All Episodes Talk: Walk With Me

[SoMuchTV]

I’m confused. Why is there a separate 25th anniversary subforum here, with a bunch of topics that seem like they could be threads in the main forum? Is this a new thing now? 

[Fool to cry]

Rewatched the pilot and I don't know how Rob Lowe thought he was going to be the lead when it was clearly written as an ensemble show from the start. Especially when his plotline of being involved with an escort is the least interesting despite a winning turn from pre-House MD Lisa Edelstein. Also Moira Kelly really was like Chuck Cunningham, Randall Carver on Taxi, and Mark Brandawicz on Parks and Recreation wasn't she? I like her in other things but she just wasn't a good fit to the cast. It's either her character or I'm not buying Sorkin dialogue coming out of her mouth. I wonder if David Fincher hadn't made the young actors do a hundred takes on The Social Network they would sound just as awkward.  And boy Martin Sheen entrance in the last ten minutes still rocks. Yeah, the original plan to just see the President "occasionally" was thrown out after that!

[Orcinus orca]

4 hours ago, Fool to cry said:

Rewatched the pilot and I don't know how Rob Lowe thought he was going to be the lead when it was clearly written as an ensemble show from the start.

Was that his expectation or was that the original plan?  It's been so long but it seems to me that Lowe as the lead was the original premise but Sheen knocked it out of the park and the plan was reworked.  I could be remembering incorrectly.

[schnauzergirl]

2 hours ago, Orcinus orca said:

Was that his expectation or was that the original plan?  It's been so long but it seems to me that Lowe as the lead was the original premise but Sheen knocked it out of the park and the plan was reworked.  I could be remembering incorrectly.

This was also my understanding, but those last 10 minutes of Martin Sheen changed everything.  Would have been a hugely different dynamic/ensemble with Sam as the lead character.

Edited September 24 by schnauzergirl

[Fool to cry]

1 hour ago, schnauzergirl said:

This was also my understanding, but those last 10 minutes of Martin Sheen changed everything.  Would have been a hugely different dynamic/ensemble with Sam as the lead character.

What I like is once it became clear President Bartlett was going to be a main character Sorkin stops writing him as just the benevolent wise sage who's always right. He becomes more human. In the second episode he talks to his personal doctor he has become friends with about how he's uneasy dealing with his military advisors and he doesnt like violence. At the end of the episode when the doctor is killed by a foreign government his immediate reaction is to bomb them into the stone age amd the next episode is Leo and the joint chiefs talking him down. 

Edited September 24 by Fool to cry

[Orcinus orca]

3 hours ago, Fool to cry said:

At the end of the episode when the doctor is killed by a foreign government his immediate reaction is to bomb them into the stone age amd the next episode is Leo and the joint chiefs talking him down. 

To this day I remember Leo's question word-for-word - "And do you think ratcheting up the body count is going to act as a deterrent?"

[ProudMary]

 

[Fool to cry]

Rewatching episode 4 and Bartlett loopy on back pain medicine is still one of the funniest moments on the show. 

 

[Orcinus orca]

10 minutes ago, Fool to cry said:

Rewatching episode 4 and Bartlett loopy on back pain medicine is still one of the funniest moments on the show. 

It really was.  I never fail to laugh.

[Fool to cry]

On to episodes 5 and 6 and holy crap Elizabeth Moss was sooooo young and she sounded even younger! When Mad Men premiered in 2007 I didn't know any of the actors except her. "That's Zoey Bartlett!"  Jon Hamm as Don Draper was the lead but Peggy was the audience surrogate into that world.

It's amazing that Stockard Channing had never met Martin Sheen before coming in the show. Their chemistry is incredible.

Amy Sherman-Palladino must have seen episode 1x13 and went "That's my Paris Gellar!" and "That's my Chilton principal!"

Edited September 26 by Fool to cry

[Skooma]

On 9/25/2024 at 12:43 PM, Fool to cry said:

On to episodes 5 and 6 and holy crap Elizabeth Moss was sooooo young and she sounded even younger! When Mad Men premiered in 2007 I didn't know any of the actors except her. "That's Zoey Bartlett!"  Jon Hamm as Don Draper was the lead but Peggy was the audience surrogate into that world.

It's amazing that Stockard Channing had never met Martin Sheen before coming in the show. Their chemistry is incredible.

Amy Sherman-Palladino must have seen episode 1x13 and went "That's my Paris Gellar!" and "That's my Chilton principal!"

FYI there is a yellow box upper left to The West Wing's 25th Anniversary where there is a re-watch there and more people posting like it is the active West Wing forum now.  Maybe re-post this there at least?