Irrelevant But Awesome

Joel:  Someday I’m going to need Aaron Sorkin to write a show about science. Yes, the political angle in The West Wing is interesting, and the rousing speeches about what our political system could and should be are inspiring. But every now and then, he sneaks one in about science and it does my heart good. Sam talking about going to Mars because “it’s next” is a good example, and this episode has a fine example as well. Dr. Millgate says at one point in the show that Great Achievement has no roadmap. It’s a powerful statement that kicks off a powerful speech, one that ends with me wanting more money to be donated to scientific pursuits of any and all kinds. The political intrigue in this show is interesting. The Dr. Millgate storyline is tied in with a senator who is opposing the project for political reasons, and doing it in a sneaky way, again, for political reasons. And I love that Sam is able to work everything politically to make sure that he gets what he needs, but mo...

Joel:  I really enjoy this WrestleMania, but I’ll admit I have a soft spot for this one because it’s the event that brought me back to watching wrestling on a consistent basis. Rewatching it though, I can easily see why others might not be so high on this show as I am. The Diva’s match is a big problem, and I think this may have been the weakest Money in the Bank match to date. I don’t think the World Heavyweight Championship match was terrible, but I think both Chris Jericho and Edge are capable of having a better match than the one they have here. And I know we have to address the Bret Hart issue. Let me say, hearing that Bret Hart was back in a WWE ring, that’s what got me to watch more than anything else. Seeing him face off with McMahon to address a story that started over a decade earlier, that’s what I was really looking forward to. And I’m glad it happened, and when it was live I think I enjoyed the fact that I was watching the match, more that actually enjoying the ...

Joel:  I love the game of chess. I love everything about it, from it’s game design to its history. So even though the trope of chess being used as a parallel to real world strategy is a well worn one, I fall for it every time. It just works for me. I love the visual of the President and Sam discussing important worldly matters over a board game. Even though phrases like “See the whole board.” are pretty generic ones, I get caught up in the moment and it never fails to impress me. If you don’t get the chess thing, I can’t blame you. It shows up a lot and can easily feel overused and shoehorned in. But sorry, I love it every time any show or movie pulls this one out. Side note, I also love that chess is considered to be a high class form of warfare, and the chess episode is the same episode to have a prank war in it, a substantially more low brow type of warfare. (The prank war totally worked for me too, as it’s some of the funniest material that The West Wing has pulled of...

Joel:  You know, I have to wonder if the sexist talk subplot came up because somebody criticized comments in earlier episodes. There’s never been anything alarming in the previous episodes to the point where we simply had to bring it up, but it not like Sam’s comment in this episode came completely out of nowhere. It seemed like something that character would say, and wasn’t exactly out of line from other comments made on the show, so it didn’t seem exactly out of place until somebody brought it up. I’m not bringing it up now to say that Sam was right or wrong to say what he said, or that anybody in this storyline was. Different people read the same situation different ways, and nobody lashed out at anybody, it’s about as calm a discussion you can have on an episode of The West Wing. But I can’t help but think that Sam’s process here has to mirror Sorkin’s thoughts at some point when somebody pointed out a sexist comment or two that had shown up on the show previously. First...

Welcome to Kue's List! This is a weekly collection of fresh and fantastic tunes curated by yours truly, Jonah Kue. So, without further adieu, here's this week's Kue's List, followed by Apple Music and Spotify links to it: Thao & The Get Down Stay Down - "Nobody Dies" Lauriana Mae - "Ya Neck" Miguel - "Waves (feat. Kacey Musgraves) [Remix]" Episode - "Swim" Kaiydo - "Arcade" Anderson. Paak - "Am I Wrong (feat. ScHoolboy Q)" Sara Hartman - "Two Feet off the Ground" Foals - "Birch Tree" Pressa - "Deadmihana" Kins - "Fist" Lizzo - "Good as Hell" Corinne Bailey Rae - "Green Aphrodisiac" Click for Apple Music link Click for Spotify link

Joel:  At this point, WWE has pretty consistently delivered good WrestleManias since WrestleMania 17, maybe before that depending on how you feel about the earlier Attitude Era WrestleManias. So it’s kind of strange that their first real misstep in almost a decade is WrestleMania 25, on they should have been pulling out all the stops for. But apparently somebody back there thought that “all the stops” meant Kid Rock. This whole show feels messy, which isn’t a way that I would have described any of the last ten or so WrestleManias. But this one felt a lot more haphazard, and sloppy. I know that there had to be buildup to these matches because I saw video packages, but the entire first half of the show felt like after each match the just grabbed whoever was closest to the entrance and sent them out there to take up some time. Seriously, I can’t think of anything worth watching that went on before the Undertaker match. But then we get Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels. This match...

Joel:  We talk a lot about how the show does a good job of not painting all republicans as evil even though the main characters are all democrats. There are multiple times throughout the show where we get to see the thought process behind a traditionally conservative idea, and how it can still be a good idea or at least have good merits. What we don’t get to see nearly as often is a traditionally liberal idea being torn apart by our democratic main characters. CJ’s storyline in this episode hints to a larger storyline we will see later with her dad, but I like that it comes out that CJ has issues with a right that her party is frequently the champion of. The show is able to put intelligent arguments into the mouths of republican characters when it comes time to defend conservative values, and that’s impressive. But what really gets me here is that the show is able to show the issue of affirmative action not by having our characters argue against a special guest star about th...