I've admired the writing of Aaron Sorkin for quite a while, most notably with the Sports Night series. Like most people, when I saw the ads I had no interest in the show, but once it came on the TV while I was doing something else and I didn't feel like stopping to turn it off. And after that first episode I was hooked.
So really, I knew I would probably like "The West Wing" quite a bit, combining Sorkin's fantastic writing with modern American politics and a great cast. And I knew several people who were hooked and watched it every week as an event. But somehow, I never got around to it. I've never really been good at scheduling my life around watching a TV show. OK, fine, I'll admit, I've never really been good at scheduling my life around *anything*. But TV shows are included. So usually I discover great TV well after it actually appeared, on DVD (or more recently through P2P).
But my cousin went to do some work on Kurt's house and Kurt happened to have the first season DVDs. They were looking for something to watch and figured it would be OK. So, before crashing, they watch Episode 1. Then Episode 2. It became a regular thing, one episode at the end of the day, and then it was one first thing in the morning, until by the end of a 6 day job they had seen 15 episodes. Jeff bought the Season 1 DVDs for himself and brought them back to the house and over the last 6 months we've been watching regularly. I've just finally made it to the current season, and am about 6 episodes behind.
The show definitely misses the loss of Sorkin since Season 5, but the new directions are interesting. The writing isn't quite as crisp as it was, and we've lost some of the attention to the personal that was there in Season 4. But in its stead is a little more attempt at balance, at looking more deeply into the Republican side of Washington, and with less of an attempt to paint them as a faceless enemy, like the Injuns in a John Wayne movie and more like the complicated people they are.
And it definitely seems like the show could become an American Institution if they are able to maintain interest and renew in the post-Bartlet era. It is overdramatized in many ways, certainly and fictionalized in others. For example, not only do they have a President that I wish we had for real, but in their upcoming elections there will be two moderate candidates from either party, both of which I respect. This is clearly fiction. But if things carry on the way they have thus far, it may provide a dramatic foil to reality, so we can see how elections and the business of government and international relations might take place if people really did spend a little more time on principle. Fiction or not, its nice to see what we might be capable of someday.
Note:
I'm only on Episode 10, so please don't tell me just yet why somethign I've said is totally wrong because of what happened last week (or tonight).
For those who are curious, most popular TV shows can be located in a quasi-legal manner online. Of course, any show that is available on DVD should be purchased legally (which gives much better quality as well), but that leaves many shows that one would never be able to watch otherwise. If you're willing to do the work, this can be used as a "geeky poor-man's Tivo". I was able to get the latest episode of Boston Legal the day after it aired. Which means I can now catch up with shows that are broadcasting now, without having to schedule my life around them.
Anyone interested in duplicating this should be told that the legality of all this is not clear yet. So I certainly couldn't describe my own methods. However, if I provide a couple links and you are able to discern a method for yourself, that can't be helped.
Posted by ktismael at March 2, 2005 11:19 AM