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David T. Cole
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Guys! I can't believe no one mentioned "Dental Plan! Lisa needs braces" in the canon discussion!?! The repetition was so extreme that it looped around the funny/not funny track at least twice.

ETA: Does anyone else's time counter pause during this part at the end? If it's intentional, then brilliant! 

Edited by StatMom
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Here's a discarded question from the last section of Gametime, about Betty White: True or false? The U.S. Forest Service gave her the title “honorary forest ranger”; she got a badge and a ranger’s hat, and a hug from Smokey Bear. (This is true.) It was really interesting digging into the eeesh-ness of some of these characters. Check out this rundown of Kelsey Grammer's assholish memoir (where the "for broken women, the doctor was IN" quote comes from.)

I want to do a dance remix of "Dental Plan/Lisa Needs Braces" now.

And congrats Sarah - ! Back on the board.

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Totally with Dave on this one: never watch with parents. It only leads to, "He was the one on the program with the dog - you know the one! What was it called? Just a minute, what was he saying?"

"I don't know, somebody was talking!"

Thank goodness for DVRs!

Edited by John Potts
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Co-sign on the words of praise for KEY & PEELE. I've been re-watching episodes on my tablet at the gym for the last few weeks, and they hold up to third and fourth viewings, and make the time just fly by. I like sketch shows, but was mostly resigned to the fact that a 50% hit rate was pretty good for even the best of shows, but frequently I like every single sketch in a K&P episode, and there are very few I choose to skip. Even stuff you think would grow old, like the valet guys talking movies, they find new twists on (I still can't hear Mel Gibson's name without thinking "racist ass Melly Gibsons"). And the production values are just stunning, even down to adjusting the aspect ratio (extra wide-screen for action movie parodies, 4x3 for fake old TV shows). I didn't realize the director of KEANU also did most of the K&P episodes. I'll definitely be checking that out.

Also, thanks for adding the encoded chapter breaks to the mp3 file. Very useful.

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Well consider me an outlier because my parents have great TV taste (mostly - my mom likes putting on People's Court during her naptime & they loved Emeril, though that might have been pre-hipster irony at play). Their taste is so great in fact, we're all fans of EHG & chat about the podcast every couple of weeks.

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I actually have a good record of introducing my mother to shows (Downton, for one), and like @Tara Ariano I encouraged her to watch Call the Midwife because I sobbed my way through it and wanted to watch it with her.

That said, she has this ANNOYING habit of falling asleep while watching TV so I inevitably end up nudging her 15 minutes into any show. 

Edited by Duckie30ca
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On August 26, 2016 at 6:35 AM, Duckie30ca said:

That said, she has this ANNOYING habit of falling asleep while watching TV so I inevitably end up nudging her 15 minutes into any show. 

haha! Mine too. Must be a mom thing.

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Dave, I totally agree that was a low/turning point for TAR, but you're remembering it backwards. Rob and Amber were already on the plane; the pilot re-opened the doors for Uchenna and Joyce, who eventually won. Unless I missed your point, in which case please delete my account and let's never speak of this again.

And yes, I created an account just to comment on this, because it's been bothering me for 11 years. Eh, gotta nuke something.

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I loved Tara's answer, buuuut I feel like homophobia and Boston Rob go hand-in-hand? I feel like it's notable that, out of all the people he's been on reality shows with, the only times he's had personality conflicts with someone (as opposed to The Lex Thing, or Russhole Hantz's delusions of adequacy), it's been with gay men. He hated John Carroll. Richard Hatch hated him, and they weren't even on the same tribe. Susan and Patrick hated him. He and Lynn and Alex were a black hole of hate that absorbed everything around them. Team Guido and Oswald and Danny didn't seem too enamored with him, and... like, it's Oswald and Danny and Guido. And yet, when he gets a cast of ultra-Christian types without any gay people in it, he wins almost unanimously with no real competition.

Amber would totally volunteer him for one of the "give a butch straight guy a drag makeover" challenges though.

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10 hours ago, Slack Jawed Yokel said:

Dave, I totally agree that was a low/turning point for TAR, but you're remembering it backwards. Rob and Amber were already on the plane; the pilot re-opened the doors for Uchenna and Joyce, who eventually won. Unless I missed your point, in which case please delete my account and let's never speak of this again.

And yes, I created an account just to comment on this, because it's been bothering me for 11 years. Eh, gotta nuke something.

Was it? Man, I was totally convinced it was the other way around. God, I'm getting old and stupid. Stupider.

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My answer to these types of questions is usually to revive the Joe Schmo Show, the fake reality show where one non-dupe is cast and everyone else is an actor running bizarre scenarios.  Kristen Wiig was one of the actors before she was a name.  If you make Rupert the Schmo in a competitive show, such as a Survivor knockoff, he will be so focused on winning and camera hogging he won't even notice the bizarre things going around him.

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So, "Last Days of Summer" gets nonac-ed, yet "Mud Bowl" was rejected from the canon (I still cannot believe that happened)? Maaaaajor boo on that. When I rewatched the whole series, I was surprised at how the second season wasn't as bad as I remember everyone saying it was, and that includes this episode. It was obviously the weakest season, but it's not bad television.

If you retroactively induct "Mud Bowl" into the canon, I miiiiiight be OK with this.

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I tend to skip Season 2 of Friday Night Lights. Besides the whole murder plot, I hate Lyla's reborn Christian story, I hate Street's experimental surgery story (although I do love Riggins in that story line and their friendship), I hate Julie as usual, and I hate the story with Matt and Carlotta because I can't get past he is a high school student and she is an adult. I also can't believe anyone would pick the swede over Matt Saracen. I would have loved to have a Matt Saracen in my life in high school. "Last Days of Summer" is a perfect pick for the nonac.

I'm a big fan of The West Wing and have watched it more times than I can count. I never understood why some people wouldn't accept any criticism of the show. It's quality TV with often great moments but it isn't by any means perfect. Count me as one who doesn't love The Jackal. I like the idea of it. I like that story line because I can see how people who spent 24/7 together on the campaign trail for months and then work in demanding jobs might get excited about something stupid one of them does to kill time. To me, it isn't The Jackal so much as the camaraderie and nostalgia. Also, I was not a fan of (SPOILER ALERT) the Donna and Josh romantic pairing. My solace is that it happened toward the end and after Donna took some control. At least they didn't give them a stupid dating plan like Dana and Casey in Sports Night.

I'm one of the few people who liked (mostly) Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The big Gilbert and Sullivan style opening number for the new show under Danny and Matt was a ridiculous idea for a late night comedy sketch show.

I'm not 100% on the Sorkin boat. I HATE The Newsroom.

Any chance the link to the canon entry for Celestial Navigation can be fixed? Current link goes to Felicity (Spooked) and the link for Felicity is to the correct podcast.

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So disappointed you didn't get into Sorkin on the TWoP forums. Tara teases it at the beginning, and then it never happens! My least favorite Sorkin tic is the straw-man villains who are just there to make the heroes look smart. You brought up the religious fanatics who get schooled in the bible, and that's a real Sorkin go-to, but for sheer lazy writing nothing beats "Crime, boy, I don't know." Also: the Jackal, I never got it either. Jackal Truthers unite!

Perfect Nonac. Thank you! I've done a couple of Friday Night Lights re-watches, and each time I like Julie Taylor less. Not just this season, but the whole run of the show. Who does she think she is that she can do better than Matt Saracen? No one can! Side note: if I were to ever to a cannon submission, I would be torn between my desire to put a new show on the list (probably the UK Utopia, though it would be hard to pick a single episode that stands out from the rest), and the need to correct the omission of "The Son" from the honor roll.

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1 hour ago, Stowaway said:

So disappointed you didn't get into Sorkin on the TWoP forums. Tara teases it at the beginning, and then it never happens!

I know! "Yes we watched the TWoP one, which we'll get to," and that's the last we hear of it. *cry*

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Leo and Bartlet is by far my favorite non-romantic relationship...and Abbey and Bartlet is my romantic one - their chemistry is so good.

 

Toby was my favorite character while it was airing, though he got so screwed in Season 7, as a character and an actor, and Leo and CJ are close seconds. If I had to pick a non-main character, it would be Nancy or Fitz...they're amazing. And as a huge WW fan, I agree - Josh is my least favorite of the leads. But there are way worse people among the recurring people in later seasons.

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This is making me want to rewatch the opening of Season 2 of West Wing now -- I remember exactly the moment Sarah describes, when they whip the motorcade around. 

Really fun Gametime too - ! And lookit Sarah go, two weeks in a row - !

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8 hours ago, Stowaway said:

So disappointed you didn't get into Sorkin on the TWoP forums. Tara teases it at the beginning, and then it never happens!

ha! I figured it would come back around to that. I didn't intentionally not talk about it; I also don't know what people already know about it, so: ask and I'll answer!

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I do love the West Wing - I'm very much (politically) the right audience for Sorkin, and I'm totally fine with the obvious author-soapboxing in this show. When he does it on other shows - less so. Even on the Newsroom the political diatribes feel very forced. But I'm fine with him beating liberal politics over my head when he's doing it in the guise of a liberal President and his staff. I've abandoned every other Sorkin show I've attempted, but this is in my list of all time favourites. It was a perfect match of showrunner and premise.

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8 hours ago, Tara Ariano said:

ha! I figured it would come back around to that. I didn't intentionally not talk about it; I also don't know what people already know about it, so: ask and I'll answer!

A couple of people mentioned wanting the dirt, and I can only give my own perspective. When that episode aired, I was both a TWoP reader and a West Wing watcher, but the fact that the episode was based on Sorkin visiting the TWoP forums and being moderated was something I didn't know until much later. Two things I cared about had combined without my realizing it! I just completely missed the whole thing.

Also, my memory of Josh's rant about fandoms is that he basically says it's possible to like something without buying into the crazy fan community, and to me that was the whole point of TWoP: a place where people liked things you liked, but didn't go off the rails about it. You could go to a Star Trek fan site if you wanted to rank your favorite Cardassians (or whatever Josh says), you went to TWoP when you wanted to be, as the slogan said, snarky. So to find out that the rant was directed at TWoP just seemed really misplaced and confusing.

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  18 hours ago, Stowaway said:

So disappointed you didn't get into Sorkin on the TWoP forums. Tara teases it at the beginning, and then it never happens!

ha! I figured it would come back around to that. I didn't intentionally not talk about it; I also don't know what people already know about it, so: ask and I'll answer!

I didn't know about TWoP until its last days. I've only heard that there was something that happened in the forums with Aaorn Sorkin and he didn't like "the internet". And I think the episode with LemonLyman.com was his response? Did he not like what people were saying about the show? Did he post? Was there a "fight" of some sort?

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My pick would definitely be Brody from Homeland. What if he'd actually been killed at the end of season 1 or mid season 2 and then was just a figment of Carrie's imagination from then on. Season 3 would have been so much bearable. I mean, it was already established that Carrie was nuts, so it's not even that much of a stretch. The baby could even be imaginary, too. Win-win!

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All I really remember clearly is the glee finding out from the assistant or source very close to the Sorkin side that after is second on-forum melt down he had his internet keys taken away by the studio. This wasn't the muumuu one but the one relating to his online spat with a writer on his show over credit and/or money.

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All of the above is a pretty good recollection of events. Sorkin actually had two visits (that we knew of) to the TWoP forums. On the first one, everyone pretty much tongue-bathed him and, of course, he had no problem with that. Between then and his second visit, a thread had been created called "Anti-Female Sexism On The West Wing" -- which I had actually changed from "Misogyny On The West Wing" because I thought it was too harsh (and which I hadn't just called "Sexism On The West Wing" because I was so much younger then and might not have argued at the time that sexism against men isn't a thing; now, of course, #BanMen is my default position (kidding (kind of))). He objected to the idea that sexism on the show was something that would even need to be addressed, and got into some arguments with people who'd posted in the thread. Not long afterward, "The U.S. Poet Laureate" aired. To this day I still don't know for certain that it was "about" his experience on the TWoP boards since there were lots of fan forums for the show at the time, but that was the order of events.

And: watching "The U.S. Poet Laureate" on Saturday was a very different experience for me, all these years later. People on the internet are even crazier now, probably! (hee.) It's also cute to note that the premise of that plotline wouldn't even make sense in 2016: now, Josh would be expected at least to have a Twitter account and use it to engage with the public. But he would also probably have received training as to how to do that unobjectionably.

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3 hours ago, Tara Ariano said:

And: watching "The U.S. Poet Laureate" on Saturday was a very different experience for me, all these years later. People on the internet are even crazier now, probably! (hee.) It's also cute to note that the premise of that plotline wouldn't even make sense in 2016: now, Josh would be expected at least to have a Twitter account and use it to engage with the public. But he would also probably have received training as to how to do that unobjectionably.

Thank you Tara! I think even the Josh of that day would have had more training/guidance in that regard. But we live in a magical time, where I can go to Neflix, pull up "The U.S. Poet Laureate", and find and watch all the Josh scenes as a 10 minute self-distraction project. It's interesting that the only sensible thing that happens in any of his scenes is a woman cautioning him to shut up. (Also, apparently I misremembered and his rant about fandoms is from another episode?)

I don't know why I'm so interested. . . I think Sorkin is the writer (in any medium) I've done the fullest 180 on. I'm not surprised the issue that set him off was sexism. He's earned it. (Though is it me, or has it actually gotten worse since then?)

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8 hours ago, Stowaway said:

(Also, apparently I misremembered and his rant about fandoms is from another episode?)

That's from the season 4 episode Arctic Radar, where Josh confronts an intern who wears a Star Trek pin to work, and goes off on fandoms making lists, etc.

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