Seems I'm rewatching The West Wing
I'm in a bit of denial but I can't escape the fact I'm rewatching The West Wing. So far I've just been cherry picking odd episodes but at some point I will have watched them all. So I might as well just watch them in the proper order as nature and Aaron Sorkin intended.
It's not been that long since my last rewatch. Maybe four years. And it's a lot of tv show. My time would certainly be better spent elsewhere.
It's just so comforting. The hum of intense conversation back and forth. And it's a fantasy. It was a fantasy then and it's even more of a fantasy now. Soothing my troubled mind. Maybe I can pretend there are smart, principled people out there.
The West Wing is a good show. Production values and so on. It doesn't come up in a lot of discussions of great TV, Golden Age, which I think is odd and a shame and mostly put down to the lack of weapon-wielding.
I remember the first time I watched it. My family was piled on a hotel bed at Heathrow the night before flying to the US. Maybe that was what inspired my mum to choose it. The first episode of season two, showing on Channel 4. And that was it. We were sold. Back when we thought GW was the worst possible president.
The West Wing is also not a good show. It has problems with race and gender that it nods at every so often. But a nod and an "Isn't it terrible this is the way it is!" feels more and more like a cop out. I don't have any statistics but I'd bet my bottom dollar this is true: the women make more mistakes than the men do. And there's only two women in the main cast.
In the main cast there are five white men who are not assistants. One white woman who is not an assistant. One white woman who is an assistant. One black man who is an assistant.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being an assistant! Which I am defining as someone who doesn't get to make their own decisions. Just assist someone else. Rather than a job title. There's a tacit acknowledgement the assistants are the ones who get things done. But they don't get to be not-assistants. Because they don't have law degrees from Harvard and Yale, I guess. In the world of The West Wing the only reason you don't have law degrees from Yale and Harvard is because you're not smart. No other possible factors.
Considering they are the more liberal party the politics is still eyewateringly conservative. There are occasional forays into the local yokel trope that I hate but not half as bad as most shows.
There are fantastic supporting and guest characters. It's a rich world. Great running jokes. And isn't it nice to see hard working, hard walking, clever, passionate people, getting stuff done.
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