odds and ends

[cellio]

I'm registered and I'm voting. Six degrees of voting seems to be an effort to track this. (It shows who's connected to whom and how each person plans to vote, so I suppose if there were a lot more data some sociologist could study clustering or something. If you follow the link, you'll show up as being connected to me.)

The producers of West Wing are talking about the next administration. I had always assumed that the series would end when Bartlet's presidency ends; apparently that's not the case.

I think continuing on, following the next administration, would be a mistake. The draw of the show is the characters, and if you're going to even pretend to be realistic, most of them are going to swap out with a change in president. Even if the next president is from the same party, he'll have his own staff (mostly) and the current folks will have been in high-stress jobs for eight years.

So they can do another white-house-centered show, and even call it "West Wing", but without Bartlet, Leo, CJ, Josh, Toby, and the others, it won't be West Wing.

Thanks to rectangularcat for the tape of the season finale for 24! (Your card made me laugh.)

I owe a couple of interviews and some icons. I'm working on them.

Comments

[rectangularcat]

Glad the tape made it to you!

[siderea]

WW:TNG.

[cellio]

*laugh* Dani said exactly the same thing. :-)

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

There's only one way I could see it working.

Get Rob Loewe back, and Sam to run for President. Loewe got top billing anyway (well, after Sheen) when the series first started and it was pretty obvious that Jed was pushing him in the direction of that career path near the end. That way, you could even retain some familiar faces (Josh or Toby as Chief of Staff?).

Aside from that, I don't see it working. I stopped watching it when Sorkin left.

[cellio]

These may be words of heresy, but... I never found Sam compelling as a character. We started watching in season 3 (and back-filled later), and he seems one of the least-interesting title characters to me. I'd much rather watch Bartlet, CJ, Josh, Toby (before this season), or Leo in action. Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd watched the character develop from the start.

We're still watching, but as one reviewer on Amazon put it, season four is the last one true fans will buy new on DVD.

[schulman.livejournal.com]

without Bartlet, Leo, CJ, Josh, Toby, and the others, it won't be West Wing.

Feh. Without Sorkin, it's not West Wing, she said bitterly.

I never found Sam compelling as a character.

I liked him a lot as part of the ensemble, particularly when paired with Ainsley Hayes. On the whole, I think all the WW characters work much better playing off each other in a group than they do when they have carry an episode themselves. (Even CJ.)

I've been enjoying Desperate Housewives the past few weeks, but I keep wanting to turn it into a Sorkin show in my head, not least because it reunites Felicity Huffman and Brenda Strong from Sports Night.

(Why no, I'm not obsessive at all.)

I feel so behind....

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

I love West Wing but it keeps being on opposite shows I also love... so I rarely get a sense of what's going on _currently_ with the show since I mostly tend to catch it in reruns.... now I wonder what it's going to be like if everyone is saying it seems different after a recent change in writers

Re: I feel so behind....

[cellio]

The change in writers was before the last season. Sorkin wrote seasons 1-4, then got booted out; season 6 starts next week.

We just got season 4 on DVD. That's the last one I plan to get new. :-) (If season 5 eventually turns up cheap enough on the used market, maybe...)

[cellio]

Feh. Without Sorkin, it's not West Wing, she said bitterly.

Well, yeah. The writing is just not up to the old level.

But it's really not West Wing if all the old characters go away. As you pointed out, it's an ensemble show. If I was going to pick any member of that ensemble to be the "seed" for a new ensemble sequel, it would not be Sam.

Tell me more about Desperate Housewives? (I think I remember you mentioning it a few weeks ago, but I don't recall any details, like genre or premise.)

I wonder if any of that philosophy on the part of the west wing writers

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

is influenced by the fact that initially they had not intended the character of the president to have much of a role. Their mistake casting Martin Sheen, I guess ;)

Re: I wonder if any of that philosophy on the part of the west wing writers

[cellio]

Could be. Not that I mind. :-)

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

I don't even watch West Wing and I was wondering how they'd pull that off when I saw that CNN article. That would seem to be a totally different show, although I suppose it could be considered a spinoff.