(no subject)
Feb. 19th, 2007 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_elyan"President Bartlet is not a George W Bush who can talk - as unlikely a notion as a platypus that can fly - but a Bill Clinton whose sexual requirements are full satisfied by marriage to Stockard Channing"
I appear to have got sucked into watching the West Wing again. I only have the first four series, but that's more than enough to keep me busy... The truly startling thing about the West Wing (as opposed to what I just mistyped, the Wets Wing) is how it takes no time to find its feet, and stays on them for so long. I have just watched the first episode, which on its own is enough to justify the stellar reputation of the show. Take the spartan but brilliant drawing of the three characters from the Religious Right - the mistakenly avuncular and bumbling Al Caldwell, the stupid John Van Dyke, and the mindbogglingly repulsive Mary Marsh. How, with so little screen time, they managed to make Marsh so revolting is a typical example of the brilliance of the show. The first appearance of the President, his instant and vice-like grip on the situation, and the reactions of everyone else in the room, are a masterclass in dramatic technique. And that was the first episode, dammit!.
The Wets Wing has its faults - there are times when someone should have gagged and bound the Musical Director, for a start - but it is an exceptional achievement that remains compulsuively watchable on, for me, my third time around it...
I appear to have got sucked into watching the West Wing again. I only have the first four series, but that's more than enough to keep me busy... The truly startling thing about the West Wing (as opposed to what I just mistyped, the Wets Wing) is how it takes no time to find its feet, and stays on them for so long. I have just watched the first episode, which on its own is enough to justify the stellar reputation of the show. Take the spartan but brilliant drawing of the three characters from the Religious Right - the mistakenly avuncular and bumbling Al Caldwell, the stupid John Van Dyke, and the mindbogglingly repulsive Mary Marsh. How, with so little screen time, they managed to make Marsh so revolting is a typical example of the brilliance of the show. The first appearance of the President, his instant and vice-like grip on the situation, and the reactions of everyone else in the room, are a masterclass in dramatic technique. And that was the first episode, dammit!.
The Wets Wing has its faults - there are times when someone should have gagged and bound the Musical Director, for a start - but it is an exceptional achievement that remains compulsuively watchable on, for me, my third time around it...
