the west wing

i finally finished watching season 1. i had purchased it from costco a long, long time ago and returned it after being unable to watch lord john marbury due to some kind of defect with the disc. i ordered it from amazon.com after it dropped down to $20, and finally had the time and the inclination to pick it up again.

i like the show. i never liked sports night, although maybe i didn't give it enough of a chance. and it's not because of the setting or subject, because i would be hard pressed to tell you which i care less about, sports or politics. wait, no, i care less about politics. that really wasn't very hard. some thoughts:

i have friends from columbia (i specify from columbia because, keeping in mind that most of my friends are from there by now, i've never heard anything about the show from the friends i made before college with whom i still keep in touch) who are in love with the show. it's a little upsetting; i think some of them like it because they wish they were the mental giants shooting down the feebleminded dwarfs as a career (even though that can be a pretty accurate description when it comes to republicans). one scene comes to mind during which two lobbyists (i think) are meeting with toby regarding pbs and they name the wrong people as the authors of oklahoma and death of a salesman, which sends toby on an i'm-smarter-than-you-are-and-i'm-going-to-rub-your-face-in-it rampage. i know people who pride themselves on their knowledge of trivia and love nothing more than to correct people when they're wrong about the littlest thing. i'm more than a little guilty of hypocrisy here - about the correcting, but i don't know enough trivia to be hypocritical about that - but that doesn't make it untrue.

other thoughts - (note: i'm not sure of the spellings. i can either a) go with the actors' names, b) guess on the characters' names, or c) actually go to some website and look up the spellings. i'm going to go with option b. i don't know all the actors' names, and (c) is too sad even for me.)

mallory - or allison smith, i _did_ look her up, is smoking. plus she has a real good angry look. the attractive kind, unlike the angry expression that the terrifying victoria secret model is always wearing.

i resonated with sam's position on public education. fucking right, give me a palace to teach in. assholes. here i could go off on a whole thing about the expeditionary school, but i won't.

boo, and double boo to whoever wrote (i think aaron sorkin wrote all of the episodes, so he would be receiving the three boos total) the lame hack season finale. that cheesy shit belongs in 24, whatever tired season it is in by now. ending the episode, much less the season, on the "who got shot, who is going to die" cliffhanger is so beneath the ordinary level and genre of the show. not to mention the fact that they introduced the "who is _going_ to get shot" cliffhanger in the opening and made us sit through another 45 minutes to even watch the shooting take place. fucking skinheads.

it's strange to think that the show was originally conceived to center around the deputy communications director. i do think he is the funniest character, both directly and indirectly. i wonder what the show would have been like if it had stuck with that.