The West Wing: Trivia, Questions (Here Be Spoilers)

[Fiderer]

Also admiration and swooning. If you haven't watched all 7 seasons, read no further!

Two Cathedrals - have watched it several times and only just realised last night that Mrs Landingham was driving back to the WH as Bartlet wanted to tell her about the MS.

I love the scenes with young Mrs L and Jed.

Why "two" cathedrals though?

I don't think we've slated it, just said it isn't up to the standard of the rest of the series. As one would expect in the circs.

Studio 60 is highly disconcerting, esp as Felicity Huffman turns up (hello, I am Ann Stark - or should I have saved that for a trivia question?)

Later on, Allison Janney turns up ... even more confusingly as herself. One of the characters talks dismissively of her 'little White House show'. It's an absolute classic of an episode, though.

Did you mean Studio 60 Jordan rather than West Wing Jordan, Fiderer? She gets less annoying (the S60 that is, the WW is fantastic from the start).

Btw I also didn't like the Live Debate - as an episode it was okay but hate this stupid gimmick of the live show. Esp as the poor buggers have to do it twice, once for east coast and then once for west. But once it's been on (twice) - it's just another show that's been recorded that everyone else watches later, and all you've really done is cause the cast and crew to severely want to poop their pants.

My theory is that the Reunion episode was written specifically for Alison Janney to submit for emmy consideration - It just had that feeling to it.

It was the only episode she submitted that year so I guess it was meant to showcase her range. And then it was the only year she didn't win during the first 5 seasons....

I liked when she submitted Celestial Navigation as one of her episodes and won, because her woot canal was prize-winning comedy

Tribpot I also love how if you're a WW geek, you can watch S60 and nod your head knowingly, because it's full of 'in'...not jokes exactly, but in humour across the two shows.

So...a little WW/S60 crossover trivia:

Which firm is featured in both WW & S60?

What poster is displayed in S60 that is a reference to an episode of WW?

Which Christmas song features in both shows?

D

Delia, I think we already did the firm question above (at least the question arose as 'what firm did Sam work for' and I showed off by pointed out it appeared in S60 too Have you seen Sports Night (more fabulous Felicity).

Celestial, I didn't realise you submitted episodes for consideration. How odd. A bit like: I think I'm bloody marvellous and here's some supporting evidence .

Sorkin has since said Issac and Ishmael was a bad episode (& that it "began as a hate-filled tirade") so I think everyone's right to say it has to be taken in context and he was obviously very raw while trying to write it.

While reading about that episode, i learnt that Josh is supposedly Aaron's voice inside the show (Bradley Whitford thinks that Sorkin wanted his job, but wants to look like Rob Lowe )

It does come across slightly like that Tribpot! But everyone has to submit episodes. Usually 2 as far as I can see. Like Bradley Whitford won for Noel and SOTG which made sense.

Even for the "best TV show" type awards, they have to submit particular episodes. My guess is that the emmy judges are only willing to watch so many hours of TV. As sadly, not all TV is like the WW...

Yes, I suppose that makes sense. You're not going to wade through the whole of every series to see if it's any good, but to be fair to all you have to give them the same amount of consideration.

I also think the episode where Sam has found out his father had an affair was written for Rob Lowe to put in for an Emmy. Except he was supposedly a main actor so he landed up in the same catagory as Martin Sheen (submitting Two Cathedrals). Which made no sense to me.

John Spencer/Richard Schieff/Bradly Whitford were all going for supporting actors and their characters were at least as prominent as Sam.

Also, who on earth would want to compete with Sheen in Two Cathedrals?

(It is a relief to get my conspiracy theories about the Emmys off my chest - I far preferred the ensemble type episodes than episodes where one character suddenly dominated. Except Noel as I am hopelessly biased towards Josh).

Yeah but writing stuff specifically for consideration is just cheating, innit? I think the Emmy bods should take two eps at random to prevent such brazen hustling.

Wasn't this the crux of the problem for/about Rob Lowe? He was, Sheen excepted, the most famous person in the cast when it started and so could reasonably assume he would have the lead-ish role, whatever that exactly means in an ensemble piece. Being downgraded to 'one of the many' was quite galling for him (although arguably he should have been bloody grateful to have been in it in the first place, I bet Michael J Fox wouldn't have had a shit fit in the same circumstances). However, competing with Martin Sheen in Two Cathedrals was just bloody stupid. Even if you won (which you wouldn't), how would you feel about that forever ??

It would be much better if they took 2 random episodes - I don't really feel its cheating, more they want to show an actor's range so they do an episode that is full of chances for that actor to show emotion. But it seems to happen a lot with american series (you get the press saying "spot the Emmy episode" when some shows suddenly insert one). I think the viewers get short-changed sometimes.

It must have been hard for Rob Lowe to be downgraded, when Sheen wasn't expected to be in the series that much, but every other actor, including Sheen, talked a lot about how grateful they were to have such wonderful actors to play against. Which seems a better perspective to take. Whereas Lowe left Brothers and Sisters for the same reason (and they had a pretty good ensemble cast too).

Yes, it would indeed be very hard to feel satisfied with an award where you had to believe you were better than Martin Sheen in Two Cathedrals...

Mind you, Tony Soprano still beat Sheen and Sheen never won it.

at the brazen Emmy hustling. I was surprised enough when I found out that episodes were submitted. Suppose I'd always thought the panel-thingy would know what shows/actors were good and there'd be a sort of compare & contrast & suggest process.

The corporate side of TV is cut-throat though, what I saw during my dizzying first look at Studio 60 shows that well. I think I'm soppy and naive about this because I'd like to think the actors don't choose the episodes ("Oh, I'm fabulous in this one") but the networks and agents.

I had no idea the Emmys worked like that - seems a bit of a cheek - they should watch it all .

Does anyone have a link for which episodes won which awards for the WW then - I bet you do!

This is the best I can find with a quick Google. It lists all nominations and awards won.

Also this, for episodes submitted:

www.westwingepguide.com/index.html

Click on "information type" for each season, and then "awards"

Tells you which episodes were submitted and which ones won.

Also if you click on "episodes" you will be lost for hours...there is a huge amount of quotes from interviews from cast and Sorkin etc about individual episodes and how they felt about them etc - eats up large chunks of the day...

I do think its largely the networks who pressure for as many submissions as possible btw - apparently its a huge competitive, money-driven, ratings-driven thing to them when "their" shows get Emmys.

Some actors have to be persuaded to submit "for consideration" and then only a shortlist of those get an actual nomination.

Yes, it hurt my artistic sensibilities too, Gettingalife, and frankly I would be perfectly willing to simply dedicate myself to watching whole seasons of TV shows as a fulltime Emmy-judge job too

Ooh, Celestial, (that sounds odd but ne'r mind!) that link.

Its some site, isn't it? Most of the WW trivia humming around my head has come from the interview quotes on that site. It is great comfort reading when you need distracting from actual life.

And its great to have a thread to discuss it!

The real Hartsfield Landings

I always skip the CJ reunion episode, it bored me a bit at the time and unless I've forgotten chunks of the plot it added nothing to any series story lines.

I'm sure I read/heard somewhere that WW was supposed to be a Rob Lowe vehicle - it was the first big thing he did after his 'mainstream' revival via Wayne's World. The President was supposed to just be an occasional recurring role but Martin Sheen kicked so much ass in the pilot that they shifted the focus so the first family were just as important as the staff.

Two Cathederals - still brilliant.

CelestialNavigation is a great name. By "sounds odd" I meant my "Ooh, Celestial", like something from a bad Enid Blyton copy

Debbie Fiderer has just been interviewed (S4, 20 Hours in America Part 2) and I think my heart beats for Sam Seaborn for the 1st time. For standing up for Fiderer and for the scene with Mallory where he admits that he found staffing the President really hard and says about a line in his speech, " I think I stole it from Camelot."

Favourite episodes Celestial Navigation and The Supremes

The entire collection is still the best ever tv

Han and The Long Goodbye are my least favourites.
I couldn't possibly skip episodes but I may fastforward through them