The Great West Wing Rewatch: 7.4 "Mr. Frost"

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 supposed to say. His whole approach is making Josh nervous and it’s clearly supposed to be making us, the viewers, nervous as well. And then we get to the final scene where he’s confronted with what his views are on evolution and he reveals that he can believe both things. That believing in God doesn’t automatically discount evolution and vice versa. And the whole speech is held in such awe and reverence by his audience and by the show itself. Characters are floored by what he says as if it had never occurred to anyone that these two sides don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Everyone in the classroom is nodding along as if Santos has opened their eyes for the first time. But it’s not something Santos has just come up with. It’s something people have suggested almost since the evolution debate begin. These people would have heard a variation on what Santos is saying a million times before the speech that we see. And we’re supposed to believe that Santos won over the crowd with his simple, pure logic that only Santos can deliver. It too heavy handed of a scene for me and a rare slip up when it comes to Santos. The “in your face” at how smart and brave Santos is overpowers any positive effect that the scene has for me. But again, it's a rare slip up that’s about to be followed by the show doing the exact same thing but a whole lot better.

Chris: The "gaffe" is one of the biggest pitfalls to any election whether it be due to a slip of the tongue, phrased something incorrectly or true thoughts/ideas slipped out into the prepared statement. Regardless of the intent behind the gaffe, the recovery almost always comes across disingenuous and throws up a cloud of skepticism that will hover over the politician. An interesting note on this particular instance is that Santos never once recognized his "intelligent design" comment as a gaffe or mistake, that was all done by the campaign staff. All of that made it more believable when Santos clarified his comment later in the episode because it wasn't a backtrack at all, what he originally said is what he genuinely believed but the circumstance was different than what was displayed or assumed.

A good president attends the funeral of a fellow world leader regardless of the danger that may surround the funeral.