Irrelevant But Awesome

Joel:  This is one of my favorite moments of this season. Congress is mentioned a lot in this show (obviously) but it’s always from the White House’s point of view. Now, thanks to Santos being a major character on the show, we get to delve a little bit more into the Congress side of things. This isn’t even so much about democrats beating republicans but about people forcing democracy on a side that’s trying to game the system. There’s a democratic congressman here that has concerns about the vote and Santos flat out tells him to vote the way that he thinks is best. It’s not that they’re trying to sneak their preferred outcome past the leaders of congress, but instead trying to make sure the vote takes place in a manner that’s as democratic as possible. But on top of the fantastic congress storyline, this episode also has the fantastically silly skirmish with Canada story as well. Chris: I'm gonna try my best to not sound exactly like Joel here but this is probably my fa...

Joel:  There’s a lot that’s going on in the show right now, what with the election happening, Sam getting ready to leave the show, a new character being introduced, and the thing that really sticks out for me in this episode is the $400 dollar ashtray. A stat like that sounds like something that would come up during an election. A creative way to look at an opponent’s budget so that their ideas will look silly to the voters. You the kind of ad that says something like “Candidate X’s proposed budget is so ludicrous, that it allows $400 to be spent on every ashtray in the pentagon.” even though we all not that some fancy math was done to make the numbers come out that way. Then to see that a supporter of said candidate not only doesn’t refute the idea of a $400 dollar ashtray but in fact defends the idea, seems straight out of left field. With a hundred guesses I never would have come up with a reason why an army ashtray should cost so much, yet the second it’s presented I, l...

This week, the IBA Studios YouTube account has been busy with the continuation of Chris painstakingly trudging through Pokemon while Joel and Neil continue to be pricks about the whole thing. Also, the crew began a new series with Canadian heartthrob, Blair, joins us in our attempt to create the perfect presidential candidate to bring down the evil Donald Trump. While you're enjoying those videos, be sure to subscribe to IBA Studios on YouTube to be sure to not miss next week's action.

Joel: I t’s interesting that by this point in the story, there’s not really a question as to who is going to win the election. We know going into the episode that it is all but certain that Bartlet will have a second term. There is even some talk about not bothering to write a concession speech, he is that far ahead in the polls. It’s not that an election with that wide of a margin for victory isn’t possible, or even very likely, I know that it’s happened plenty of times in the past, but this is a TV show after all. This episode was written well after the 2000 election as well, so the idea of an entire presidential election coming down to a handful of votes in a single state, is a very real possibility. But instead, a TV show, where we would expect a dramatic, down to the wire election, instead portrays it as little more than a routine thing that just has to be gotten out of the way. Fortunately, we have the other election to bring drama to the episode. I’ll have more to say a...