Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.
So smug and preachy and self-important.
Lemme guess, there’s going to be a lot of walking while talking in this week’s episode? Stellar.
I still haven’t decided if I hate it more than THE PRACTICE, though. WEST WING is inherently more annoying, but THE PRACTICE has so many punchable characters.
And would it kill THE SOPRANOS for a subplot to actually carry over into the next week?
Either I’m not as think as you drunk I am, Town Drunk, or I disagree 100% - the show is awesome ! Band of Brothers and West Wing are the two best things on television right now !
Mr. Grace and I love the show! Mr. Grace doesn’t care so much for the walking and talking thing either.
When I first saw the show, I was a litle irritated by the tempo of the dialog. Everything is so staccato, so clipped, and --I don’t know – artificial. Nobody ever pauses to think, they just always have the perfect thing to say right out of nowhere.
But, the more I watched the more I began to appreciate that as a facet to the show. It’s actually a Sorkin trade mark (see American President and SportsNight).
Besides I think it’s a pretty smart show and I thing the actors do a hell of a job. I’m amazed with Rob Lowe. I didn’t think he had it in him.
My biggest complaint about the show is that they say “OK” waaaaaaaaay too much – another Sorkin trademark, unfortunately.
The thing that annoys me about “West Wing” is, why is it always so freakin’ dark in the White House?
Town Drunk, I totally agree. The show takes itself wayyyyy too seriously. Hate it more than ER.
Yes! Both the West Wing AND The Practice! Two horrible shows! And can you believe there is a ‘The Practice’ movie? West Wing is sure to follow behind.
Yes! Damn those well-written, well-acted, well-directed, intelligent, thoughtful, funny series like The West Wing! Damn them all, I say!
It’s well crafted but any similarity it has to the process of real world political decision making is tenuous at best. Thematically and plotwise it’s a liberal’s wet dream with the occasional token “hard decision” or conservative straw man thrown in for roughage, which is one of the reasons it’s so well loved by the media and Hollywood.
I don’t “hate” it. It’s like listening to Rush Limbaugh. Some occasional good points but you have go through a lot of glurge to get to the useful aspects.
I don’t hate it, but fall into the middle ground and agree that there are strong points and weak points to it. I can take it or leave it.
And one man’s well-written, intelligent, well-acted is another woman’s trite, smug and pretentious. It is a matter of oinion and this doesn’t stand as a statement of fact, Gadarene.
Sir Rhosis
You don’t need to tell me. 
Just presenting a conflicting set of oinions.
Blasphemers!
Heretics!
[sub]I absolutely LOVE this show.[/sub]
I watched a few episodes during the first season and thought, “Hey, this is well-written, if a bit cornball in spots. I’ll watch it regularly when the new season starts.”
The second season opener showed how all the characters decided to work on the campaign. It turned out that that not only were all the characters unbelievably idealistic and earnest, they had all somehow grown to adulthood without having the slightest clue as to how the world works.
The final straw came when we saw the press-secretary-to-be quit her PR job because a client insisted the firm (gasp) promote his viewpoint instead of hers. You’d think a fully-grown woman would have looked up the definition of “PR firm” before agreeing to take the job.
That episode pretty much killed my interest in the series. I think part of my problem is that I worked for a year in DC, and had an up-close view of how complex policy making can be, both technically and morally.
I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t grab me. I have a good friend who lives and dies by the show, and we share some entertainment tastes so I gave it a shot at her suggestion. Just couldn’t get into it, though I agree that it’s well-crafted.
I don’t hate it. It’s not interesting enough for that.
I know it’s on, I just don’t watch it. I’ve seen like half of one episode and it couldn’t hold my attention. Seems like a good show, but not to my taste.
I’ll second the nomination for The Practise. SO loved it. I hate it. I hate that Bobby guy, I just want to smash his face in. He’s so “look at me, I’m brooding”. Bah humbug. I could tolerate it until the girl married him - what the hell would she see in him? Nothing. After that I couldn’t even pretend to watch it with Mr Cazzle, but luckily he seems to have given it away.
I love Law and Order. Best show ever! I watch both series, and can’t wait for the third series to start here too.
I don’t get HBO, so Sex and Sopranos are not an option for me. That pretty much leaves West Wing in the quality adult drama category. ER jumped the shark a loooong time ago.
That’s what I like about the show. Life is not a soap opera where everything is wrapped up in a few days.
I’ve started watching The West Wing during this past season so maybe I don’t have enough to judge by, but what I have seen so far has been good.
I do agree about the lighting. They also talk to low. It’s hard to watch when you are watching a 9 month old.
Another pet peeve of mine about the show is when the staff will be wrestling with some momentous decision or problem, then they show the President either doing a crossword puzzle in his lounge or worrying about something trivial.
I hate the Left Wing. My wife, who by definition, has obviously defective reasoning, loves it. I find the endlessly liberal slant boring, but the worst part is the “sermonette” approach they take to the lecturing us on the issues. And remember when the President was mad at god and spoke to him in Latin? Boy, was he educated and erudite and smart or what? How about deranged? The Big Guy understands Latin better than English? Why not Aramaic or Hebrew maybe? Did the president feel that by using Latin he could add emphasis to the point he was making to the omniscient being? Like all the other points they make, they use a sledgehammer. Star Trek did a better job of making social commentary.
HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT!
I HATE Sorkin, is what I have decided, because I couldn’t stand Sports Night. Why? Becausepeopledon’ttalkthisfasttheyactuallyhavetothinkaboutwhattheyaregoingtosayespeciallyifitisreallyimportantorincrediblyclever. If people ever talked that way in real life you would smack them. I never could stand that, then I found out Sorkin had a coke problem, and it made sense :).
I also can’t stand the preachiness, and the constant leftist politics, and I’m a democrat! It does explain why I didn’t like the American President, since it is apparently a Sorkin creation. The conservative in that movie might as well as had horns for crying out loud.
I completely agree. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why more people aren’t watching C-SPAN. I mean, it’s realistic, people take forever to make decisions and have conversations, valid points are made at the rate of about one per week, and, best of all, it’s on 24 hours a day!
To be fair, it must be noted that Toby (the Communications Director) was shown spending several straight days in his office trying to piece together several pieces of a puzzle (the President’s undisclosed MS). The character developments of “thoughtful” and “methodical” are present. If the show depicted long, drawn-out conversations, it would have to be 4 hours long.