Potus has driven into a tree, Sam has accidently slept with a prostitute and Josh is about to get fired! West Wing Series One rewatch starts here!!

[lilibet]

So, episodes one and two this weekend everyone and a chat next week?

Young black chap

My favourite quote from Ep 2 is Sam saying to Mallory when he finds out that SHE'S his boss's daughter: "Oh this is bad on SO many levels!"

I am far too much of a Wingnut to just watch one episode a week. I gorge myself, DVD bulimia style!

AnelaSeaborn

I'm up to Episode 3 - watching the re-runs on More4 on Sunday nights. I only caught on to the West Wing at around the time of the assassination attempt so this is the first time I've seen these episodes. It is such a good show isn't it?

Favourite moment so far has to JB's opening lines "I am the Lord your God..." Awesome.

Ellbell - you're right about CJ's hair, it is appalling. I think she is the only character who actually looked older then than she does now! Very matronly. But then you do find that in a lot of successful long-running shows, the female characters are often heavily styled in the early episodes as a way of signifying that they are serious, strong personalities. Then as their characters become established, their image softens. I have noticed this with other shows like Buffy. Doesn't seem to happen so much with the men.

MrsBadger - I'm also amazed at how young Lisa Edelstein looks! Love her as Cuddy, she is more than a match for House.

Tribpot - I loved that exchange between CJ and Josh. Fantastic. Really brought it home how much the quality of the dialogue declined after Aaron Sorkin left. It was still great to watch, but there was nothing quite up to that standard! I am also loving the banter between Josh and Donna. Any other Bradley Whitford fans on here, by the way? I am falling for him all over again......

hello, can i join you? DH and I are new to WW but were told to watch the more4 reruns and we LOVE it!

Actually I think the initial overstyling of female characters has more to do with the fact that, at the start, they have no choice but to style the actress to look like the character in the screenwriter's head. As the series progreses, however, the actress begins to inhabit the non-visual characteristics of the character more fully so that less styling is needed for her to match the writer's vision.

And of course, conversely, by later series the writer irresistibly sees the actress when visualising that character so starts to take her interpretation of the character into account, further lessening the need for extreme styling.

(I feel there's an a MA thesis in here somewhere... anyone?)

I love the scene with CJ and the running machine! It reminds me of all those times when I finally think I have sorted out my life and think I can actually do everything (Oh yes, from now on I will be up at 6am everyday to do yoga and meditate) and then it somehow doesn't quite work out.

MrsBadger (and thanks for the Charlie pic - I must actually check if he's one of the former Mouseketeers too) I think that thesis could also be extended to Frasier, and the development of Niles.

And I have been wondering where I saw Cuddy ever since starting watching House, dammit, and can sleep easy now.

You're probably right MrsBadger - but why does this happen more with female characters than male? eg Josh, Leo, Toby, JB all look pretty much the same in the first series as in the last - give or take a few wrinkles and grey hairs. Maybe I'm just over-analysing and it's just because women have more flexibility in their dress and appearance than men. Anyway I wish I had come up with this when I was doing my TV Studies course at university, my lecturer would have loved me!

MrsBadger... so, so tempting... So... how exactly do I effect the transfer from Medieval Studies to West-Wing Studies, I wonder? Just think... farewell Patrologia Latina and assorted other dusty tomes, and hello DVD box-sets of the West Wing... Hold me back!

The dialogue is brilliant isn't it? Although I enjoyed the final series (and 6 wasn't bad - better than 5, which was appalling), when you watch these you realise how far it slumped.

I have to admit that I have always found Josh a tad annoying. That mixture of clever and vulnerable/scatty is clearly meant to be endearing, but it never did it for me. Maybe it has something to do with what lionheart was saying about the way in which cleverness is portrayed on screen. I guess the writers felt the need to attenuate the cleverness a bit, lest it got threatening. But I am far more drawn towards the untempered and actually quite aggressive cleverness of Toby...

Apparently he wasn't a Mouseketeer, but he did have small roles in She's All That and in Men of Honour (the US Navy divers film with Cuba Gooding Jr and Robert de Niro).

(The combined power of Wiki and IMDB is staggering)

I am probably alone in this, but whenever I watch an episode of the West Wing I always worry about the support staff. POTUS works late, but has lovely clean sheets and a nice hot meal when he gets back to the residence. However, when does Margaret get to do her laundry?

When does Margaret ever get to see her one-episode-pregnancy baby? (Not relevant to S1 of course). How on earth did Charlie ever graduate from college, he must have done a lot of studying on Air Force One I reckon!

Josh has never really done it for me either, Leo has always been the one, despite his being an oldster.

OK - I've been on holiday, but now I shall wade in....

I can now see the point of Sam, who I found irritatingly smug when I saw him for the first time in the last couple of episodes. Yep - he is definitely all right!

I cannot abide Mandy. She seems to me to be a caricature of a "succesful" woman. The first episode was particularly excruciating, particularly the car thing. Ugh! I don't remember many stereotypes in WW so I find her very disappointing. Maybe she'll flesh out.

The person I love and didn't expect to is Toby. He's much wittier than I remember. In the last couple of series he was a bit dour I thought, even before the whole shuttle thing.

CJ is of course a goddess. SO much more believable as a succesful woman than screeching Mandy.

Welcome back becky - glad you now know what we've been banging on about all this time. Toby was not well-served by the later series in my view. And don't worry about Mandy, you won't have to put up with her for long - they rightly acknowledged that her character didn't work fairly quickly.

MadamePlatypus, you are no longer alone because I've been thinking about this too now.
Is it maybe a question of, "I'm proud to serve the President, the Whitehouse and American democracy, and in any case, even if I am to be exploited it will still look jolly good on my c.v?"

Yep, the screechy car, loud music and shouty thing makes for a horrid entrance. Did she get negative feedback tribpot? Is that why she goes?

Wiki article on Mandy - contains moderate spoiler if you have never seen Series 2!

Mandyville makes me snigger.

I know. I've often thought of Charlie's sister. Never ever got to meet her did we? Still, she's probably in foster care all the attention Charlie gave her.

I don't know how much younger than him the sister was - when CJ is asking him to consider being a Big Brother to Anthony in S4 he says he has 'just got her off to school' - which I think means university in American.

Tribpot... you are a veritable walking encyclopedia of all things West Wing. Impressive!

MadamePlatypus... that thought has struck me too (see below re. Kenny, but it applies to all of them).

In episode 3 Josh says that Charlie wants a job in Washington till his sister gets out of high school, so she could well be old enough to let herself into the house, etc. She can't see much of her brother, though, but one assumes he at least earns enough to support them both quite decently. (Leo assures Fitz that he's going to pay him a decent wage.)

There is absolutely no 'spark' between Mandy and Josh at all, although that was clearly the intention at the beginning. She is a 'nothing character'. I didn't remember her just disappearing, though. I thought she got sacked. But obviously I've got confused. Was horrified when Josh called her Madeleine in episoide 3, as that's my dd's name. But it turns out she is a victim of 'American-spelling syndrome' (exhibit A: Zoey) and is Madeline... phew... a narrow escape. (Ditto for Donnatella Moss... Donatella should only have one 'n'... )

Finally... Becky... back off! Toby is mine! I have a 'thing' for difficult men!

slight hijack but I need sympathy onthis and you may be the women for the job

I have yet to see series 7 at all and the box set doesn't come out for ages

HOWEVER... I have just moved to Qatar and here they start showing series 7 tonight!!! YAY. Oh. except I stupidly booked myself on a flight, forgetting time differences between here and Dubai and won't be back in time. AM gutted. Sobbing. Will only get back in time for the mind numbing charade that is High School Reunion ffs.

I really must get on here earlier in the week!

I love Charlie's introduction, do we ever get an explanation of why Debbie changes her name to Fiderer? I hadn't thought about the little sister question.

I cry at nearly every episode, in epiose three it's Jed asking Charlie if he wants to go and help them out after finding out about the cop killer bullet.

Adn the end of episode three is a classic CJ/Toby moment:-- From Television without Pity

Toby's perched on the desk fiddling with a pen. C.J. comes up and stands behind Toby's right shoulder. She asks if he knows anything about as story going around about the Secret Service investigating Bertram Coles. Toby says he doesn't. C.J. tells Toby that Maggie Greeenwald is quoting him as saying the Secret Service investigates all threats made against the President, and that it's White House Policy not to comment. "Did you say that?" Toby says, "Yeah. Hey, you don't suppose that's how the story got started, do you? You know what, C.J., you tell Bert Coles that Toby Ziegler said there's a new sheriff in town." C.J. says nothing but smirks at him.

It was at moments like that when I thought there was a future for the two of them, they really had a spark, and if they hadn't shown that flash forward I almost could have beleived that she would have run off with him and left Danny.

In episode four it's just wonderful to see Josh 'doing is thing', but what about poor Leo. I'm sorry, I can see the appeal of Josh, of Sam and especially of Toby, but no one at all can match up to Leo. I didn't remember that happening so soon in the series. And with hindsight, did anyone else notice him telling St Margaret " I Don't drink champagne" He loked so crushed and then when he wouldn't tell them afterwards, sob!!

I was watching Mastermind on Monday and a specialist subject was The Vicar of Dibley!! Tripbot, come on, get on there and make us proud!!

Has nayone seen which two episodes are next?

The Crackpot and these Woman and Mr Willis of Ohio!!

Really good stuff, more tears to be shed in the lilibet household this weeknd

Will have to watch the episode when Charlie goes to hunt out Debbie again. It's a hysterical episode in itself. I can't look an alpaca in the face now (there are some at an open farm near us!). And when she goes for her first interview with JB totally off her tree.... Anyway, I think there may have been a rather short-lived Mr Fiderer, but I'm not sure...

OK... looks like I was wrong. No explanation given of the change from De La Guardia to Fiderer (in view of which, it seems a bit pointless... perhaps Lily Tomlin - who obviously wasn't envisaged in the part in series 1 episode 3 - just didn't look like a De La Guardia, but she's MRS De La G., so she could have had a more Hispanic husband...). Anyway, this from Television Without Pity (series 3, episode 22):

Ding-dong. The doorbell rings at a house somewhere outside D.C. From inside, we see Charlie tentatively peek in the window. The door opens a little. Charlie tells "Mrs. DeLaGuardia" that he's been trying to call her, but her phone seems to be on the fritz. [...] She tells him it's not the phone -- she's been hanging up on him. Apparently, Charlie's been calling about the president's secretary job, and she isn't interested. [...] Inside, she corrects him that it's not "Mrs. DeLaGuardia" anymore, it's "Debbie Fiderer." [...] Charlie rattles off her résumé of past executive-assistant-type jobs, and tells Debbie that he wants her to come talk to the President about replacing Mrs. Landingham. [...] Debbie reiterates that she isn't interested, and explains that, after a brief flirtation with gambling, she's settled into a happy life as a self-employed alpaca farmer. No, really. She doesn't have time to work at the White House; she's keeping the world safe for very soft sweaters, thank you very much.

(Last bit not relevant, but I liked the comment about 'keeping the world safe for soft sweaters'!)