Sarah's Marathon Diary: Without Aaron Sorkin, The West Wing Is A Mediocre Mess In Season 5

[Primetimer]

The Marathon Diarist finds her project much changed in the first half of Season 5.

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[sinkwriter]

Sarah, you asked the wrong people! ;) If you had asked me, I would have told you the truth. The show was never the same after Sorkin left.

Season 5 was "just okay" to me, and while I liked specific episodes in the final two seasons, they're just not the same as the original. Life definitely left the show when Sorkin exited. This is why I usually do re-watches of seasons 1 through 4 and stop there. Maybe I'll watch the first few episodes of season 5 just for closure on the Zoey Bartlet kidnapping, but otherwise, I just don't enjoy it the way I love the first few seasons (especially 1 & 2).

[sinkwriter]

Don't even get me started about what happens with Toby Ziegler's characterization. I'll release the Kraken when you hit season 7. It's a TRAVESTY.

[Kohola3]

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Sarah, you asked the wrong people! ;) If you had asked me, I would have told you the truth. The show was never the same after Sorkin left. 

Ditto.  I have Seasons 1-5 on DVD but rarely watch episodes in Season 5.  Just not the same show at all.

[GHScorpiosRule]

I just started watching season five, and unlike the first four where I sacrificed sleep to continue watching, I stopped after the third episode. Though one of the creators John Wells (or was he just producer?) wrote the first two, it was SO obvious that Aaron hadn't written them.

The tone was different as was everything else. 

The time between Zoey's kidnapping and rescue being a day from the Fourth of July, when she was actually taken in May, kept taking me out of those episodes. Why? Because we knew and kept being told that Toby's babies were due in May AND(!!) they arrived early! So pardon my anal retentive ass for letting this bug me, along with Abbey's horrible Liz Taylor hair do and attitude toward Bartlet, along with Liz's attitude. I'm especially peeved at Liz, because I've been WAITING to meet her and wondering who would play her and when I do, I don't see that she loves her dad. When the show made a point in "Ellie" that she and Zoey were the more favored.  And it seems that only Ellie showed her love and demonstrated that Jed was also hurting.

Edited October 12, 2016 by GHScorpiosRule

[betsyboo]

11 hours ago, sinkwriter said:

Don't even get me started about what happens with Toby Ziegler's characterization. I'll release the Kraken when you hit season 7. It's a TRAVESTY.

i was thinking same.

[Eeksquire]

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I don't see that she loves her dad. When the show made a point in "Ellie" that she and Zoey were the more favored.  And it seems that only Ellie showed her love and demonstrated that Jed was also hurting.

I thought that was interesting (though I agree that I'm not a fan of the actress that plays Liz) - to me, it seemed like Liz almost had to support her mother in that instance to prove that she was ultimately Team Abbey*, where Ellie could "get away" with comforting Jed without Abbey questioning her loyalty, because she's always been Team Abbey.  Possibly I've just been a witness to too many messed up family dynamics, but it didn't strike me as odd that people's loyalties might shift in unexpected ways during a crisis situation.

*Note: I am not really suggesting that the kids divided themselves that way; just that if there is a perception of favorites, then the moment when you REALLY DO NOT want to upset your parents further is the moment when you have to play against type to reassure everyone.

[twinkietwin94]

Trying to work my way through this season again, have it playing during my plan time each day as I work, just want to get to The Supremes, and Gaza, other than that this season makes me want to pull my hair out.  I do like season six better.

[kassygreene]

Yep, Zoey was kidnapped the evening of her graduation, and recovered just before the Fourth of July, but only kdinapped for a few days....  John Wells apparently so did not enjoy dealing with Sorkin that he had never watched the show... plus Hollywood does erases half the summer on most shows, so....

What I disliked about Season 5 I sort of sum up as Wells putting his tropes into the series - Josh is the 101rst Senator who manages on the same day to piss off a nasty piece of work and change the balance of power in the Senate; what's her name (Angela something) comes in to take over his duties and fix things; Leo reverts to the ugliness of character he shows in Israel & Ishmael; not one but two characters are brought in to be young regulars (the intern, Pierce? who was a descended from Pres Pierce, but was also "yeah, he rolled that car") and the girl who wound up assisting Toby and was a staffer who decided to work through the shutdown; it was a different show and apart from The Supremes (which was superb) nothing of the spirit of the first four seasons survived.  It did eventually come back, but it was a long year.

[GHScorpiosRule]

2 minutes ago, kassygreene said:

Yep, Zoey was kidnapped the evening of her graduation, and recovered just before the Fourth of July, but only kdinapped for a few days....  John Wells apparently so did not enjoy dealing with Sorkin that he had never watched the show... plus Hollywood does erases half the summer on most shows, so....

I got that part, but it was really stupid to say that it had only been two days since Zoey had been rescued and that she still had the bruises, and to then and make it like she was kidnapped at the end of June. According to an interview I read, either here in this thread, or in one of the others, Sorkin said he set up the kidnapping story the way he did, and it was up to Wells to take it in whatever direction. I think I read that Sorkin wanted to go the route of what NSA Director Nancy said: nothing to do with Shareef, but someone local and that she was locked away in some closet, but that Wells went the opposite way. 

I know a Lot of shows don't let time stay stagnant after a season ender, except when it's cliffhanger--then the premieres pick up from where they left off. Which they should have done here. 

I'll probably start watching this season again tonight.

[AriAu]

Let's all just say that Season 5 never happened....and if she feels this way now, just wait until she watches a few more episodes!

On the other hand, I am very jealous of her-she has 55 episodes to go and only 28 days left so she will be busy enough to miss all the crap of the real campaign. She does get to replace the misogyny of Sorkin and Wells with the real misogyny of one of the candidates!

[GHScorpiosRule]

20 hours ago, AriAu said:

Let's all just say that Season 5 never happened....and if she feels this way now, just wait until she watches a few more episodes!

On the other hand, I am very jealous of her-she has 55 episodes to go and only 28 days left so she will be busy enough to miss all the crap of the real campaign. She does get to replace the misogyny of Sorkin and Wells with the real misogyny of one of the candidates!

Arrgggggggh! This is awful. I don't recognize anyone! Anyone! The President is pissing me off, LEO is pissing me off, what happened to Toby?? What's happening to Josh is, ugh, I don't have words. Okay, wait. I still love CJ. Her I still recognize. I miss Sam. What the fuck, Will?

Did I miss something? Why did Will go to work for the Vice President? I love Gary Cole, but I really don't like the character. And I just finished up to "The Stormy Present", and so glad that my favorite team have seem to had shed the pod that was covering them.

And no, you aren't going crazy if you see this exact post in the season thread, because that's where I'm headed next to post this.

I don't like the tone of this season. Like, at all. I mean, I get that Sorkin left, but Lawrence O'Donnell came back; it still had the same consultants and producers from the previous four years (most from the Clinton Administration, I noticed), and throughout the previous four years, though Sorkin wrote practically all of the scripts, there were some where the "teleplay by" and "story by" were written by Dee Dee Meyers, Gene Sperling, and other writers who didn't leave when Sorkin did. And since the first two seasons are the BEST, and O'Donnell was producing then, why such a fall in quality when he comes back? Seriously. Watching this season is more like slogging through it.  And I feel just like @deaja, that I'm liking less and less, the First Lady and her attitude toward Jed. Must have been the hair style change. Like I said above, about Liz, this isn't Abbey's first rodeo in politics, and to lay the blame at Jed's feet for Zoey's kidnapping, when  Mikhail Mxyzptlk Jean-Paul's actions played a part-what with drugging her drink and all...not to say that Zoey wouldn't have been kidnapped, but she may have been able to hit the panic button. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Donna continues to bug, and as much as I like Mary Louise Parker, I just can't stand Amy Gardner. And like someone else said here or in the season thread, one of the most annoying things (and why I had to have my subtitles enabled) was her talking with her mouth shut/barely open. Could barely understand what she was saying 90% of the time.

Please tell me it gets better!

Oh! One of the funniest moments was when Jed...oh, wait. That's from Season One. Oops.

ETA: So glad to see both Josh and Jed get their balls back in "Shutdown."  And it's so scary how much of that episode, this season, really, reminds me of what President Obama had to deal with. Just who the fuck did Clayton Haffley think he was?

Edited October 14, 2016 by GHScorpiosRule
spelling!

[ProudMary]

For those who may be too young to remember 21 years back, "Shutdown" was reflective of the 1995-96 federal government shutdowns.  

http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/projects/debt/governmentshutdown.html
So, in answer to the question:

3 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Just who the fuck did Clayton Haffley think he was?

That would be Newt Gingrich.