TWW: Message discipline
Jun. 30th, 2024 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe West Wing - 7.3 Message of the Week
There were a lot of people in the credits who weren’t in the episode. Totally a campaign episode, focusing more on the Vinick side, as Santos, fresh from the reservist training, was closing the gap on him and, more notably, getting under Vinick’s skin. So he wanted to change the week’s message to attack Santos on immigration, because he’d determined he wasn’t going to say anything much on Latino issues and become only ‘the Latino candidate’.
We got to see Bruno in the campaign, and a couple of new faces – the podcast confirmed we hadn’t come across Leon, who was Latino, before. Chief of staff Sheila was having to deal with Vinick’s changes of tack, most especially as he came under pressure from a man he reviled, the representative of ministers who wanted prolife judges (that all felt rather bluntly written). This chap was played by the actor who played the pastor on Hart of Dixie. What Vinick said confidentially to this chap got leaked. So, Sheila had to deal with a candidate who was going against her advice, Bruno was having to deal with a machine that didn’t share his instincts, although he still admired the candidate, while Leon struggled with a candidate who was attacking a candidate of the same ethnicity as him about his ethnicity and lying when under pressure.
It felt like there was less Santos, who was also being urged to keep to the message – national security, not immigration (although Vinick was trying to tie them both and pressure him.) Santos mostly succeeded, except when he didn’t, and looked as though he was following Vinick, or when he got into a real tangle. But he too was getting running updates on polls, and Vinick was getting under his skin.
They discussed the sense that this wasn’t quite the West Wing we know (and love) on the podcast, how we didn’t go to the Bartlet White House at all, so there was less idealism, which they didn’t mind on the podcast, although I think it put me off a little. The podcast also got into how the show was suddenly using a real life show and a real life website, which had gone over my head a little as a non-American (as had the steal from something that happened to John Kerry,) but they thought weakened the fiction.
What did tie into what had gone before was Josh’s meeting with Bruno, which was a bit hilarious, with Josh yelling ‘BETRAYAL’, and then commentating that the Vinick campaign had set up the meeting for the press conference. We also got to see Vinick’s preferred Veep in action (and I LOVED Sheila sitting demurely as witness to the meeting with whatshisname.)
Mainly I was shaking my head over the difference between the Republican Party then as depicted on The West Wing and what’s going on now. (I watched it before the CNN debate of which I have seen clips.) But the sense that this was closer to realpolitik and further away from the show’s usual idealism (bar Leon’s reasons for resigning) may have distanced me.
There were a lot of people in the credits who weren’t in the episode. Totally a campaign episode, focusing more on the Vinick side, as Santos, fresh from the reservist training, was closing the gap on him and, more notably, getting under Vinick’s skin. So he wanted to change the week’s message to attack Santos on immigration, because he’d determined he wasn’t going to say anything much on Latino issues and become only ‘the Latino candidate’.
We got to see Bruno in the campaign, and a couple of new faces – the podcast confirmed we hadn’t come across Leon, who was Latino, before. Chief of staff Sheila was having to deal with Vinick’s changes of tack, most especially as he came under pressure from a man he reviled, the representative of ministers who wanted prolife judges (that all felt rather bluntly written). This chap was played by the actor who played the pastor on Hart of Dixie. What Vinick said confidentially to this chap got leaked. So, Sheila had to deal with a candidate who was going against her advice, Bruno was having to deal with a machine that didn’t share his instincts, although he still admired the candidate, while Leon struggled with a candidate who was attacking a candidate of the same ethnicity as him about his ethnicity and lying when under pressure.
It felt like there was less Santos, who was also being urged to keep to the message – national security, not immigration (although Vinick was trying to tie them both and pressure him.) Santos mostly succeeded, except when he didn’t, and looked as though he was following Vinick, or when he got into a real tangle. But he too was getting running updates on polls, and Vinick was getting under his skin.
They discussed the sense that this wasn’t quite the West Wing we know (and love) on the podcast, how we didn’t go to the Bartlet White House at all, so there was less idealism, which they didn’t mind on the podcast, although I think it put me off a little. The podcast also got into how the show was suddenly using a real life show and a real life website, which had gone over my head a little as a non-American (as had the steal from something that happened to John Kerry,) but they thought weakened the fiction.
What did tie into what had gone before was Josh’s meeting with Bruno, which was a bit hilarious, with Josh yelling ‘BETRAYAL’, and then commentating that the Vinick campaign had set up the meeting for the press conference. We also got to see Vinick’s preferred Veep in action (and I LOVED Sheila sitting demurely as witness to the meeting with whatshisname.)
Mainly I was shaking my head over the difference between the Republican Party then as depicted on The West Wing and what’s going on now. (I watched it before the CNN debate of which I have seen clips.) But the sense that this was closer to realpolitik and further away from the show’s usual idealism (bar Leon’s reasons for resigning) may have distanced me.
