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The West Wing - General Discussion


Aethera
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Despite having access to the show on Netflix and owning the DVD set, I’m watching on TNT today. I think my favorite sequence in the whole show starts as Abby cuts of his tie through “Can we have it back, please?”

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Watching election night on TNT.  What a great flashback to see people lined up to vote, the machines with the levers and the curtain, the football player being so excited and wanting to "go again".  Gave me the warm fuzzies for sure.

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On 10/29/2020 at 11:48 AM, ifionlyknew said:

I must be in the minority because I didn't care for Sterling K. Brown's performance as Leo. I didn't dislike it but he portrayed him as emotionless and John Spencer always played Leo as someone who you could feel his emotions right there right under the surface and could bubble out at any moment.  SKB's Leo seemed very tightly wound and I never saw JS's Leo as that way.

Completely agree.  John Spencer brought empathy and vulnerability to Leo.  Leo was, after all, a recovering alcoholic.  I think it's hard for most male actors to make the kinds of acting choices that John Spencer did.  I am reminded that James Caan was cast in Misery after a bunch of actors turned down a role where they had to be at the mercy of a female character.  I still consider Bartlet For America to be the best hour of TV I have ever seen.     

 

And: 

Sean Connery was in The Hunt For Red October with
Sam Neill who was in Jurassic Park with
Laura Dern, the US Poet Laureate

Edited by PeterPirate
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So I was watching Copland last night and when I saw John Spencer, I was like: 'How could I forget that he was in this?' to 'Oh NOOOOESSSSS! He's a dirty cop!' to 'Well, at least he was only in three or four scenes and only spoke in his first one' No wonder I'd blanked it out!

Still a good movie with a stellar cast.

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13 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

So I was watching Copland last night and when I saw John Spencer, I was like: 'How could I forget that he was in this?' to 'Oh NOOOOESSSSS! He's a dirty cop!' to 'Well, at least he was only in three or four scenes and only spoke in his first one' No wonder I'd blanked it out!

Still a good movie with a stellar cast.

There is an 80's movie Hiding Out in which John Spencer plays an FBI agent. When I had originally seen the movie I didn't know who JS was and didn't pay much attention to his character who was only onscreen for less than 10 mins.  Fast Forward about 15 years and upon a rewatch I see JS and think hey It's Leo.  

He is also in a good Billy Crystal movie called Forget Paris.  

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John Spencer was the cop in Presumed Innocent, 1990 Harrison Ford film based on a Scott Turow book. It's good. I loved Raul Julia in that film and right now, why couldn't Raul Julia have played Matt Santos' father?? That would have been fantastic. (Yes, it's only a 15 year age difference, but who cares?)

I miss Raul Julia. 

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I first got introduced to John Spencer on L.A. Law, as Tommy. He was awesome.

Then in the pilot for Law & Order Mothership as the father of the victim. I was like, hey! It's Tommy! I loved the way he pronounced antibiotic, as anteeebeeotic; I always say it as antibyeotic! Hee!

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4 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I first got introduced to John Spencer on L.A. Law, as Tommy. He was awesome.

Then in the pilot for Law & Order Mothership as the father of the victim. I was like, hey! It's Tommy! I loved the way he pronounced antibiotic, as anteeebeeotic; I always say it as antibyeotic! Hee!

Oh that’s right. And Jimmy Smits was on LA Law. He and John Spencer had ...I think two seasons together? Victor and Tommy, that’s your presidential ticket!

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Quote

 

For anyone without access to HBO Max at the time it was released, A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote is now available free-to-all until the end of 2020 at this link:

https://www.hbomax.com/votebecause

 

Thanks for the heads up......and given everything else going on, I decided to watch it 3 or 4 more times and noticed the following:
1. The napkin on Sterling K Leo's desk at the beginning while talking to POTUS...was it there in the original?

2. Toby bouncing the spaldeen in the black and white stills. Since it wasnt part of the episode, its got to be safe to assume that Richard Schiff brought his own.

3. First time they said "New Hampshire", i instinctively said "It's what's new"

4. Is it possible to buy Snuffy and the quintet doing the opening theme?

5. Mackie Flender-Fed Chair.Ha!

6. Didn't love the PSAs other than Dule and Elizabeth Moss-perfect writing and just the right tinge of "yeah, we know its over the top, but it's ok". Dule and Sterling K crossed that line......and seriously, how did Samuel L not swear once.

7. The staging was great and there were virtually no gaffes....but was that pawn supposed to fall over.

8. For all WingNuts, be sure to check out The West Wing Weekly Pod with Joshua Malina and Hrishi.....Sorkin is on and there are some pretty cool insights into how it got made.

 

 

Edited by AriAu
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10 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Oh that’s right. And Jimmy Smits was on LA Law. He and John Spencer had ...I think two seasons together? Victor and Tommy, that’s your presidential ticket!

As I recall (and just verified on IMDB), JS's first television credit was on the pilot for Miami Vice.  And in that role, a very young and skinny Jimmy Smits also played the first person to be killed on Miami Vice.

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9 hours ago, AriAu said:

1. The napkin on Sterling K Leo's desk at the beginning while talking to POTUS...was it there in the original?

Wow, I did not catch the napkin while watching the special.  Thanks for that.  I went back and did not see it in the original episode.  

Fwiw, I don't think they used the exact same napkin Bartlet gave to Leo in Bartlet For America.  I'm pretty sure they did use the same one on the final scene of Tomorrow.  But hey, it's been 15 years, and it's the thought that counts.     

Edited by PeterPirate
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10 hours ago, kassygreene said:

As I recall (and just verified on IMDB), JS's first television credit was on the pilot for Miami Vice.  And in that role, a very young and skinny Jimmy Smits also played the first person to be killed on Miami Vice.

When I read this, I thought, wait, John Spencer wasn't in the pilot of Miami Vice! And then when you wrote out Jimmy's name, I was like, ohhhhh, @kassygreene was talking about Jimmy Smits when she typed "JS"!🤪

 

 

Edited by GHScorpiosRule
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I meant to post this much, much earlier, but I got sidetracked, heh.

When Bartlet is talking about the current Prime Minister in India as the granddaughter of the first, Nehru (total fiction here, because Rajiv, his grandson was the last Gandhi to be Prime Minister when he was assassinated), I got a smile on my face. Why? Because I remember Martin Sheen playing an American reporter in 1982's Gandhi, who reported when India gained her independence. And it's also one of the reasons I cringe when Bartlet mispronounces Kashmir.

Oh, what I would have given if Roshan Seth had made a cameo on this show.

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From Election Night:   

Jack - You know, this is the first election in my life where I haven't had to vote by absentee ballot and I was really looking forward to pulling that lever.

Donna - Absentee ballot. I know how you feel. I'm from Wisconsin. It's my home, but here I am in Washington on Election Day.

Jack - I've usually been on a Los Angeles class submarine in the South China Sea.

Donna - Don't try to trump me here. It's not a battle. We're in this together.

Edited by PeterPirate
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18 hours ago, Kohola3 said:

Wow, what inadvertant foreshadowing!

I recently finished binge watching the series (watched it instead of election coverage since I knew that would be a waste of time), and it's amazing how many topics in the show are relevant now.

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We're also rewatching. I had forgotten the stuff about the space shuttle Columbia in season one. Oof. That was hard to watch. 

As a result of rewatch, I also discovered that Aaron Sorkin apparently doesn't use twitter. (I looked, only found one tweet from 2014.) Can't say I blame him. I tried to briefly tell my husband how Sorkin got into it with viewers on TWOP back in the day and came out looking ... not great (for the pre-social media times) ... but the husband worships Sorkin and was not having any of it. 

It's hard not to watch young Elisabeth Moss through slightly jaded eyes now and be super unimpressed with her acting. (That early scene in the Georgetown bar is also pretty silly in general, in terms of how long Zoey remains physically blocked behind the two cartoon villains.)

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1 hour ago, kieyra said:

It's hard not to watch young Elisabeth Moss through slightly jaded eyes now and be super unimpressed with her acting.

I was thoroughly unimpressed with her acting at the time, so remain a bit stunned she went on to have the career she's had as an adult.  The only thing I've seen her in since is Us, so I don't have a proper frame of reference, but, while she was better there she was just okay.

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On 11/7/2020 at 3:43 PM, Kohola3 said:

Wow, what inadvertant foreshadowing!

I know, right?  I sometimes edit lines from the show slightly for dramatic effect.  But in this case I took the words exactly from the transcript.  Any change I made would have only been detrimental.  

 

And from In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen.  Words that I literally quoted to my daughter while imploring her to be diplomatic (ie, "act like an adult") in writing an email expressing her unhappiness over some substandard customer service.   

Leo - Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you.  Put it another way, fake it till you make it.

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As my local committee members were celebrating on election night I kept repeating:  "You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?"

Of course, none of them knew what that meant.  But look what happened.

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I have a certain song running in my head over and over and over.  Here's a related quote from The Indians In The Lobby

Bartlet - There's nothing wrong with the policy, it's just too small. I could fund this initiative out of my pocket.
Toby - It's ten million dollars.
Bartlet - Leo could fund it out of his pocket. Shouldn't this be local government, like the YMCA or something?

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On 11/8/2020 at 1:56 PM, kieyra said:

We're also rewatching. I had forgotten the stuff about the space shuttle Columbia in season one. Oof. That was hard to watch. 

I just finished a season one rewatch and while I remembered the space shuttle story with Toby's brother I  honestly think I had forgotten about it when the other space shuttle story came up in later seasons when I watched it when it originally aired.

Watching the show now while all this real life political upheaval is happening is so surreal.  It saddens me that so many of the issues they talked about and fought about on the show over 20 years ago is still being fought about today.

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Better update from Schiff today; he's just been released from the hospital:

And he posted this lovely Tweet to Allison Janney for her birthday (Toby and C.J.'s relationship was my favorite of the show, and I love that the friendship between the actors grew quickly and into one that remains close):

 

Edited by Bastet
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From PeopleWest Wing Actor Richard Schiff Warns ‘You Don’t Want This’ After COVID-19 Hospitalization

He was also on MSNBC’s The Last Word, which is hosted by former TWW Writer/Producer/Executive Producer (& cameo actor, in S2’s “Two Cathedrals”, as Jed’s father) Lawrence O’Donnell, talking about his experience with the virus & the Canadian healthcare system (it appears he & actress wife Sheila Kelley contracted the virus while filming their current roles—as a married couple—in Vancouver, on ABC’s The Good Doctor, on which former Lost & Hawaii Five-0 co-star Daniel Dae Kim is now an Executive Producer). Richard was hospitalized in a Vancouver hospital. This appearance was apparently on Wednesday’s episode. The “meat” of the interview (without the intro & outro) is embedded from YouTube on the page.

I think it’s interesting both Richard & his wife have their current credits in The Good Doctor, but she’s credited as having been on/in L.A. Law & he’s credited with The West Wing. I guess, technically, TWW is his most recent acting credit again though, because of the dramatic staging of “Hartsfield’s Landing” airing/aired on HBO Max.

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I finally watched the Special. It was the first time I saw Sterling K Brown in anything and it was strange to see him in the role of Leo because he wasn't part of the original cast. But I still thought that he was great in the role. He'd have made a great original Leo or he'd make a great President on screen!

I still get mad at Charlie or rather the lack of consequences for his actions. I think it was a disproportionate response and that he took things way too far. While super-gluing the phone was funny, he destroyed property twice and messing with the security card as an employee of the White House should be an absolute no-go. There should have been severe consequences for that.

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I'm a little more than halfway through the second season and I have to say the shady political moves by the Senate Majority Leader from the opposing party seems like something that would happen in today's real world.  When I first watched the show when in aired in the late 90s I thought it was a heightened fictional portrayal of politics.  Now I see it was a sign of things to come.

 

And I might be in the minority but I could not stand Ainsley Hayes.

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7 hours ago, CheshireCat said:

I still get mad at Charlie or rather the lack of consequences for his actions. I think it was a disproportionate response and that he took things way too far. While super-gluing the phone was funny, he destroyed property twice and messing with the security card as an employee of the White House should be an absolute no-go. There should have been severe consequences for that.

I completely agree with this.  But in defense of my gender, I will add "CJ started it".

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2 hours ago, ifionlyknew said:

And I might be in the minority but I could not stand Ainsley Hayes.

On rewatch, she’s much less likable. It was nice having a counterpoint to the liberal arguments made on the show, but I was really bothered by her dismissal of women’s issues and stance that sexual talk was fine in the workplace.

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10 hours ago, CheshireCat said:

or he'd make a great President on screen!

You know, I read this and immediately visualized and heard Sterling K. Brown making Martin Sheen's grand entrance saying "I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt worship no other god before me."

'Cause that's just how my brain works.

Edited to add the link that I originally came here to post--Richard Schiff is now doing better, and I am hoping the video below is post-COVID-19 battle (t was posted a couple of days ago):

Warning: Cute dog overload

 

Edited by A.Ham
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40 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

On rewatch, she’s much less likable. It was nice having a counterpoint to the liberal arguments made on the show, but I was really bothered by her dismissal of women’s issues and stance that sexual talk was fine in the workplace.

This.  I think the idea was indeed to have a counterpart and she was a brainy Republican but I hated her stance on women's rights from the get go.  But then I marched for the ERA back in the day.

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1 hour ago, BlackberryJam said:

On rewatch, she’s much less likable. It was nice having a counterpoint to the liberal arguments made on the show, but I was really bothered by her dismissal of women’s issues and stance that sexual talk was fine in the workplace.

 

19 minutes ago, Kohola3 said:

This.  I think the idea was indeed to have a counterpart and she was a brainy Republican but I hated her stance on women's rights from the get go.  But then I marched for the ERA back in the day.

Every once in awhile she would have an argument that I agreed with but then she would act like a ditz and just annoy me all over again.  I think Sorkin thought her being tongue tied and getting nervous made her look cute or something but I hated it.  

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6 hours ago, PeterPirate said:

I completely agree with this.  But in defense of my gender, I will add "CJ started it".

She absolutely started it but Charlie should have stopped after super-gluing the phone. Given that the phone is important for her job and the schedule is important for Charlie's job, I think they were even after that.

 

2 hours ago, Kohola3 said:

This.  I think the idea was indeed to have a counterpart and she was a brainy Republican but I hated her stance on women's rights from the get go. 

I don't get why no one argued that it's obviously not working and just let her argument stand but I liked her in general and wish they'd have properly used her and even kept her on. (There was even some potential for a character arc, then again, they didn't really do character arcs).

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On 11/30/2020 at 2:05 AM, CheshireCat said:

I still get mad at Charlie or rather the lack of consequences for his actions. I think it was a disproportionate response and that he took things way too far. While super-gluing the phone was funny, he destroyed property twice and messing with the security card as an employee of the White House should be an absolute no-go. There should have been severe consequences for that.

I think Hartsfield Landing is an episode it is good not to look too closely at, but just enjoy.  For starters, the election part didn't make sense as it was a primary - of course Bartlet would win the primary. He was running unopposed for all intents and purposes.  Second, the prank war escalated too far and I don't think we should really think Charlie was able to get the desk to do that.

To me, it's mainly filler.  But enjoyable filler.

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6 hours ago, deaja said:

I think Hartsfield Landing is an episode it is good not to look too closely at, but just enjoy.  For starters, the election part didn't make sense as it was a primary - of course Bartlet would win the primary. He was running unopposed for all intents and purposes.  Second, the prank war escalated too far and I don't think we should really think Charlie was able to get the desk to do that.

To me, it's mainly filler.  But enjoyable filler.

I enjoy it - until CJ comes back from her pizza run. Then I get mad at the fact that there are no consequences for Charlie and how Josh is treating Donna. 😄

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On 12/4/2020 at 11:28 PM, anna0852 said:

Boooo!

The series leaves Netflix on December 24th

And it moves EXCLUSIVELY to HBO Max (but I don’t know when it starts there; just that it was announced in October, 2019, that it would be on HBO Max after the deal with Netflix expired). So hopefully some kept their free trials from the “Hartsfield’s Landing” dramatic staged presentation. Otherwise you’ll have to sign up again to keep watching the show on streaming/somewhere besides your DVDs.

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