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.

They don’t say - I think the top fan theories are either that she was married and divorced before, or she used her mother’s maiden name at work. I think the latter makes more sense - she works in a DC state school, McGarry would be quite a stand-out name and potentially get her a bit of unwanted attention.

I took the recommendation from @species5618 and got a box set of Designated Survivor. It's great and thanks for the tip!

Thanks for reply. Yea I guess she could be avoiding her dads name but he has a fairly common name so shouldn't be an issue

I find it plausible that Mallory might choose to use her mother's maiden name. Leo is very high-profile in DC and would have had a high level of name recognition even before the Bartlet administration. He was the Secretary of Labor and made a lot of money in industry. It would be like being named Murdoch, or Blair. Don't forget that Leo's sister Josephine has a high profile in public schooling (she is a superintendent of schools, albeit in Atlanta rather than DC) and is also called McGarry.

Feeling in the need of comfort tv tonight so have put on S5 Ep17 - The Supremes 😁

We just watched the Dr Jenna Jacobs(?) episode. One of my favourite scenes ever. 'You might have mistaken this for the monthly meeting of the ignorant tightass club'

Resurrecting thread to say thank you to whoever recommended the podcast The West Wing Weekly. I am enjoying it so much and learning a lot about how tv is made and stories from the cast. Cheers!

So glad to see this thread bumped! Glad you are enjoying the podcast (I'm on my 3rd relisten of it currently!) @PrimroseLane, have you got to the Lin Manuel Miranda episode yet?

@ShadowPuppets @Binglebong I'm just rereading through this thread (because, y'know "West Wing"!) and I saw your comments about this episode.

If you listen to the podcast about this episode (S2 Ep11) they talk to Emily Proctor (Ainsley Hayes) who recounts an embarasingly similar story when she met the show director Tommy Schlamme for lunch and basically had a waiter ask her if she had lost anything, only to reveal (very delicately) that some underwear had fallen out of her trouser leg and he had scooped it up for her.

She's pretty certain that inspired Aaron to write the Donna/Karen Cahill section of that episode!

Brilliant!

@CaveMum I am on episode 2.15, just had a song clip from LMM so far, not a full episode. I love the podcast hosts and it’s so great so many of the WW cast and crew contribute. Wondering if they are still selling merch, I am very late to buy merch!

@PrimroseLane the LMM episode is dropped in as they get towards the end of S4. It’s very good!

@PrimroseLane love that you’re loving The west wing weekly! It’s such a great podcast. I have found it to be a bit of a gateway drug into other watch along type podcasts, although many aren’t quite as good!

I bought a t shirt with the hand signal on it recently and I love it. It's gorgeous quality too
I was gutted to find that I'd missed all of the live events, including two in London.

WWW merch

cottonbureau.com/people/the-west-wing-weekly

How much was the shipping? Would love a t-shirt.

About $20, I think. Not prohibitive.

@Itsmemaggie i have a few “watch along” podcasts. The Scrubs one (Fake Doctors, Real Friends) is good and drawing to a close now having started during lockdown and I’m loving the Buffy podcast “The Rewatcher” which is about halfway through S2 at the moment, one presenter is a fan from the 90s and the other has never seen the show before.

The BBC do good “behind the scenes” podcasts for several of their shows, I liked the ones for Ghosts, Rogue Heroes and Inside Number 9.

ok i'm persuaded - i'm going to do this too

Just came on to say if anyone read tv critics reviews (like I did) that the Netflix Diplomat series with Kerri Russell is like The West Wing and got excited, you probably shouldn’t. I watched it and it is slick and funny in parts but on no level does it come close to the West Wing. Just don’t get your hopes up.

Thanks for the heads up@PrimroseLane!
The West Wing is really in a league of its own, the only thing that I think came close was The Newsroom. Also Aaron Sorkin, and that ended way too soon - I would have loved to see what they would have made of 2016 onwards.

Agreed. Watched this at the weekend and enjoyed it but it's not in the same league at all. A little bit too much "comedy" for me. Easy and decent enough watch though. I do like Keri Russell. Might rewatch the Americans soon.

To be fair it is funny but I am wondering if the tv critics likening it to the TWW actually watched TWW. I feel bad I don’t like Kerri Russell, I don’t know why I don’t but there you go.

I bloody loved Sports Night. It boggles the mind that he was writing that and TWW at the same time.

Night Agent - also not in the same league as TWW.