TWW and bad, bad timing
Oct. 26th, 2023 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe West Wing - 6.1 NSF Thurmont
I was just about to watch this episode when the recent atrocities started happening in the Middle East. I’m not going to comment too much on that, but will say that I had complicated feelings about hearing some names that I’ve been hearing a lot on the news in a fictionalised context from nearly two decades ago, and some of those feelings came from being aware of my privilege of being distant enough to even countenance watching this right now.
The sense of this being a season opener picking up on a story of personal, political and international import was present and correct. On The West Wing Weekly, they made much of the episode feeling unbalanced because of the change of location to Camp David towards the end, which hadn’t quite struck me as much. Lots of montages. Mary McCormack joined the credits – it’s understandable that there was an emphasis on her interaction with Leo, but I did think that some of those conversations would have made more sense between her and Nancy as her line manager, and they could have taken place on the phone (in an episode with many important phone calls). But then, the show had nearly everyone else back – even Debbie and her mighty ruler for one excellent wordless scene - so they probably couldn’t bring in the actress playing the NSA, even if the situation warranted it. She should have been there at Camp David, right? And then, as the podcast pointed out, why was Will there?
I’d already had to override the voice in my head saying, ‘But CJ and Toby are comms, okay, one of them should be in the Oval Office and Josh is on leave, but Will? After shutting him out in the VP’s offices for so long, you bring Will back now?’
Lots of people (including Leo as the voice of military men) were terrible at trying to influence Bartlet. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of their positions (and some of it seemed very, very binary for the drama), why go with ‘Let’s attack the Iranians now and find the evidence to link them to the terrorism later’? I supposed it was inspired by what was going on at the time (I was too lazy to check exactly where the world was at at the time the episode aired, but Hrishi interpreted is as I did) but oh, FBI boss, no. How did you get into the Sit Room without being able to read it? And while I can understand why the Speaker who’s name I never remember was coming from his position, the Democrats who came along with him were too caught up in Having Their Say about what the US should do that it didn’t occur to them that giving Bartlet an ultimatum was only going to entrench his position.
Leo fell into that trap too, doubling down after the breach at the end of the previous episode. The close-ups of his face as Bartlet put a distance between them! And then the breach between them was made manifest by Leo staying at the White House. He did get some military retaliation and military respect, but his relationship with his BFF was changed, and I think that more than Bartlet outgrowing(?) his advice on these matters in the s5 finale was the emotional hit.
Or one of them. Before I get to the other, I will point out that I was hyperaware that Kate was being called Commander and Miss. Surely it should have been Commander all the time. I would also note that CJ was the one to back her on her ‘stupid idea’, while the men, Toby and Will (backed by Leo) were much more aggressive. (The podcast went into great detail about what was coming out of Will’s mouth, and Hrishi made a great point that with his upbringing, he shouldn’t have been as racist or one-sided.)
Sheen was great at Bartlet’s wrestling with his choices – I got irritated that the theme music crashed Bartlet’s reading at Fitz’s funeral – and I liked Abbey’s presence, supporting him broadly in his efforts, but able to bring him down to earth in their PJs. I also loved the exchange between CJ and Toby over night-time snacks.
The other big personal drama was what was going on with Donna. Josh’s eyes when she asked for his reassurance was as emotional as the close-ups of Leo’s face when he was shut out, but expressing different things.
Before that, we had some typical macho ‘oh, you must have been an IRA bagman’ ‘oh, you must be Jewish’ between him and Colin (my problem was that some of what was being said in the White House was about as nuanced, with less excuse.) But Colin harped back to the flying halfway over the world, and basically yielded to the mighty Josh/Donna. (The podcast confirmed that we’d never see him again.)
Even if I was not as worried about Donna’s hypoxia as I might have been when I first watched the episode (after all, another woman had joined the regular cast), because I know she’s back to herself in the rest of the series, the scene where she woke up and recognised and talked to Josh was a lot.
(Although I noted that obviously we weren’t going to see her mother any more than Nancy McNally because of budgetary constraints, but we didn’t need to. That moment ought to be just them.)
And actually, I don't know when I'll watch the next episode.
I was just about to watch this episode when the recent atrocities started happening in the Middle East. I’m not going to comment too much on that, but will say that I had complicated feelings about hearing some names that I’ve been hearing a lot on the news in a fictionalised context from nearly two decades ago, and some of those feelings came from being aware of my privilege of being distant enough to even countenance watching this right now.
The sense of this being a season opener picking up on a story of personal, political and international import was present and correct. On The West Wing Weekly, they made much of the episode feeling unbalanced because of the change of location to Camp David towards the end, which hadn’t quite struck me as much. Lots of montages. Mary McCormack joined the credits – it’s understandable that there was an emphasis on her interaction with Leo, but I did think that some of those conversations would have made more sense between her and Nancy as her line manager, and they could have taken place on the phone (in an episode with many important phone calls). But then, the show had nearly everyone else back – even Debbie and her mighty ruler for one excellent wordless scene - so they probably couldn’t bring in the actress playing the NSA, even if the situation warranted it. She should have been there at Camp David, right? And then, as the podcast pointed out, why was Will there?
I’d already had to override the voice in my head saying, ‘But CJ and Toby are comms, okay, one of them should be in the Oval Office and Josh is on leave, but Will? After shutting him out in the VP’s offices for so long, you bring Will back now?’
Lots of people (including Leo as the voice of military men) were terrible at trying to influence Bartlet. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of their positions (and some of it seemed very, very binary for the drama), why go with ‘Let’s attack the Iranians now and find the evidence to link them to the terrorism later’? I supposed it was inspired by what was going on at the time (I was too lazy to check exactly where the world was at at the time the episode aired, but Hrishi interpreted is as I did) but oh, FBI boss, no. How did you get into the Sit Room without being able to read it? And while I can understand why the Speaker who’s name I never remember was coming from his position, the Democrats who came along with him were too caught up in Having Their Say about what the US should do that it didn’t occur to them that giving Bartlet an ultimatum was only going to entrench his position.
Leo fell into that trap too, doubling down after the breach at the end of the previous episode. The close-ups of his face as Bartlet put a distance between them! And then the breach between them was made manifest by Leo staying at the White House. He did get some military retaliation and military respect, but his relationship with his BFF was changed, and I think that more than Bartlet outgrowing(?) his advice on these matters in the s5 finale was the emotional hit.
Or one of them. Before I get to the other, I will point out that I was hyperaware that Kate was being called Commander and Miss. Surely it should have been Commander all the time. I would also note that CJ was the one to back her on her ‘stupid idea’, while the men, Toby and Will (backed by Leo) were much more aggressive. (The podcast went into great detail about what was coming out of Will’s mouth, and Hrishi made a great point that with his upbringing, he shouldn’t have been as racist or one-sided.)
Sheen was great at Bartlet’s wrestling with his choices – I got irritated that the theme music crashed Bartlet’s reading at Fitz’s funeral – and I liked Abbey’s presence, supporting him broadly in his efforts, but able to bring him down to earth in their PJs. I also loved the exchange between CJ and Toby over night-time snacks.
The other big personal drama was what was going on with Donna. Josh’s eyes when she asked for his reassurance was as emotional as the close-ups of Leo’s face when he was shut out, but expressing different things.
Before that, we had some typical macho ‘oh, you must have been an IRA bagman’ ‘oh, you must be Jewish’ between him and Colin (my problem was that some of what was being said in the White House was about as nuanced, with less excuse.) But Colin harped back to the flying halfway over the world, and basically yielded to the mighty Josh/Donna. (The podcast confirmed that we’d never see him again.)
Even if I was not as worried about Donna’s hypoxia as I might have been when I first watched the episode (after all, another woman had joined the regular cast), because I know she’s back to herself in the rest of the series, the scene where she woke up and recognised and talked to Josh was a lot.
(Although I noted that obviously we weren’t going to see her mother any more than Nancy McNally because of budgetary constraints, but we didn’t need to. That moment ought to be just them.)
And actually, I don't know when I'll watch the next episode.
