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I've Found The West Wing

I'm in early/mid Season 6 now. The election campaigns are finally starting to begin.

I guess I would have originally supported Baker, with Hoynes being my second choice. We don't know much about Baker, but at least there wasn't anything negative said about him and he seemed like a good guy. Hoynes places principles behind ambition a bit too much, for my taste. But say about him what you will, he's at least up to the job. This brings me to Russell, who is not only a horrible politician, but also a horrible leader... ergo, he would make a horrible president. So he ranks last for me. Russell is this election's Rob Ritchie.

The last episode I've seen was "Impact Winter"... now I'm interested to see how Josh manages to convince a Congressman who doesn't want to run again to get into the presidential race. ;)

Now that Baker has dropped out, I'm not sure if I would support Santos over Hoynes. I guess it depends on how Santos does once he is actually running. But until then, I'd stick with Hoynes. ABBB... anybody but Bingo Bob! :lol:

Vinick also seems to be a nice guy though.


Btw, just imagine THE horror election scenario for a minute: Rob Ritchie vs. Bob Russell. Would anybody even survive watching these debates? :)
 
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Vinick also seems to be a nice guy though.

Wait until you see In God We Trust near the end of that season; after seeing that episode not only would I have voted for him, I would have given him my daughter as a concubine.

Unfortunately the writers decided to swing him a bit more to the right in season 7. :(
 
Vinick also seems to be a nice guy though.

Wait until you see In God We Trust near the end of that season; after seeing that episode not only would I have voted for him, I would have given him my daughter as a concubine.

Unfortunately the writers decided to swing him a bit more to the right in season 7. :(

Just like John McCain. he was great in 2000, then this year he was all over the place and would say anything to anyone to get them to vote for him when he never really had a chance anyways.
 
I have never seen a single episode of the West Wing. I was such a fan of Sorkins' Sports Night, and then he just dumped it in favor of WW. I decided then and there that I wouldn't watch it, and I never have.

I suppose I should check it out at some point, but I'm so behind on about a dozen other shows right now.
 
I thought Sports Night was, you know, cancelled. The West Wing was just Sorkin's next project.
 
I have never seen a single episode of the West Wing. I was such a fan of Sorkins' Sports Night, and then he just dumped it in favor of WW. I decided then and there that I wouldn't watch it, and I never have.

I suppose I should check it out at some point, but I'm so behind on about a dozen other shows right now.

Sorkin ditched it because he thought ABC would never give Sports Night a second season, so he moved on. However it turned out that SN would get one more season, but he knew he had a better chance with WW then 11 more hours of SN.

Plus SN season 2 is still good, also West Wing was his dream show, he always wanted to do it but could never get anyone to make it, so of course he jumped at the chance to make the show.
 
I'm still confused about Sports Night. Did Sorkin leave the show? IMDB has his credited as the writer on most season two episodes. Is it wrong, or am I reading the website wrong, or what?
 
As I understand it, Sorkin wrote the second season of Sports Night at the same time as the first season of The West Wing, but he found it too difficult to be writing two shows at the same time so he chose to continue The West Wing as he preferred it and it was more popular. Sports Night could have gone on but ABC made the decision to cancel it as they decided it wasn't worth it if Sorkin wasn't writing it.

I only saw the first few episodes of Sports Night and could never get into it. Sorkin is a bit preachy and tries to inspire the audience to do better things, and while this worked while he was writing about people who worked in the White House, when it was about people who worked on a sports show it seemed pretty lame. Studio 60 had the same problem.
 
From what I just read

ABC it seems to pushing in on Sorkin, wanting changes made to the show like the addition of a laugh track, which he hated. He was annoyed by ABC's lack of advertising and ability to find a suitable slot for the show and felt come the canning after season 2, too much damage had been done to the show and even though the likes of HBO, Showtime and USA were interested in the show, he wanted a fresh start.

My guess is also the only people wanting the show would of been cable so budget cuts and a smaller cast may of needed for that to happen so that might of put Sorkin off continuing the show on cable for instance since no other major networks were interested.
 
First of all IMDB is almost ALWAYS wrong, if they were right as much as they were wrong then they would be a good site.

Season one Sorkin wrote or co-wrote ALL the episodes. It gets interesting in season 2, he writers the teleplay to a lot of the episodes, 17 of the 22, however someone else came up with the storylines for 6-7 of the ones he wrote the teleplay for.

So honestly he wrote ALL the West Wing scripts and wrote or co-wrote 17 of 22 of the second season episodes, so there shouldn't be an issue.

And that info comes from the DVDs, and how well I read, and counted, the tiny print. :)

And ABC isn't the only issue, NO ONE WATCHED THE SHOW! They did do a few ads, but not enough, and even when they did do ads I remember the ratings being in the toilet. It was amazing that the show got a second season, the only reason it did was because it won some Emmies or something. It was clear the show would never survive and Sorkin got his dream TV show, West Wing where he can preach all he wants, so he cared more about his new born then his already dead Sports Night.

And SN would never have been picked up by anyone. Did USA even have their own TV shows back then? Showtime didn't have any comedies at all, and didn't really fit into the Showtime of the 90s-early 00s. HBO would have made it porn. :lol:

We got two good seasons of Sports Night and three great seasons of West Wing, a good season and some blahness mixed with good seasons.
 
Just watched "King Corn"... one of the best episodes this season so far.

I enjoyed this almost documentary-like style and to follow three of our candidates in three succeeding stories on the same day was a nice idea.

So, Bob Russell is the guy who supports ethanol for opportunistic reasons and has no problem with that, Matt Santos is the guy who supports ethanol for opportunistic reasons and hates himself for that, and Arnold Vinick is the guy who opposes ethanol even if it hurts him politically.

The only problem I had with this episode was that totally incacurate thing about the Turkish women who was sentenced to death for adultery. This is Turkey, not Iran. It would be horrible to actually have NATO members which execute its citizens for adultery. The writer should have done his homework better.
 
I thought season 4 of The West Wing was by far the weakest, particularly after the election. Stuff like 'The Long Goodbye' was execrable, and saved only by the hilarious scene of Toby doing the press briefing (paraphrasing: 'it was not being said then and is still not being said, and what's not said is is is sometimes as important as what is said' hehe), and most of the rest (excepting Privateers, which contains this scene of inspired hilarity) was just a drag. Season 5 wasn't much better, granted, but I really enjoyed Shutdown and I think The Supremes was as good as anything Sorkin ever did.
 
Just watched "King Corn"... one of the best episodes this season so far.

This was the episode which desensitised me from shaky-cam enough that I could watch nuBSG. True story.

(excepting Privateers, which contains this scene of inspired hilarity)

Will: It's not a hazing. They don't do that... except, yes, you put olives in my jacket again.
C.J.: I did. I did put olives in his jacket.

:guffaw: One of the funniest moments in the show.
 
I think the new writers didn't pay attention as much as they should have. I just started season 5 and the made up country Quamar, I think that's it, have the country in Iran. However I think we saw it on a map before in season 4 and it was where Yeman is.
 
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I think the new writers didn't pay attention as much as they should have. I just started season 5 and the made up country Quamar, I think that's it, have the country in Iran. However I think we saw it on a map before and it was where Yeman is to us.

Sorkin made up Qumar some time in S3, I believe. It's part of the big arc at the end of that season, with "We Killed Yamamoto" and "Posse Comitatus."

And, BTW, I LOVE "The Long Goodbye." It may be only barely related to the rest of The West Wing, but I thought it was a lovely episode.
 
I know Sorkin made it up. I mean that Sorkin placed it when Yeman is, and then in season 5 the new ER guy puts it in the middle of the Iranian coastline. At least keep the countries in the same place! :)
 
^ Please, it's not like Sorkin himself was any stranger to continuity blunders.

He forgot about his own constructed Mad Cow Disease crisis before the end of the episode where it was raised. There was a flashback in season 3/4 (can't remember) where we see the Bartlet White House shortly after transition and CJ was prayed for by a bunch of evangelicals. Then a few episodes later Toby talks about how CJ was 'spammed with that a few months ago,' when it was actually about 4 years by that point. Zoey was 19 in season 1, but she seemed to be between 17 and 19 again at the end of season 4. And so on and so forth.

So if we're gonna nitpick, we can add that stuff to the list alongside the relocation of a fictional country ;)
 
Zoey was in her 20s when season 4 ended, she was graduating from college early I think, so I think she was 21.

Of course the most famous that you forgot is Mandy-land! She just disappears, then of course there is the missing year jump no one seems to care about. They got reelected in season 4, that would be November 2002, then the end of season 4 would be May 2003, then they have the new leadership and in season 6 it's 2005 I think, and they already had the midterms, and people are running for president. I need to rewatch season 5-6 to see where the jump happened.

But what get's me about the map is that they had a map in the season 4 finale, and then it was in a different place in season 5 starter! :lol:

My favorite thing no one seems to notice is when season 1 ended they didn't have a plan for season two, so they just made it up after it was already filmed. One of the president's bodyguard pushed CJ to the ground in season 1, it is very clear. Then in season 2 to make a b-story it ended up being Sam that pushed CJ to the ground.
 
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