Comments on: The West Wing

By: Jason L

Jason L — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 06:16:09 +0000

WOW YOU HAVE A LARGE BRAIN PENIS. Look at the thesaurus on that thing!

Every episode of a retelling of the life of Louis XVI would surely revolve around his attempts to muddle through crises by persuading and driving bargains with hundreds of other people under a strict legal system and the ever-looming spectre of two public election cycles.

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:02:23 +0000

P.S. Is there a Guillotine in the house? :D

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 03:58:22 +0000

Oh yes– such representations were the common defense of aristocracy, i.e rule by the power-elite who supposedly knew better what was good for everyone; sadly, the self-believing “best and brightest” commonly aspire to a return to such jungle-despotism– as do the egocentric creators of this series, seething with arrogance and vainglory that Jefferson prayed would never match what he saw in France.
Indeed, every line voiced by Martin Sheen seems to echo with “Let them eat cake.”

By: Brian McCandliss

Brian McCandliss — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 03:52:49 +0000

You write that “the people in power are all heartbreakingly good-willed and astonishingly talented. To call it arrogant for that is like accusing Star Trek of exaggerating our space-travel capabilities.”

I beg to differ: Star Trek spoke of advancements in current space-travel abilities; meanwhile I don’t think of benevolent dictatorship as an improvement of current politics, so much as a pretentious lie that’s as old as Ceasar and as honest as Adolf.

By: Tom Hardy

Tom Hardy — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 14:57:18 +0000

Series Five was limp. They even threw in that Godawful fake documentary episode in order to pat Allison Janney on the back for her Emmy. It had good points, but felt like the writers were flailing around to recapture the Sorkin magic. But Series Six is, pretty much from the word go, far better. There’s one amazingly stupid appointment made fairly early on, but even that pays off by the end of the series, and as it moves further away from the West Wing itself, it becomes pure gold again. Jimmy Smits ftw.

By: Tom EG

Tom EG — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 17:50:47 +0000

I got into this on the strength of Tom’s really excellent little write-up here, and I’ve just got up to the first episode of season 4. Already I can see what you’re talking about. The first episode is by far the funniest in ages – worth it for the part where they realise about the timezones and Toby and Josh go absolutely spaz. I bought S5 for Ã‚Â£10 in Virgin’s “megasale” thing yesterday when I was supposed to be covering the riots over Ã‚Â£50 PS2s (didn’t happen), so I’m actually quite excited about not going out for the next while.

By: Pentadact

Pentadact — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:31:50 +0000

Interesting. I shall investigate!

By: Graham

Graham — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:21:56 +0000

Season 5 is a bit poor, I agree, due to the loss of Aaron Sorkin, writer of every single god damned episode up until that point. But season 6 really picks up again, and there are some truly excellent episodes throughout the season. It’s obvious that they’re trying to shake things up, messing with some of the character dynamics, but as season 6 moves into the race for the Democratic party nominee it all just gets better and better.