Man, I used to like this show. For a show that was built on its intelligence and its ability to make its viewers think, this was just sad. I wanted to like this episode, I really did. I was thinking this episode was going to raise the bar. They were going to elevate the level of debate, or so I would have thought by the commercials leading up to it.
No, this show did nothing for me. “Real Debate?” My ass! It was two bickering children cutting each other off. It makes me think that this is what last year’s debate might have been, had it degenerated last year.
A friend of mine said he was impressed both with the live aspect and the unscripted aspect. You see, apparently, the candidates and Forrest Sawyer (the moderator who, get this, used to work for basically all 4 of the major news networks at some point) were unscripted. Apparently, they were to spend the entire week away from each other and only see each other for the first time at the debate. Now, don’t get me wrong, if its true, I’m definitely impressed with what they were able to do. Now that I’ve said that, I would have been more impressed had this been a FULLY scripted episode.
I don’t know. I had such high hopes. Thoughts?
November 6th, 2005 at 9:31 pm
Was anyone else as dismayed as I am — and I’m a professional journalist, so maybe I’m overly sensitive — that the “NBC News” bug remained onscreen throughout the debate show?
November 6th, 2005 at 10:16 pm
The only thing that bothered me about the logo was the same thing that bothered me about the parts I watched… the sheer disingenuousness of it all. The logo is a good example… no network runs their logo that opaque… it’s usually transparent even though it’s always visible and there’s no logo for the show but just the network (not NBC News, but just NBC). Lame.
And the debate format… yeah, walking around and interruptions? not the modern kabuki debate…
November 7th, 2005 at 7:59 am
Comments on and Recaps of
Comments on and Recaps of “West Wing” Live Debate
November 7th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
I had no hopes for this show being very good… A straight debate is a snooze fest for a plethera of reasons, the most important being, they aren’t really running for president so the answers don’t matter much.
With that said, I gave this episode a chance. The biggest part of the show was the HYPE. It was enough to leap frog the show in the ratings above the Simpsons this week but not enough to beat ABC’s Home makeover show with TY.
This episode was full of the flagrant stereotypes about the political parties. It went as far as the producers wanted it but, like Jishman pointed out in a conversation we had about WW last week, is that the episode was very angry.
WW was great with political dialogue in the Sorkin years. Then as his biggest hoax ever, he left the show with the Zoe Bartlett kidnap scenario. The writers have never recovered.
The show over the past year to 18 months has been more of a soap opera then a drama. Part of it because the writing has been subpar to the Sorkin years, the other part (another jishman revelation) because cast members have been trying to jump off the Titanic as quickly as possible but being thwarted by their own contracts.
My hope is that WW will get righted quickly. Hopefully, the election will be over once and for all, and the shift of the show can be back on the intrigue and political discourse that once existed.
WW as we know it has “jumped the shark”… if you couldn’t pick an episode before, the debate episode will be one that everyone can point to as the episode that ended what WW once was.
That doesn’t mean the show can’t rise from the ashes. The Bartlett administration is gone. The time to usher in a new administration with the focus on political discourse as its guide, could save it from an agonizing death.
Whether it be Sunday night or it’s old Wednesday night stronghold, the WW formula is easy; emulate the first four seasons. WW writers can add in your own flair but get back to basics; it worked once and it could work again.
But I agree with the other WW fans I know; if the ship isn’t righted and soon, it will sink quickly into the television abyss by the end of the current season.
November 7th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
Oh yeah, and I forgot, never….I mean never, ever let Ellen just ramble on TV like that again… I don’t know how much they paid her but I think the American Public would pay double never to witness that again…