid time in Viet Nam and that he had personal experience of what these military personnel in North Korea were going through. I think that my strongest reaction to Leo bigging up his old friend at an awards reception was surprise that he seemed to hold him in higher regard than even Bartlet (much the same as Josh Malina’s reaction) although okay, as we learned through the episode, whatshisname had heroically saved Leo’s life.
Which was totally why the congressman wasn’t wrong before we got the full story. Leo was too close to be objective, and as the evidence grew for us and Josh, we could see that his old friend had indeed been corrupted. I liked that the congressman was given the dimension of coming back to Josh, admitting he’d lost his temper with Leo and was giving further information because he too saw that Leo couldn’t testify in his current position. (Malina made a strong argument for with-holding this information from the audience, and letting us learn this at the same time as Leo.)
Spencer was excellent, as was Sheen in the way Bartlet repeated that Leo couldn’t testify and when he came to Leo after. Abbey had her droll moments, Debbie had her even droller moments. Donna was entitled to feel piqued that intern!Ryan, who has been missing for a few episodes, got to do the work, and showed up that Josh was nowhere near as prepared for a presidential briefing as he’d been for the meeting with NASA in the previous episode. (Like Hrishi, I didn’t really buy that.) I don’t care enough about intern!Ryan to care that Bartlet is now aware of him.
Oh, and they were talking on the podcast about wondering at first whether the flashback of the ejection was footage of what was going on in North Korea, but didn’t the equipment in the aeroplane rather give that away?
I missed Sam hard in this ep, (although I certainly didn’t remember ‘Galileo’ as well as they did on the podcast.) Josh was made to take NASA seriously thanks to a lady astronomer with moxie, if we’re putting a positive spin on it, but talking about Josh finding her attractive and listening to her as a result was icky. I hadn’t thought about the inappropriateness of the gift of the telescope, but yeah, I doubt that Donna could have afforded it.
I did like that, despite failing to impress Leo when he briefed him, Bingo Bob was the one who knew the thing that led them to the Israelis having launched the nuclear test, especially as we’d got another round of Toby’s hostility to Will, (and the podcast made the fair point that Toby should just get over it.) That had been sharpened by the administration’s general disdain for Russell. When Bartlet did remember him, it was a ‘Yeah, as your Veep, he should know this/have been in the first meeting’ moment, and that said a lot.
At first I thought Russell was going to get space, but no, space was for Josh to ultimately do a voiceover over the Israeli Prime Minister coming over for a talk with Bartlet. I liked that one of Bartlet’s points after the episode title was uttered during the episodes was that Khan had attacked the Persians.
As they talked about what was then the future on the show, and is now the past, I was forced to try to remember where we are now on nuclear weapons and space. (Don’t ask me, I’d probably get it wrong.) Toby got to be smart, being in the loop, and thus figuring out Russell’s role, and arguing persuasively, as far as I was concerned, that they needed a better way of dealing with such situations (I mean, what were the CIA and State doing not knowing Israel’s capability?)
This was in contrast to CJ, feeling ruffled by the talk show host and what he was saying being truer than she liked. They touched on this in the podcast, but from 2023, I remember how shocking Bartlet’s omissions about his MS were, but given what we’ve lived through, well, we’re sadly used to a much greater magnitude of untruth.
I love Claudia Jean Cregg, but I was exasperated by the Ben calling thing. The podcast’s takedown of her parts of the story feeling like a romcom, as well as how the two bigger storylines didn’t really combine were harsher than I’d felt when watching it, but as I listened, I didn’t think that they were that unfair.
And Charlie’s due care for his President was adorable.
I suppose an Iranian ambassador would observe that the nuclear scientists they kept mentioning were Jews. I wondered if coming down hard on the Iranians, who knew they hadn’t done anything, would lead them to suspecting the Israelis.
5.14 An Khe
My first thought, because I watched these two episodes as a double bill, was ‘ugh, another military crisis’ episode. The military crisis was to frame Leo’s loyalty, but still. (When the congressman with military experience slapped Josh down, my mind raced ahead to how Josh wouldn’t have that background as a future chief of staff and I don’t recall Santos would either. But then, neither did CJ when she got the job.)
The news cycle had moved on and Toby and Josh now wanted CJ to do the chicken show. About an episode after I’d got exasperated by the whole Ben thing, he finally came to the White House and missed CJ, because she was triumphing over the cocky fast-talking presenter (I liked that it was over defending Abbey, after being dubious about her decision to volunteer when she’d first heard about it). With the slow reveal of what Ben looked like, I was expecting him to be horribly disfigured or something extraordinary. Like the podcasters, I found him…somewhat underwhelming, and the fact that I don’t remember him AT ALL is telling. Also, the whole thing with the bikini to her assistant? Ew.) On the podcast, they found a lot about this episode underwhelming – a bit more than I did when watching it.
So, we had flashbacks to Leo’s torrid time in Viet Nam and that he had personal experience of what these military personnel in North Korea were going through. I think that my strongest reaction to Leo bigging up his old friend at an awards reception was surprise that he seemed to hold him in higher regard than even Bartlet (much the same as Josh Malina’s reaction) although okay, as we learned through the episode, whatshisname had heroically saved Leo’s life.
Which was totally why the congressman wasn’t wrong before we got the full story. Leo was too close to be objective, and as the evidence grew for us and Josh, we could see that his old friend had indeed been corrupted. I liked that the congressman was given the dimension of coming back to Josh, admitting he’d lost his temper with Leo and was giving further information because he too saw that Leo couldn’t testify in his current position. (Malina made a strong argument for with-holding this information from the audience, and letting us learn this at the same time as Leo.)
Spencer was excellent, as was Sheen in the way Bartlet repeated that Leo couldn’t testify and when he came to Leo after. Abbey had her droll moments, Debbie had her even droller moments. Donna was entitled to feel piqued that intern!Ryan, who has been missing for a few episodes, got to do the work, and showed up that Josh was nowhere near as prepared for a presidential briefing as he’d been for the meeting with NASA in the previous episode. (Like Hrishi, I didn’t really buy that.) I don’t care enough about intern!Ryan to care that Bartlet is now aware of him.
Oh, and they were talking on the podcast about wondering at first whether the flashback of the ejection was footage of what was going on in North Korea, but didn’t the equipment in the aeroplane rather give that away?
