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Mar. 1st, 2006 02:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adelineCatch-up a season and a half of The West Wing: done!
Liked it, for the most part. This season's pace felt weird at first, but that was inevitable, I got over it. Will/Kate = cuteness. Really liking the current storyline with the nuclear incident in California and its repercussions on both campaigns, but it just bugs me how no one ever mentioned Sam Seaborn, whom we have every reason to believe to currently be a Congressman for California. Come to think of it, they may have tried to get Rob Lowe (didn't they every season, according to some rumor or other?), in which case... damn him!
No, okay, in all seriousness? I liked things, and disliked things, and feel pretty meh about other things. Oh, the Sit. Room looks so much LESS impressive without Leo, Fitz and/or Nancy in it - it's just not the same. Speaking of Leo no longer sitting in there, did they send home any political careers consultant people they may have had on the set before, when Sorkin and Schlamme walked? Because the whole deal with Leo being back in the White House WITHOUT ANY OFFICIAL TITLE made no sense whatsoever - and I'm a usually reeeally good customer for all the suspend-your-disbelief crap that shows pull off all the time. And the work Charlie did for CJ, what was it again? Ugh, John Wells. ::shakes head:: Also, Margaret is pregnant one episode, and then... what? The aliens telekinesically abducted her unborn baby? Right, sure. I'm not saying circumstances outside of the story and in the actors' lives can't ever conflict with the story, but I am saying such a dumb, easily avoidable plothole - however small or irrelevant - never would have happened in the earlier seasons. It's called attention to detail.
Moving on... The conspicuous attempts to pair off every character with another before season's end is just about the most unsubtle non-arc that ever tried to pass off as subtle. CJ/Danny I get, especially since the flash-forward from The Ticket made it pretty much a requirement. Will/Kate I think is cute. Annabeth/Leo, that came out of the blue, but sure, whatever. And hey, at this rate, Charlie will probably be back from Mandyville to propose to Zoey or some such thing before you know it. It's not that I can't get onboard with any of those pairings, but it is pretty ridiculous having them all develop simultaneously. I mean, Ellie/random!spaz? Overkill, dude.
You'll notice I didn't mention Josh/Donna yet. Well, that's a new paragraph of its own, starting with three spoilery little words: what the hell??!? We get a Seasons 1-3 era of banter, a Season 4 chock-full of build-up, a Season 5 ridden with muted acknowledgement (or "tragically unconsummated love kept at arm's length by puritanical American work ethics" - I'm only a little bit scared by the fact I didn't have to look that up.), a Season 6 packed with angst, and... (spoilers ahead, as if you hadn't figured them out by now) this season, Season 7 virtually VOID of anything significant is when it happens? Woe.Woe woe woe. Now, see, there's another place a little subtlety might have been nice. Quite obviously though, subtlety is not this season's forte. Well, half-season, to be fair/optimist. (I'll still be squeeing my lungs off when I see it, but, yeah, can't think of many worse ways the groundwork could have been lain.)
ETA, and this I just thought of, where did Bram come from? Out of left field, that's where! What was the point of firing Ned? Is that just somebody up at NBC headquarters deeming that, hey, that guy's not all that attractive, let's replace him with a younger and hunkier unknown? Or maybe if there was a creative/narrative design behind that idea, Ned's dismissal from the Santos campaign will come bite them in the ass in a bunch of episodes. I guess that's a big "if." I didn't even care much for Ned, it just struck me as odd and uncalled for. Whatever.
On the up side, I'm surprisingly enjoying the campaign a whole lot. The non-aggressiveness (I feel confident that this is not a word) of it is total science fiction, but eh, that's why TV-land is such a nicer place. Go Santos! (You get a cookie for reading this, if you did.)
By the by, the fandom is lacking in so many areas. No one writes about the Wells characters. That's hopefully not true, but it sure is what it seems like. I don't remember ever seeing, on LiveJournal, any Kate fics. Annabeth fics are scarce, as are Will fics. Never mind Lou, Bram, Matt Santos... Heh, there probably are more Andi fics out there than there are for any of those I mentioned, and she hasn't been featured since season 5. (I like her fine, just making a point.)
Liked it, for the most part. This season's pace felt weird at first, but that was inevitable, I got over it. Will/Kate = cuteness. Really liking the current storyline with the nuclear incident in California and its repercussions on both campaigns, but it just bugs me how no one ever mentioned Sam Seaborn, whom we have every reason to believe to currently be a Congressman for California. Come to think of it, they may have tried to get Rob Lowe (didn't they every season, according to some rumor or other?), in which case... damn him!
No, okay, in all seriousness? I liked things, and disliked things, and feel pretty meh about other things. Oh, the Sit. Room looks so much LESS impressive without Leo, Fitz and/or Nancy in it - it's just not the same. Speaking of Leo no longer sitting in there, did they send home any political careers consultant people they may have had on the set before, when Sorkin and Schlamme walked? Because the whole deal with Leo being back in the White House WITHOUT ANY OFFICIAL TITLE made no sense whatsoever - and I'm a usually reeeally good customer for all the suspend-your-disbelief crap that shows pull off all the time. And the work Charlie did for CJ, what was it again? Ugh, John Wells. ::shakes head:: Also, Margaret is pregnant one episode, and then... what? The aliens telekinesically abducted her unborn baby? Right, sure. I'm not saying circumstances outside of the story and in the actors' lives can't ever conflict with the story, but I am saying such a dumb, easily avoidable plothole - however small or irrelevant - never would have happened in the earlier seasons. It's called attention to detail.
Moving on... The conspicuous attempts to pair off every character with another before season's end is just about the most unsubtle non-arc that ever tried to pass off as subtle. CJ/Danny I get, especially since the flash-forward from The Ticket made it pretty much a requirement. Will/Kate I think is cute. Annabeth/Leo, that came out of the blue, but sure, whatever. And hey, at this rate, Charlie will probably be back from Mandyville to propose to Zoey or some such thing before you know it. It's not that I can't get onboard with any of those pairings, but it is pretty ridiculous having them all develop simultaneously. I mean, Ellie/random!spaz? Overkill, dude.
You'll notice I didn't mention Josh/Donna yet. Well, that's a new paragraph of its own, starting with three spoilery little words: what the hell??!? We get a Seasons 1-3 era of banter, a Season 4 chock-full of build-up, a Season 5 ridden with muted acknowledgement (or "tragically unconsummated love kept at arm's length by puritanical American work ethics" - I'm only a little bit scared by the fact I didn't have to look that up.), a Season 6 packed with angst, and... (spoilers ahead, as if you hadn't figured them out by now) this season, Season 7 virtually VOID of anything significant is when it happens? Woe.
ETA, and this I just thought of, where did Bram come from? Out of left field, that's where! What was the point of firing Ned? Is that just somebody up at NBC headquarters deeming that, hey, that guy's not all that attractive, let's replace him with a younger and hunkier unknown? Or maybe if there was a creative/narrative design behind that idea, Ned's dismissal from the Santos campaign will come bite them in the ass in a bunch of episodes. I guess that's a big "if." I didn't even care much for Ned, it just struck me as odd and uncalled for. Whatever.
On the up side, I'm surprisingly enjoying the campaign a whole lot. The non-aggressiveness (I feel confident that this is not a word) of it is total science fiction, but eh, that's why TV-land is such a nicer place. Go Santos! (You get a cookie for reading this, if you did.)
By the by, the fandom is lacking in so many areas. No one writes about the Wells characters. That's hopefully not true, but it sure is what it seems like. I don't remember ever seeing, on LiveJournal, any Kate fics. Annabeth fics are scarce, as are Will fics. Never mind Lou, Bram, Matt Santos... Heh, there probably are more Andi fics out there than there are for any of those I mentioned, and she hasn't been featured since season 5. (I like her fine, just making a point.)
