not what you think, except when it is
Jan. 20th, 2024 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe West Wing - 6.6 The Dover Test
The first casualty of Bartlet’s Middle East peacekeeping plan, (whoa, did that phrase and its introduction get analysed and critiqued on the podcast), Toby’s not great handling of it as acting Press Secretary and how CJ handled that; also some Santos legislation wizardry and what that meant for Will’s plans for the Veep pursuing patient rights in his campaign were the main strands. Josh was the last person to realise that the media wanted to interview Donna, and was thoroughly obnoxious over it. Leo finally got more than a few scenes! We also saw Margaret trying to find Charlie office space, and Debbie needing support for the tough calls because he wasn’t there.
I liked Leo’s relationship with his nurse, the emotional beats worked for me, and it looked like he’d turned a corner at the end. The writers must have realised they had to do a save about Leo and Vicodin.
I missed a couple of lines about how the evil corporation he’d been invited to work at (and was considering because he was so desperate to get back to normalcy and not be sick, even though he wasn’t eating) had damaged her neck of the woods. A bit pat, that. Clunky, they called it on the podcast, where they made a good catch about the senator on the tv at Leo’s low point being a return appearance of a character who’d been there for an even lower point in his life.
Maloney delivered Donna’s speech about the real heroes flawlessly. I liked it being the inspiration for Annabeth to suggest Bartlet visited the injured boy soldiers. But once Hrishi suggested that Annabeth could have told Donna to say that in an interview so that the administration could get its message out, I saw his point. I had expected the angry father to develop into more of a plotline.
I thought the cold open was a neat way of showing that Charlie, CJ and Toby were all serving the President in a new way. Although I take the point made on the podcast that the code was daft and Toby cut through it in a way the rest could have. Toby might have been right about CJ micromanaging him (and it’s not like she hadn’t let her feelings about an issue bleed through and distract from the agreed position in the past) but she had reason to feel she needed to.
The plotline involving Josh and his hubris (had he read the legislation lately?), Santos and his motivations was involving. It showed the audience again that Santos is the real deal. At least Will has something to do these days even if it’s fighting like a warrior for a man Josh and Toby know is lacking. (And, again, I take the podcasters’ point that Will is being set up for such a fall. Ooh, also they had quite the discussion about Josh and his hubris over assuming Colin was the one chasing Donna, I totally agree about how he was crossing all these lines and overcompensating badly. I’m not sure that I was wholly convinced about Donna being totally over it, but definitely she’s got her own stuff going on and finding Josh tiresome.)
And given that I knew what was going to happen with Josh, it was a bit of a relief that CJ and Toby came to an understanding, that they’d stay to support him, as they were reminded of Bartlet’s strengths. Annabeth got to see his empathy for the first time – I liked that moment where Chenoweth nailed her response to Bartlet praying with the injured soldier, I can sort of see where Hrishi was coming from when he argued that she was Mandy 2.0 as written by different writers, played by a different actress and with the character coming from a different background.)
6.7 A Change Is Going To Come
I liked this episode less (having watched these two episodes as a double bill.) The opening starting at one (at times confusing) point and then our going back mildly irritated me, even though the show does it such a lot. The way they played the China-Taiwan-summit plotline for a lot of laughs slightly disgruntled me, having lived through several years since the prevailing Western view of how to handle China in the 2000s.
Ugh, Hoynes. After being reminded of his ickiness in the previouslies, he might not be wrong about Bingo Bob, but he’s the wrong answer. Of course, I’d just watched the previous episode that was so positive for Santos.
It might have been vague memories from having seen this before that I interpreted Bartlet telling CJ that it had been a mistake as the truth (or Sheen’s performance), and was prepared for the reveal that it was MS symptoms by the time he told Abbey. There were a lot of breadcrumbs being dropped, not least Bartlet asking CJ if the public had known who they were voting for, to which the only response had to be that they did in the second election, anyway.
They showed that he was badly missing Charlie (to which the only response is ‘you pushed him out.’) The new ‘bodyman’ was much mentioned, but never seen. Will he always be the invisible man?
In hindsight, the MS symptoms (more than the reminder of that time Bartlet had to step aside and the recurrence of Hoynes) added edge to him telling the Veep off for barging in on his potential rival’s photo op. Will had claimed that Bartlet was in the Veep’s camp, and I think he had had to be of him as his Veep, but the fact that he was refusing to campaign for him at this point was telling. (Not that he was going to campaign for Baker either.) Toby, of course, is open in his scorn with all his animus towards Will.
Josh’s conflicted past with Hoynes and increasingly squeezed position positions him very interestingly (although CJ had no option but to take the Chinese summit from him, once the situation with the Taiwanese flag had become such A Thing, as Leo said. And Leo had good reason for passing over his deputy as his replacement.)
But Toby and the protocol meetings was very silly. Margaret trying to keep the special guest a secret worked better, although I thought she was mangling ‘Karma Chameleon’ because I’m not that au fait with James Taylor’s work. I think some weird stuff was going on with her hair in these two episodes, although the fact that Donna had ditched the crutches suggested some weeks had passed between them. Leo seemed to have continued to embrace the reality his recovery was going to take a while, and perhaps recognising that and his physical frailty because of the job, and what Abbey had said about that, helped to prevent Jed from confiding in him.
I can buy Bernard loving Gilbert and Sullivan.
They had Mary McCormack as a guest on the podcast to discuss this episode, and she said that she’d been asked back days after giving birth because the actress who had been cast as the new press secretary couldn’t manage the speed of the dialogue. !!! (This reveal came after the podcast did a mini episode about casting for the show, although their guest was no longer directly responsible for casting TWW at this point. But failing so much that you have to drag a brand new mother back to set!?!? McCormack seemed to see the whole thing in a positive light now, but that’s terrible employment practice! (I note that it was offscreen business affecting whatever happens with the press secretary job in the short term.)
The first casualty of Bartlet’s Middle East peacekeeping plan, (whoa, did that phrase and its introduction get analysed and critiqued on the podcast), Toby’s not great handling of it as acting Press Secretary and how CJ handled that; also some Santos legislation wizardry and what that meant for Will’s plans for the Veep pursuing patient rights in his campaign were the main strands. Josh was the last person to realise that the media wanted to interview Donna, and was thoroughly obnoxious over it. Leo finally got more than a few scenes! We also saw Margaret trying to find Charlie office space, and Debbie needing support for the tough calls because he wasn’t there.
I liked Leo’s relationship with his nurse, the emotional beats worked for me, and it looked like he’d turned a corner at the end. The writers must have realised they had to do a save about Leo and Vicodin.
I missed a couple of lines about how the evil corporation he’d been invited to work at (and was considering because he was so desperate to get back to normalcy and not be sick, even though he wasn’t eating) had damaged her neck of the woods. A bit pat, that. Clunky, they called it on the podcast, where they made a good catch about the senator on the tv at Leo’s low point being a return appearance of a character who’d been there for an even lower point in his life.
Maloney delivered Donna’s speech about the real heroes flawlessly. I liked it being the inspiration for Annabeth to suggest Bartlet visited the injured boy soldiers. But once Hrishi suggested that Annabeth could have told Donna to say that in an interview so that the administration could get its message out, I saw his point. I had expected the angry father to develop into more of a plotline.
I thought the cold open was a neat way of showing that Charlie, CJ and Toby were all serving the President in a new way. Although I take the point made on the podcast that the code was daft and Toby cut through it in a way the rest could have. Toby might have been right about CJ micromanaging him (and it’s not like she hadn’t let her feelings about an issue bleed through and distract from the agreed position in the past) but she had reason to feel she needed to.
The plotline involving Josh and his hubris (had he read the legislation lately?), Santos and his motivations was involving. It showed the audience again that Santos is the real deal. At least Will has something to do these days even if it’s fighting like a warrior for a man Josh and Toby know is lacking. (And, again, I take the podcasters’ point that Will is being set up for such a fall. Ooh, also they had quite the discussion about Josh and his hubris over assuming Colin was the one chasing Donna, I totally agree about how he was crossing all these lines and overcompensating badly. I’m not sure that I was wholly convinced about Donna being totally over it, but definitely she’s got her own stuff going on and finding Josh tiresome.)
And given that I knew what was going to happen with Josh, it was a bit of a relief that CJ and Toby came to an understanding, that they’d stay to support him, as they were reminded of Bartlet’s strengths. Annabeth got to see his empathy for the first time – I liked that moment where Chenoweth nailed her response to Bartlet praying with the injured soldier, I can sort of see where Hrishi was coming from when he argued that she was Mandy 2.0 as written by different writers, played by a different actress and with the character coming from a different background.)
6.7 A Change Is Going To Come
I liked this episode less (having watched these two episodes as a double bill.) The opening starting at one (at times confusing) point and then our going back mildly irritated me, even though the show does it such a lot. The way they played the China-Taiwan-summit plotline for a lot of laughs slightly disgruntled me, having lived through several years since the prevailing Western view of how to handle China in the 2000s.
Ugh, Hoynes. After being reminded of his ickiness in the previouslies, he might not be wrong about Bingo Bob, but he’s the wrong answer. Of course, I’d just watched the previous episode that was so positive for Santos.
It might have been vague memories from having seen this before that I interpreted Bartlet telling CJ that it had been a mistake as the truth (or Sheen’s performance), and was prepared for the reveal that it was MS symptoms by the time he told Abbey. There were a lot of breadcrumbs being dropped, not least Bartlet asking CJ if the public had known who they were voting for, to which the only response had to be that they did in the second election, anyway.
They showed that he was badly missing Charlie (to which the only response is ‘you pushed him out.’) The new ‘bodyman’ was much mentioned, but never seen. Will he always be the invisible man?
In hindsight, the MS symptoms (more than the reminder of that time Bartlet had to step aside and the recurrence of Hoynes) added edge to him telling the Veep off for barging in on his potential rival’s photo op. Will had claimed that Bartlet was in the Veep’s camp, and I think he had had to be of him as his Veep, but the fact that he was refusing to campaign for him at this point was telling. (Not that he was going to campaign for Baker either.) Toby, of course, is open in his scorn with all his animus towards Will.
Josh’s conflicted past with Hoynes and increasingly squeezed position positions him very interestingly (although CJ had no option but to take the Chinese summit from him, once the situation with the Taiwanese flag had become such A Thing, as Leo said. And Leo had good reason for passing over his deputy as his replacement.)
But Toby and the protocol meetings was very silly. Margaret trying to keep the special guest a secret worked better, although I thought she was mangling ‘Karma Chameleon’ because I’m not that au fait with James Taylor’s work. I think some weird stuff was going on with her hair in these two episodes, although the fact that Donna had ditched the crutches suggested some weeks had passed between them. Leo seemed to have continued to embrace the reality his recovery was going to take a while, and perhaps recognising that and his physical frailty because of the job, and what Abbey had said about that, helped to prevent Jed from confiding in him.
I can buy Bernard loving Gilbert and Sullivan.
They had Mary McCormack as a guest on the podcast to discuss this episode, and she said that she’d been asked back days after giving birth because the actress who had been cast as the new press secretary couldn’t manage the speed of the dialogue. !!! (This reveal came after the podcast did a mini episode about casting for the show, although their guest was no longer directly responsible for casting TWW at this point. But failing so much that you have to drag a brand new mother back to set!?!? McCormack seemed to see the whole thing in a positive light now, but that’s terrible employment practice! (I note that it was offscreen business affecting whatever happens with the press secretary job in the short term.)
