There are two wonderful quotes, but I don’t remember them verbatim. I hope you can bear with me.
In The Shadow of Two Gunmen: CJ, still wearing her outfit that is quite tattered and abused, appears in the press room to brief reporters on the president’s condition following an assassination attempt. She begins, however, with a litany of crime reports involving guns in the last several hours across the country. Then, she says, “Lest you think that guns would have helped these crime victims, consider this. At [some time] this evening, the President of the United States and members of his staff were victims of a gun crime. At the time, they were surrounded by the best trained and best armed security detail ever assembled in the history of the world.” Though fictional, it put gun control into perspective. Also in that episode, the Secret Service chief is talking to someone about “How could this have happened?” He bristled at the suggestion that the Secret Service somehow failed. He points out that he cannot do anything until the crime is committed. He then points out that the first shot was fired and something like eighteen seconds later, the shooter was dead. How could that be failure?
In one of the episodes where Bartlet’s daughter is missing and John Goodman is the Speaker cum President, he tells the military to be ready, because of Zoey Bartlet turns up dead, he’s going to want to blow something up!!! Wouldn’t you like to say something like that when you’re a bit frustrated and stressed?
I love how, even when I completely disagreed with their stance (such as the aforementioned gun control), it didn’t feel as if the characters were espousing beliefs for personal gain but out of genuine belief. It let me sympathize with them even as I disagreed. I also like how they never went for the cheap shots by using the Republican party as a default bad guy.
The dialog was incredible, with some of the fastest one-liners I’ve ever seen fly by.
I strongly believe that TWW had the best pilot episode of any television show ever, and that that sequence in particular was one of the greatest sequences ever shot. That sequence and the “sudden arboreal stop” line instantly cemented TWW as a must-watch show for me.
Seriously, if there are any shows with a pilot that was as strong or stronger, I want to see it.
Of course, the one episode which never should have been aired was Isaac and Ismael.
Besides that, loved the show.
I would like my afternoon back now, please. Who knew there was so much good TWW on YouTube?
I loved that show. I even wrote my one and only ever fanfic about it, when ‘write a fanfic’ was the monthly assignment for my writer’s group. The 500 word assignment clocked in at 6500 or so words, just because it was so damned entertaining to write in that style.
I (of course) have all seven seasons on DVD. One of these weeks I’m going to take advantage of the fact that there’s nothing much on TV anyway and work my way through the entire series.
Why not?
He asked without rancor or offense. 
But that line came at the end of a scene that showed one of Sorkin’s weaknesses. The religious conservatives in that scene were ridiculous caricatures (and I say this as someone who has very little use for religious conservatives). Sorkin can’t write a realistic conservative just like Tom Clancy can’t write a realistic liberal.
My complaint about the show is how much it made you hate real politics.
At least the whole final two seasons where the fictional electorate had an awesome Democrat and an awesome Republican to choose from.
I have a handful of DVD’s. There is too much out there I want to see the first time without watching something the second time.
That said I splurged and bought the West Wing boxed set so I could sit and watch the entire run end to end. Even after watching all the reruns on Bravo.
Just tonight I was coming home late and stumbled on Dr Laura on the radio. All I can ever think of when I hear her shrill self rightous voice is this.
So, so many scenes I could mention, maybe I need somebody to help;
MARGRET!
I still can’t hear The Little Drummer Boy without hearing the gunshots.
As for myself, I just started Season 7 of my fourth time through the series. Never gets old. And I don’t think the later seasons deserve half the crap people give them.
Great show indeed, and that’s speaking as a hardcore libertarian. The development of Ainsley Hayes was a testament to the writers. They made her credible and brilliant, rather than a caricature. Her debate scene with Sam is still one of my favorites. Probably the best American drama ever.
And as a Gilbert & Sullivan fan, I loved this scene: He is an Englishman.
If only the real world was like TWW.
I didn’t so much have a complaint about the conservatives, in general, being depicted unrealistically- although, any conservative who was meant to be a sympathetic character generally tended to be fiscally conservative but socially moderate, or even socially liberal. The “good guy” Republicans tended to come off, idealistically, more as libertarians.
However, have have the same complaint about this scene as you do.
I didn’t start watching the West Wing until the second season, so I didn’t see the first episode until after I was already a fan (in fact, I didn’t see it until I bought the seven season boxed set). Otherwise, this scene nearly ruined for me what was otherwise a wonderful first episode. Had this been the first I had seen of the series, all the hope that would have built up in me that I had found a new favorite show could possibly have been crushed once this scene unfolded.
The three characters in that scene with Josh and Toby were high profile vocal Bible-thumpers, yet they couldn’t amongst the three of them list the Ten Commandments in order. Whether you love Bible-thumpers or you hate Bible-thumpers, and it may be true that some of the most vocal don’t actually know their own source material very well, and it may be true that being a Bible-thumper does not equate to being a Bible scholar, they are at least going to be able to recite The Ten Freaking Commandments!!!
Putting three national level, high profile, Christian leaders into a scene then asking the audience to believe that none of those characters had the Ten Commandments memorized, was stupid writing, it was lazy writing, it was cheap. Probably, the very worst example from the entire seven series run.
Having said that . . . Big Fan!!! Love the show!!!
That’s also the episode where Goodman says something like, “If a plane doesn’t respond to a hailing, shoot it down. I don’t care if my mother is on it going to see her mother.” That was a great story arc for the show, one of the best, I thought.
I was a fan of TWW from the start, and though I was a bit disappointed in seasons 4 & 5, I thought it returned to form in the last two seasons. Except when they made Toby the guy who leaked the info about the military space shuttle. It was clearly established early on that Toby was a definite anti-leaker, and that his brother (the dead astronaut) would be firmly against spilling that secret.
I disagree with you. It may not have been their strongest episode, but Sorkin felt that he had something to say about the growing anti-Muslim hysteria. And it was nice to get back to a pre-Spt 11 routine (this was the first network new episode broadcast after the attacks in 2001).
Christians list them differently than Jews, although from this list everyone seems to agree on the first.
I feel like the message of that scene was that they were too caught up in their own rhetoric and anger to remember the truth of what they were fighting for. The guy had that nice first ammendment/first commandment hook and wanted to use it, and that overrode what the probably really did know if he thought about it for a moment.
Toby gets it wrong, too, in saying that Honour thy Father and thy Mother is the third commandment – it’s the 4th or 5th, I think in the different orderings.
Sam: Please, God, don’t let anyone be watching this.
Cut to the White House
Josh, to Toby: Come quick…Sam’s getting his ass kicked by a girl.
Toby: I’ll get the popcorn.
Pure gold.