Irrelevant But Awesome

Chris: Being on the campaign trail for this long, it's understandable that it takes it's toll on the candidates but it never would've crossed my mind the toll it would take on your hand from all the handshaking. And to follow up on what I said about the Santos campaign being unable to capitalize on their momentum, we get it again when Santos goes full force in California at the last minute only for Vinick to come up with a strategy that steals from Santos' California media day. Again, this is of no fault of anyone in the Santos campaign and it's not even from bad luck, it's due to Vinick making a good chess move to stop the momentum leak had been experiencing and find a way to move beyond the nuclear leak. Also, with the briefcase, the scandal that Bruno stumbles upon sets up the entire episode to make the audience see Santos is a different, negative light only for it to backfire and cause the audience to see Vinick in a negative light for making the assump...

Joel:  For the second time in the campaign storyline, Santos gets and incredibly lucky break when things seem to be at their worst. The first time was in the primaries when Hoynes got in trouble again for an extramarital relationship, and then this time a nuclear disaster happens to take place just a few weeks after Vinick talked about how important nuclear power was to the country. On top of that, the plant was in Vinick’s home state and it was a plant that Vinick pushed to get twenty-five years ago. This couldn’t have worked out any better for the Santos campaign if they had planned it. And that’s a bit disappointing to me. I know that lucky political breaks happen like this in real life, but remember, we’re supposed to be searching for Bartlet’s successor here, someone who has the skill and talent to carry forward with all the work we’ve seen people do over the past seven years, not somebody who gets lucky every now and then. And we know that Santos is smart. We know tha...

Joel: We’ve been pretty much focused non stop on the campaign storyline for the bulk of this season. It’s kind of felt like the show’s been reluctant to do anything related to the cast members that remain in the West Wing, and any storyline that takes place there is only out of obligation since the show is technically still about the day to day operations of the White House. And while it’s a really good idea to focus so much on both campaigns to compare and contrast the candidates and their strategies, the downfall is that spending that much time with two campaigns leads to even less time available for West Wing storylines. So this episode feels like a big grand return to that earlier type of episode. Bartlet, who has been largely absent for the bulk of this season is suddenly front and center once again to deal with the crisis here. The episode plays like a greatest hits album for the “Bartlet takes charge of things” storyline. We get the situation room. We get somebody having t...

Chris: In this episode, and in real life I'm sure, the position of Chief of Staff basically serves as a filter for the president, leaving out any unnecessary information that the president doesn't need to be bothered with. Typically in an episode, there's one issue the CJ has to deal with and filter for the president but in this, she has 3 plates spinning, all of which has to do with individual interests rather than seeing the bigger picture and how it would affect the president, that's where CJ comes in. And of all of Bartlet's daughters, this one in particular is my least favorite because you're telling me that she's fighting so hard that her kids see their father in a positive way even though he hasn't deserved or earned any of it? That's ridiculous. It's a temporary scandal that she's hoping to weather that could be a giant black cloud over her father, the president, and his legacy. Has Jed Bartlet cheated on anybody? We have no rea...

Joel:  This was the first episode of the show to air after the unexpected death of John Spencer, and the episode itself opens up with a segment where Martin Sheen deticates the upcoming set of episodes to the late actor. It’s fitting in some ways that this is the very next episode to air after Spencer’s death. In many ways, the character never quite recovered after the heart attack storyline. For years Leo has been the man in charge in every situation, and then we had that story. By the time Leo recovered and returned to the White House, it was like everyone had already moved on. Leo never really fell back into the swing of things. Then when he was added to the ticket, most of the Leo conversations revolved around whether or not he was up for the challenge, his addiction and health problems being frequently cited. But in this episode, we finally get to be reminded that Leo is really good at what he does. It’s the first time we get to see him back in full form, and he performs...

Joel:  While a large part of this episode is about Ellie’s wedding (The episode is even titled “The Wedding”), what really struck me is Josh’s story here about the campaign running out of money. I know that we had storylines where they were running thin on funds before, but that was when the Santos for President campaign was on its own. Now they have the backing of the entire Democratic Party, and it feels like their funds would be limitless. Of course I know that in real life that’s not the case. Tons of money is spent by people who run for president. A mind boggling amount almost. It took until 2013 Hillary Clinton finally pay off the debt for the first time she ran for president in 2008.  And the federal government doesn’t consider a campaign officially over until the campaign's debt has been repaid. Which means that as of this past summer, Newt Gingrich is technically still running for President in 2012. Even at the highest levels of campaigning difficult choices ha...

Joel:  This episode, along with the previous one, mark the first time in the series that Santos really starts to feel presidential. Before now he seemed smart and ambitious. He had strong views that he was willing to back up, and he clearly knew how to play the game of politics. But there is a certain je ne sais quoi about the person who is trying to declare themselves the best possible choice to be leader of the free world. Bartlet had it right from the beginning, when he walked in the room at the end of the first episode. While his was different, Walken still had the air of a president for those few episodes, in the way he held himself and the way he took command of a room. With Santos we’ve gotten to see that develop over time, from the beginning of the campaign till now. And there are several small examples throughout the debate in the previous episode that Santos has that presidential feel about him. But you get a strong example to point to at the end here, when Santos h...

Joel:  This debate episode is easily my favorite of the season and one of my top moments of the entire series. When first watching the third season, I had hoped for a full episode long debate between Bartlet and his opponent, and while we got several extended bits from the debate, it was really just a highlight reel to show Bartlet destroying his opponent. But now, four seasons later, we not only get the type of episode I was hoping to see for the debate, but this time around, the show went above and beyond what I could have hoped for. The debate episode was not only shot like a real life presidential debate, but it was actually performed live in order to make it appear as much like the real thing as possible. The show was actually performed twice, once for the east coast broadcast and once for the west coast. The version that we watched was the west coast as I don’t believe the east coast version has ever been officially released. The gimmick is cool enough that the whole t...

Joel:  So often present day politics is broken down to republicans vs. democrats, us vs. them. Even throughout the show, the playing field is pretty much set up as the democrats that we follow having to go up against a Republican Party that seems set on beating down the democrats. If an action helps one side it automatically hurts the other side. And if something happens that hurts us, we automatically assume that it came from them. So in this episode we get a third option where a small faction throws a wrench into the whole thing and messes it up for both sides for different reasons. This year we’ve seen more division within both political parties than the past several previous elections, so today, rewatching this episode, it almost serves as a warning, a taste as what’s to come. The ad in question clearly thinks it’s speaking for the Republican party and it’s supporters. It’s attacking Matt Santos, the democratic candidate, and therefore must be good for the Republican Part...

Chris: This is one of the more disappointing episodes of West Wing, not because it's bad or fall short but it's disheartening to see how Toby's relationship with the White House come to an end. Of course, thanks to the flash forward at the beginning of the season, a few years later Toby is at least on friendly speaking terms with President Bartlet and Toby is clearly not in prison so I suppose that softens the blow. Knowing this was going to happen, Leo's words from last season carry a little more weight and explains why the president wasn't exactly surprised Toby was the leak, Toby was acting like he was still bucking the system and not realizing he's part of the democrat power house now. However, Toby never quite shook the protesting, rebellious past as he discussed a few seasons back when listening to protesters in an auditorium. Toby's intentions were always virtuous but ultimately his disposition of challenging authority caught up with him. A goo...

Joel:  One of the greatest things about the election storyline is how both of the candidates seem like they would be capable of being good presidents. When we had Bartlet’s second term election story back in season three, his opponent seemed pretty much incompetent, and it was clear he never had a real shot at being president. The whole thing took second fiddle more often than not, to whatever crisis the White House was dealing with at the time. The thing is though, at the end of the day Santos needs to appear to be the slightly better of the two choices. At times they do this masterfully (wait till we get to the debate episode so that I can gush about that.) But other times it’s a bit on the heavy handed side. Take this episode for instance. We have a story that's all about evolution vs. divine creation and on what side of the debate our two candidates should come down on. And all through the episode we get the feeling that Santos isn’t going to say exactly what he’s suppose...

Joel:  There are points in this final season where everything is so focused on the campaign trail that you almost forget that this was supposed to be a show about the day to day going ons in The White House. It’s easy to see why. Looking at the main cast of characters we’ve grown to care for over the past six years, only a fraction of them are still in the White House. Josh is on the campaign trail. Will was mostly only there as a voice for the VP, and now that he’s out of the story it feels like there isn’t anything for him to do. Charlie’s still there, but his job is different now, and we don’t really get to see the one on one conversations between him and The President that were so important to both characters.  Leo is gone, Donna’s gone, Sam’s been gone for years by this point. Even people like Annabeth who were brought on board to help fill in some of the holes in the cast have been moved to the campaign side of things since that’s where all the story seems to be. I...

Joel:  There is so much hand wringing here about whether or not Santos should report for his National Guard training, with the argument against it will be that the timing of it will look like a political stunt. Now I understand that I am not a political consultant, and I get that there are people who are paid a whole lot more than me to understand the political landscape a whole lot better than me, but to me it seems like anything and everything that these two guys do from here to election day is going to seem like a political stunt on one level or another. When Vinick visits both the border patrol and the minutemen in the same trip, that comes off as politics and it should. When Santos speaks at a predominantly black church, how are we supposed to interpret that if not political at least on some level. When people pay for air time to air negative campaign ads they aren’t trying to warn us about something out of the goodness of their heart, they air because somebody is trying...

Joel:  As we go into our final season of The West Wing, it opens up the show three years in the future. It’s all a big play for the end of the cold open where the current President arrives but his identity is not revealed. The lineup of people who speak to Bartlet in the opening scene is interesting, but I don’t want to talk too much about it as it will reveal major plot points throughout the upcoming season. We’ll probably return to this scene once or twice as the season goes on to discuss it. A large portion of this episode is devoted to questioning whether or not Leo is a good pick for vice president. It was an interesting choice to be sure, and I want you to try and imagine what a pick like this would have looked like in the real world. Despite spending a large portion of his life in politics, I’m not sure if anyone had ever voted for Leo for anything before this. He was chief of staff, and we know at one point he was Secretary of Labor, but both of those are appointe...

Joel:  The two episodes that focus on the conventions here seem to take the stance that going into the convention without a clear nominee for president is a terrible thing for the party. They talk about how the democrats are going to look like an out of control circus compared to the well oiled machine that is the Republican Party here. But watching this storyline unfold just makes me want to see a contested convention in real life all the more. This current presidential election is the closest we’ve come in a long time in both parties. And watching this, you have to wonder what a real life impact might be of a convention like this. When Bartlet was running for his second term, there was a brief storyline where television stations were considering very limited coverage of both conventions because frankly, both conventions are predictable and boring. But here we have television coverage lasting well past prime time. Even with the complaints of how long the first round of votin...

Joel:  This show has a strange love/hate relationship with space exploration that I can’t help but focus on every time NASA or anything space related is a topic on the show. The West Wing seems to swing back and forth on the appeal of NASA depending on what works best for the episode at hand. We have Sam’s famous “because it’s what’s next” bit from early on in the series, but later on we have an asteroid threatening all life on earth that seems to come out of nowhere because NASA missed it. We also have satellites crashing and Josh telling NASA that they’re simply not worth much funding because they’re not interesting and make too many mistakes. And with that particular Josh storyline, we get a lot of good talk about space exploration, and Josh seems to learn the error of his attitude, but nothing ever comes of that. And then there’s this storyline. And it’s a big one as the fallout here has a major impact that lasts well into the next season. We have the International Space S...

Joel:  And just like that we’re back on the right track. Part of what makes the previous episode, Ninety Miles Away , feel so out of place is that with the very next episode, we’re right back on track. This episode is just one of the example of what an incredible job this show does of shaping the Republican campaign alongside the Democratic one for the upcoming election. We know that we’re supposed to cheer for Santos, it’s the campaign we’ve followed since the very beginning, and is being spearheaded by a character that we’ve followed since the very first episode of the show. At the same time though, even though you want Santos to win the election, you don’t really want Vinick to lose. Vinick getting in trouble in this episode doesn’t have the “Aha!” feeling that usually comes with seeing the antagonist of a story have to deal with something. Instead Vinick is portrayed as the reasonable character that is being irrationally attacked. It’s very similar to the way that we’ve se...