I have made the terrible mistake of starting to watch The West Wing again

[BlueRaincoat1]

... on Prime.

Sigh. I have watched it all before, but not in years. Maybe 10 years. I love it so much. I'll never get to bed at a reasonable hour again 😫So many episodes!

What are your favourite scenes? Best episodes? It's so brilliant, every time.

Loving the conversation in this thread, thanks everyone. DH has decided not to join me on my WW journey (he's never seen it ) and I am trying to limit the very late nights, but I've still made it to season 2 episode 6 so far.

It does feel really different to previous viewings, maybe the fact I'm the same age/older than the staffers makes a difference. It does feel slightly more, dare I say, cheesier...?, than I remember ( and the title music is awful!).

I'm interested in what people have been saying about sexism and homophobia - I understand the 'Donna as device to make Josh look clever point, but other than that, what sort of things are you referring to? The 'these women' things is cringey, but CJ, Joey Lucas, Abi Bartlett, there are strength women characters too, and to be honest I don't mind Donna's character so much.

The 'happy prostitute' thing in season 1 with Sam's friend is something I have different views about now however than when I watched in my late twenties...

Also homophobia, I'm not really getting that- usually they are on the side of expanding gay rights - am I missing something really obvious?

Wow well I have to say that episode 6 of season 2 really has some low points in terms of how women are spoken to, with Donna being massively patronised about her concerns about RSI and Sam telling Ainsley she should be a baton twirler.

I do still love the West Wing though, and In The Shadow of Two Gummen was just brilliant, again.

CJ is strong but it’s totally implausible that she wouldn’t understand the census and need Sam to explain it early in S1.

Ainsley is great but Josh’s line about ‘Sam getting beaten up by a girl’ is pretty painful. Later on when they interview Joe Quincy (Matthew Perry) for her successor as WH Counsel Josh kicks off when he realises that Joe is also a Republican, which gives us the charming line ‘if you’re gonna be a Republican you should damn well look like Ainsley Hayes!’ When she is bullied by the two dickheads it’s Sam who has to ride in as a white knight to save her and I am absolutely convinced that this was Sorkin writing up a nerdy high school fantasy of rescuing a beautiful girl with clever words and a powerful job.

This sounds so critical and I really do love the show but it’s been much harder to ignore this stuff this time around.

If anyone feels up to putting their TWW education on US politics to use, I've just started a thread in Politics about the Midterms next week: www.mumsnet.com/talk/politics/4667652-us-midterms

Now where did I put those red and blue marker pens....

Just finished watching all 7 seasons last night, phew, my head is melted as I watched a marathon the last few days, but I really want to rewatch already😀(what is the acceptable time lapse before rewatching?)

Thoughts right now are, I liked:
CJ - she's who I want to be when I grow up! But I didn't think she was right as chief of staff in the end. It was kind of messy when they changed roles, and I kept thinking in real life it wouldn't be that unprofessional, they would have just gotten an outsider in to fill one of the roles.

Toby - loved his dry cynicism and had a massive crush on him the whole way through, but really hated what they did to his character in the end. The whole way through the seasons he is the one who stands up to Bartlett and tells him things the others wont, but when it comes to the space shuttle he just goes straight to the press without having it out with him? Doesn't make sense.
Also, he should have had a proper love interest, Andie was not interested in him and they just seemed to annoy eachother.

Also really liked the whole Santos election story in the later seasons. The build up, and excitement of it was good. I liked how it showed how Josh seemed to love the thrill of campaigning, and excel at it, but he seemed a bit deflated when it was over, even though they had won.

Was disappointed with how Donna and Josh got together, seemed weird after all the build up. They were so sparky at first and there was genuine chemistry, I was hoping he would show a bit of actual emotion or something. Plus he still kept her guessing until the last minute grrr. She could have done so much better.

Generally how they dealt with couples in the show was annoying - Zoe and Charlie had no chemistry, CJ and Danny were great together, but then he disappeared for a few seasons, then he's suddenly back. It was all over the place. Maybe it was trying to show how politics messes with your personal life.

So far the first few seasons are my favourite, everyone seems a bit innocent and earnest - whereas by the second term they are all more cynical and there seemed to be less lighthearted humour in the later seasons - it was all a bit grown up and serious.

Richard Schiff was famously very angry about Toby’s S7 storyline. He felt it was totally implausible for Toby to behave that way and I completely agree with him. Supposedly he was so furious that he never watched the final season.

I've recently discovered the west wing - have just finished S1 and loving it, it's something I've wanted to watch for ages. Have a big crush on Josh, which was unexpected!

Ah, see, I would defend the chemistry. I still think TWW is really radical in the way it refuses to forefront romantic/sexual relationships. In another show - say, SATC - we rarely see details of people's work lives. There's just the odd hint. We certainly don't know the ins and outs of Miranda's clients. By contrast, on TWW we're asked to treat romantic relationships as background info. So it's hinted that CJ and Toby may or may not have had some kind of history - but that's not the point.

I find the Josh/Donna storyline really plausible. I believe Sorkin or someone else involved said that, in reality, Josh would have ended up with Amy, but they didn't want to do that (Donna was based on a real-life staffer in love with her boss). I would have found it highly unlikely that Josh would suddenly have morphed into a romantic, considerate type. He would have carried on being oblivious 99% of the time, and kind of unsettled by the unfamiliarity of a relationship.

I do think Zoe and Charlie were a bit weird. I don't think Zoe was a well-written character in general.

I think it was me who mentioned homophobia, and no, I don't think you're missing something obvious - it was just what I happened to notice with the benefit of hindsight. I would say when I first watched it, I was really struck by how pro-gay it was. I especially loved how they wrote the deep friendship between Leo and Bartlett, which I think is important in terms of homophobia because it gave the lie to the idea that men who are straight can't show strong emotion to each other.

What I notice watching it now, though, is the ingrained belief that gay rights won't advanced, and ought almost always to take a back seat. There's a storyline about how gay marriage isn't going to happen for decades, and those who campaign for it are just hurting the cause. There's the bit in The Supremes (which l love), where we're meant to like Mulready because he's basically decent despite being so very right wing, and the token 'right wing' belief he holds is that he's homophobic.

There's the bit where Ronna (in the Santos campaign) turns out to be !shock gay, and the scene is written purely so Josh can gawp and express surprise.

And there's the bit where CJ is reported to be a lesbian, on the (sketchy) grounds that, amongst other things, she was the 'best damn basketball player in Ohio Valley history'. It's a very funny storyline and I think the actress manages to give it a lot of depth that it might not otherwise have, but you can't avoid the fact that she's horrified and upset at the idea someone thinks she's not straight, and it is made very, very clear that there is no realistic way for her to deny her 'alleged and fictitious lesbianism' without sounding homophobic. It's really well written, but at root it is basically 'OMG political correctness! You can't even say you're not a lesbian these days!'

Oh, plus the bit where the President and Abby joke about how pleased they are their daughter isn't gay, 'or at least straight enough to marry the fruit fly guy!'

Aaron Sorkin left at the end of S4 and S5 was a mess while they worked out what the new writers were going to do with it. I really recommend the West Wing Weekly podcast btw, one episode per WW ep and Joshua Malina is one of the presenters (although I hated Will Bailey). I think the series really missed Rob Lowe's lightness of touch for a while there.
The Toby storyline was appalling. Richard Schiff said that after Aaron left the producers didn't understand the character and didn't know what to do with him.
CJ as chief of staff didn't really work for me either. Josh was deputy COS for all those years and didn't get the job? They just made him look like an idiot for a few episodes to justify it...the shouting at the Capitol bit was especially excruciating.
And Leo....oh Leo. Every time I watch those episodes I bawl. John Spencer died so young. It only occurred to me later that he and Jimmy Smits would have worked together on LA Law.

Just coming to the end of my patchy rewatch. I will say that I picked up a bit on the homophobia but for a show 20 years old I think it was reasonably progressive for it's time. With Rona for example yes Josh gawped and it was a bit 'token gay' but this was a time when a gay character was gay for a storyline purpose/plot point and that wasn't the case here.

I think the season 6/7 Josh and Donna chemistry is no where near as good as the early seasons. It's not playful but it's slightly more plausible I guess.

And on romantic sub plots I'd forgotten Leo and the small spokesperson lady who's name I forget! What was that about!

Annabeth!

Voting in the Midterms underway today!

We’ve just watched Twenty Five, the final episode of season 4. I must have seen it ten times but tonight was the first time I’ve noticed that it’s Emilio Estevez playing the young Jed in the archive footage of Zoey’s childhood. Clever.

Moment of pride. A young whippersnapper colleague asked me today if I knew Charlie Sheen's real surname. Smashed it. Extra points for pointing out his father Martin was in Apocalypse Now and the book it was based on.

Although it did make me feel a teeny bit like my Nana dad

Wow, well I agree with him. Although his acting is still really good in season 7, but it's like a different character.

That's a good point I guess, the show is supposed to be about working relationships rather than focusing on romantic ones.
Plus I suppose if you think about it politics is a high stakes, high stress job with long hours - especially at that level. Not exactly great conditions for a healthy relationship.

Yeah that was definitely a weird one, as were the young interns who were brought in to help out Will Bailey in an earlier season.
It just seemed like an excuse to have young women fawning over him, and quite unprofessional given it was the White House.

I disagree. The Toby S7 was following the better Angel he always goaded Jed with. He was always on the righteous path, which is why none of his candidates won.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it. I had a very long commute for years and could watch three episodes a day on trains. We did a rewatch recently and introduced DS to it; I was most relived he also loved it. The only episode I never rewatch is the one where CJ goes home to Cleveland - it’s too sad and doesn’t add anything to the overall plot.

I decided to start watching when season two was broadcast for the first time on C4 and was hooked from the first episode (although also massively confused trying to work out who was who and what was going on 😬).

My top trivia fact about the show is that the opera music they use at the end of Season 3 during the theatre montage was written by John Oliver’s uncle!

Absolutely! As I say, I only noticed the homophobic in retrospect (because the show has dated), and I still think there is so much that it does that is good.

With Leo and Annabeth - I wonder if they are a storyline planned that had to be changed because of John Spencer's death?

Though, I also don't follow what they were trying to do with Rina and Toby - again, that was a weird, incomplete storyline.

The maps, I'll never forget the maps!

I think of it every time I see a map.

West Wingers may like to try Designated Survivor, a US political thriller starring Kiefer Sutherland.
Storyline is a relatively low level Independent politician (Sutherland) ends up as president of the US after a bomb wipes out most of the govt.
Although its a thriller there's lots of politics with a weekly dose of problems to be solved. It's not perfect but quite good for the first two seasons (out of three) and there's lots of corridor walking

Just starting to rewatch I'm on the pilot will catch up on thread later but why is Mallory's surname different to her parents?