TV Question Qorner: Lymanphobia, MtB goes to college, et al.
CSI. When did it get so tiresome? I don’t think it’s because William Petersen left, but the timing does line up.
The real reason, I suspect, isn’t exactly that one, but it’s related. Between the downward curlicue (tm the regulars on the Dawson’s board back in the day) and death of Warrick and Gil’s departure, the show hit a consistently high emotional pitch for several months, so when it returned to more garden-variety episodes, they seemed blah. It’s not the recasting; I like Fishburne fine, and he brings a new tone, which is good (I don’t get Lauren Lee Smith or the Riley Adams character, though; she’s like a placeholder, and while she doesn’t actively irritate me, I don’t care at all either). The air has leaked out of it.
Another problem: the tendency of the writing to make experienced CSIs and lab techs explain to each other how a given procedure works, what it tells the investigators, et cetera. Having Langston join the team got around that for a few episodes, but the writers sometimes forgot, when it was convenient, that he’d never done this before…until it was convenient to emphasize that he’d never done this before.
Generally, though, it’s Nick who has to narrate for the audience (much of which has watched the show or one of its spinoffs before and doesn’t need the help) and a co-worker (who…works in forensic science, hello) what fuming with glue does. George Eads does as well as he can with it — in fact, Eads isn’t often given credit for his acting, but he’s carried heavy loads without grunting a lot of times — but it’s not believable. I don’t know how else they’d get around it, but now that I notice it, I can’t not notice it.
Might be time to end my love affair with Marg Helgenberger’s hair and punt this bad boy off the season-pass list…
Making the Band 4. So many questions. I’ll start with a fluffy one: was Donnie wearing eye makeup last night, in the van with Brian? And can he…keep doing that? It works for him. (And while we’re on fluffy, I’ll just add that, after Brian’s All-Night Walk Of Sadness, the next establishing shot showed my old building. I am a rube!)
Tougher questions follow. Can someone explain why Will got so bent and weepy at Brian after the scuffle? Can someone explain Que, period? It goes back to what I said last week, and after last season’s finale: I get the distinct feeling that a large percentage of the pertinent background information is not happening on camera or not making it out of the editing bay, and I don’t get it. I am probably the one viewer besides Diddy’s mom who likes the “DIDDY BLOG DIDDY BLOG” nonsense, because I have this weird…I don’t know what you’d call it. “Branding crush” is the best term, I think. I have one on Diddy, big-time. “The emperor has no clothes? Want to buy some of the emperor’s clothes, now available at Macy’s? He’s not even the emperor! Hey, perfume!” I mean, somewhere Dale Carnegie is like, “Well, that took a turn.”
But. The constant Diddy breaks to talk about his diet or his new show or whatever all take time away from footage we should be seeing instead, and I really am not one of those people who thinks that reality shows are all out to hoodwink us, or who puts too much stock in “the producers manipulated the” blah blah — I’m sure it happens, it doesn’t bother me, it’s not a court proceeding so who cares, but either Dawn is up to some Yoko shit and we’re not seeing it (and should), or someone else is in Que’s ear all “you’re better than this.”
I will say this, though. That kind of argument? Is reality. That endless, circular, nobody giving an inch, let’s define our terms until someone starts crying merry-go-round that you look back on college and do not miss? Totally on display last night. Not that guys in their twenties can’t take care of their business, but this is exactly what happens to young men and women who do not have quite enough to do with their days. They will get into it and amp the drama over little shit, because when you do not have quite enough to do, it allll seems like big shit over cereal at two in the damn morning. This is why everyone at my school had come to dread reading period by the time we were juniors, because we had a really long reading period, and every SINGLE year, it was a series of interpersonal explosions going off, occasionally interrupted by some studying. And then 15 years later you don’t even know half the people anymore. Painful at the time, though.
Still, I don’t get why Diddy isn’t stepping in until next week. I am following him on Twitter (shut up, it’s for work) (okay, not really), and he was as scandalized as I was, according to his tweets. So where was he?Screwface didn’t call him up and tell him to scare some sense into Que? Because I don’t know about you, but even if I wanted to act that kind of fool, I’m not doing it if I know Sean Combs is going to see the playback and see me costing him studio time and money. Dude is intimidating; any time he sees me on camera, I am doing a dish or rocking some sit-ups or something.
I still like the show; I just wish we were seeing everything, because if we were, The Hills who, and someone at MTV should realize that, I’m thinking.
The West Wing. Stockard Channing did a great job with the character, but I can’t be the only one who enjoyed it whenever the other characters had to gather up their pecans and be like, “All due respect, but enough with that attitude maybe.”
I also cannot be the only one — and it pains me to say this, because I like the actor and also because it may lead to my death — that found Josh Lyman utterly unappealing from the get-go. So: am I? Anyone care to join me on the scaffold here? Because it’s not so much that the character is obnoxious; it’s that we’re clearly supposed to find it cute, and then to pair him for a while with Mary Louise Parker, an actress I usually don’t like at all (she’s good; I just don’t dig her except in Angels in America, where she was perfection), and make me pick between those two equally unattractive sides?
And then you get him together with Donna, after years of him treating her the same way he treats everyone else — imperious, condescending, as though they don’t exist once they leave his sightline — but to the third power? Her character evolves, his does not, but yet she still wants to Do It with him? Bradley Whitford is one thing; Josh Lyman, no thank you.
I just rewatched the post-SotU polling episode, where he’s snarking at the pollsters about gum and whether they have accents, and is just rude and self-important, and it’s played as “important work to do here” intensity with a humorous twist, and I don’t doubt the White House is in reality full of officious twonks like Josh, but that, even when it blows up in his face, we’re asked to view that as something other than an overdue and correct result from which he should learn some manners?
The Real World: Brooklyn. Weird season; I won’t be back. I only watched this one because it was in Brooklyn, and the housemates seldom seemed to spend much time there; only in the finale did I finally recognize a place. Brooklynites heard so much about the show during filming, and talked so much trash about it, that the season felt anticlimactic once it did air.
But did you feel like it just never caught fire? There’s fighting, there’s pranking, JD abuses rage-ohol, Ryan gets called up again…end? It seemed short, and fundamentally pointless to put them in Brooklyn, and I didn’t really like anyone, and once again someone named Sarah is a dink and makes me want to change my name (see also: Palin).
But I will be watching the Challenge again, because…there is no “because.” I could try to blame Joe R, but that wouldn’t be fair. Or accurate.
Tags: Bradley Whitford Dale Carnegie Diddles exposition fairies George Eads Joe R Lauren Lee Smith Laurence Fishburne Making the Band 4 Marg Helgenberger Mary Louise Parker Real World Brooklyn RW/RR Challenge shut up Josh Lyman Stockard Channing The West Wing TV William Petersen Yoko Ono
“Because I don’t know about you, but even if I wanted to act that kind of fool, I’m not doing it if I know Sean Combs is going to see the playback and see me costing him studio time and money. Dude is intimidating; any time he sees me on camera, I am doing a dish or rocking some sit-ups or something.â€
Word. And they should know he won’t hesitate to dismantle a group since he’s done it with every other Making the Band band. They have to know they’ve gotta ackrite. It seems like the rest of them get that because they make a point of saying how they’re all there for Day 26, they don’t have other priorities, they’re in the studio when they’re supposed to be in the studio, etc.
I don’t have a crush on Diddy, but I do respect the $300 million-plus empire he built from scratch, and he cracks me up. His whole tirade about how bitchassness is an epidemic destroying our community, said with absolute seriousness, had me rolling. That shot of him with the popcorn and soda? Hysterical.
I TiVo Damages, which is (was) on at the same time as RW, but MTV reruns shit eleventy-million times so I’ve seen maybe 2/3 of this season. Why did they bother casting Baya? There was one episode where she had a crush on Ryan, one where she was taking dance classes, and then nothing. The next season is in Cancun, and: hell no. And I had totally broken up with the Challenges – I haven’t watched at least the last three – but it looks like CT roid-rages aaaaaaalllll over Paris Adam on the first day, so I might be back in. And my question is: how does he not get arrested more? He punched someone in the face on another challenge, I think.
hee. “shut up Josh Lyman”, love that tag. I can’t join you on the scaffold but I can totally understand the being up there. Honestly what the hell with finding Bradley Whitford hot at all??? What is with me? I love that guy to distraction a bit. Even my husband, who understands a lot of my actor crushes, is all wtf? Can’t explain it. Of course I watch Numb3rs (talk about “explaining to the audience ad nauseum”!!!) for the insanely (to me) hot combo of David Krumholtz, Rob Morrow and Judd Hirsch. Seriously man, since Taxi I have loved that guy. I have weird taste in men obviously. Sorry honey!
I always liked Josh, now having read your take, I suspect that’s all I’ll be able to see after this. darn it.
I’m not going to lie. I loved Josh Lyman. Maybe not as much as Toby, but there you go. I did NOT love in seasons 5 and 6, though, and I blame Sorkin’s leaving for it. I was fine with his relationship with Donna in the beginning and the end but it went so horrible wrong for those two years. They set up everything nicely with Amy calling Donna out in the end of 4 and then . . . nothing came of it. At all. Then she almost died at the end of 5, and he treated her like crap for all of 6 and I could. Not. Stand. It. With as deep as their relationship was supposed to be, he almost loses her after treating her like crap, then . . . goes back to treating her like crap. It didn’t work.
Anyway. I know way too much and have put way too much thought into their relationship, so I’m not the best judge. But even as a Josh/Donna fan, I will happily admit to being furious with Josh for seasons 5 and 6, with the exception of like 2 episodes.
I watched maybe 2 episodes after Sorkin got bumped off WW. It was like watching people you’d known all your life open their mouths and have an entirely different voice come out. I’d like to say that the Donna/Josh thing didn’t work because it wasn’t written by the right person. But I didn’t watch to that point so I can’t say that with any authority. However, could the person who wrote the “If you were in an accident I wouldn’t have stopped to see my friends.” “If you were in an accident I wouldn’t have stopped for red lights.” exchange have screwed up that pairing? I bet not.
Finally, the other person in the world who had no use whatsoever for Josh. God. SO IRRITATING. I gave up on the show way before the end (…waaaaay before the end), and I think maybe Josh had a couple of moments over the years I was watching where he didn’t completely suck, and/or where I kind of wished I could feel bad for him because he clearly couldn’t find his way out of his own suckage with a map and a flashlight, but: yuck. Abrasive, irritating, imperious, un-self-aware, desperate to be the smartest guy in the room, and not smart enough not to show it. Hate.
I liked the character of Josh, and loved his relationship with … um … the Mary Stuart Masterson character, because I thought they were a perfect fit. But you’re absolutely right: Josh never grew, and yet Donna still wanted to be his love puppy. Frankly, I never felt an ounce of romantic chemistry between the two of them. Then again, what with the “last-call-at-a-singles-bar” vibe the series took on towards then end, there was an awful lot weird hook-ups happening. (I mean, c’mon: Will Bailey and Kate Harper? Leo and Annabeth? Really, West Wing!?)
The other thing that sucked about Josh’s character is how incompetent he was as a campaign manager. Here’s a typical episode: Santos faces a dilemma. Josh recommends that Santos does “A”. Other characters recommend “B”. Santos, after due deliberation, chooses “C”, which ends up being a brilliant political/campaign move. Finally, after an entire campaign of giving Santos bad advice, he’s made CoS.
So, in short (I know, too late!), Loved Josh at the beginning, gradually fell out of love, and ended up at annoyance.
Oh my god how much am I so with you on Josh Lyman? THIS FUCKING MUCH. I never ever ever understood the Josh/Donna shippers. He treated her like shit throughout the whole show, so when they finally got together I was left sad and disappointed in Donna. Because seriously, girl, I know you haven’t had much luck in love on this show, but you can do so much better.
I mean… Part of the appeal of The West Wing was fantasizing about a scenario in which the government (or at least the executive branch) was, in fact, staffed by the smartest kids in the room. Josh was a painful reminder that a lot of the smartest kids who get that far are also the most fucking obnoxious little bastards you’ve ever met, and maybe if someone had just smacked them down a few dozen times when they were younger, they’d have grown up to be tolerable human beings.
…Not that this bothers me *every time* I watch an episode of what is otherwise one of my favorite shows, or anything.
@tulip: I stuck it out with Numbthreers for a full season because of the Morrow/Krummie kombo. It was when they started tying, like, serial rapists to math that I couldn’t hang anymore.
I liked Josh, but I think most of that stemmed from my huuuge crush on Bradley Whitford; I totally see where you’re coming from. He certainly could be insufferable. Hear you on MLP too, I like her but I HAAATED her character, and they were so annoying together. You’re a feminist, we GET it, now shut up.
Oh dear god I hated Amy Gardner on West Wing, and I normally enjoy Mary Louise Parker. Josh was one of those characters I would have hated in real life but thoroughly enjoyed watching on TV, but Amy Gardner drove me to drink. I think it’s something that happens with a lot of Sorkin’s female characters. If you knew them in real life you would think “There’s quirky and then there’s…you, and, no, and go away” but on his shows we’re supposed to believe that the things that would make most people head for the hills are the characteristics that make them irresistible to men and professionally sought-after. It’s not all his female characters (C.J. on West Wing was quite likable, but I suspect that has more to do with Allison Janney than anything else) but it’s enough of them, and the Amy Gardner character is the epitome of the problem.
@Sars LOL! Yes! But if I just kind of turn the sound down and watch them all look meaningful or dreamy it still works for me. Especially when god knows I need something on in the background when I work on spreadsheets.
@Deanna YES on Amy. I really wanted to slap her a LOT. And I love MLP.
Josh is said to have been based on on Rahm Emmanuel, but obvs with less swearing for tv. I seem to recall they included the dead fish thing in one episode.
And Josh didn’t really bother me that much (working in politics I think I’m desensitized to that type of personality – they’re everywhere), Donna still mooning over him did. I loved it when CJ laid it on the line and explained to Donna that Josh kept her exactly where she was on purpose, and that Donna could do way better than still be Josh’s assistant. Exactly!
I know that Peterson was at least nominally the lead, but it used to be a lot more of an ensemble. Now it’s all Fishburne, all the time.
See, I thought (think) Mary Louise Parker/Amy was hott – way to hot for Josh. I have an ongoing debate with a friend over this, who just thinks Josh is the cutest! thing! ever! while I beg to disagree. His character had some charm, but I cannot get why anyone would fall all over him for his looks.
To each their own…(but I’m right, and so are you Sars!)
(I don’t get Lauren Lee Smith or the Riley Adams character, though; she’s like a placeholder, and while she doesn’t actively irritate me, I don’t care at all either).
Dude! That’s it! I could not figure out why I didn’t like her. I mean, there’s nothing overtly wrong with her, but she’s just so ‘meh’, I find myself bothered by the lack of emotions she does not inspire in me. And she definitely gives off a temp vibe like, “Just deal with this lame character while we try to come up with something better, okay?”
@Deanna
“”There’s quirky and then there’s…you, and, no, and go away”
This will totally be in my lexicon forevermore… thank you.
And word on the NUMB3RS fall-out. I watched like two seasons, then got hit in the head or something and realized that capital-M math really can’t solve all crimes.
I wish they’d bring Sofia (was that her name? blonde woman, faint accent?) back. I liked her. I would settle for hair and makeup doing something to make Riley look less monochromatic. She’s like Conrad Bain.
Also: “I mean, c’mon: Will Bailey and Kate Harper?” I KNOW, right? I like both those actors so much, but theirs is the chemistry of siblings, I’m sorry. I’m trying to imagine them having sex and Will not dying in the attempt, and it’s just not working.
Haha, I clicked the cut just based on “shut up Josh Lyman” being a tag.
I have a huge love-hate relationship with WW because of Josh (and frankly, many of the other male characters too). Somehow I managed not to hear that “Charlie Wilson’s War” was written by Sorkin, but as soon as Tom Hanks yelled “BONNIE!!” at Amy Adams I realized we were watching something by the man who gave us “DONNA!!” The show often feels like a 1940s screwball office comedy, with poor CJ marooned in a sea of women fitting nicely into the secretary roles, and Josh pretty much epitomizes all the worst male behavior. Sometimes he’s funny, but I hate that even when he’s being a helpless idiot it’s supposed to be charming and he’s supposed to be rescued by one of those beautiful, smart, competent, yet utterly adoring women around him. Ugh.
@Kristen – YES! on ” the “last-call-at-a-singles-bar” vibe the series took on towards then end”. SO. MUCH. WORD. It was like “Where did they pull this from??”
I loooooooathe Josh Lyman. But not nearly as much as I looooooooathe Toby Zieglar. And Sam.
Yet I still loved the West Wing, despite wanting failure for most of the main male characters, so go figure.
The collective imperiousness, self-importance, and douchey attitude toward women (Sam’s many comments about people writing “like a girl” and so on…) just grated beyond belief.
I also came to dislike the exchanges in which Donna didn’t know why a given thing was key to the episode, and Josh pedexplained it to her; I understand that this was 100 percent for the viewers’ benefit, and because I got to learn things, I didn’t mind it at first, but it did become irksome that a person in Josh’s employ seemed so consistently to need these things explained that were so critical to her ability to do her job as his aide. It’s one thing for us not to know why the seating at a leadership breakfast is A Thing; Donna works there, and should.
See also: using Bartlet’s “humorous” pedantry as an excuse to drop some science on us. It’s a credit to Martin Sheen how often they get by with it, and Matt Santos was so porelessly perfect and therefore frequently dull that, by the end of the run, I found myself missing it, but it was a bit much at times (and I don’t know if you can have a running gag, which is somewhat sexist anyway, about the prexy wanting to watch a women’s softball game and then turn around and have him not like baseball; the latter was interesting and a nice twist, except for not lining up with the former).
CJ was the other person the men explained things to a lot, and the condescending air with which it was done drove me up the wall. She’s the press secretary — she only has a superficial knowledge about many areas, but she knows a little something about *everything*, since she’s paid to juggle infinite questions on camera, not sit in an office and research single topics. Ugh.
I adored the West Wing and the character of Josh Lyman, but many of the reasons I liked him was because the character reminds me of my husband. I supposed the difference is when my spouse turns into a blow-hard-condescending-bastard I can smack him (either literally or figuratively) and I can imagine that many women don’t find it charming (there is a reason I am married to my husband and not another woman).
Somehow I never found Josh to be particularly annoying, although interestingly enough, when Sorkin did Studio 60 he seemed to put in all of Josh Lyman’s negative traits and none of his positive ones to TWO characters I couldn’t stand it.
I suspect that everyone has a certain tolerance towards that particular type of obnoxiousness. Some of us have higher tolerance than others. I suspect your tolerance level is very, very low.
On a related note, I actually find Bradley Whitford supremely unattractive. Seriously, a grown man with dimples looks ridiculous.
Oh and don’t get me started on Sorkin’s complete inability to write women. Amy Gardner was attrocious but she was (for the most part) the best of a bad lot.
Hmm, i came a bit late to WW, i’ve only just watched seasons 5,6,7 – without seeing anything that came before.
i was totally a pawn in the writers game, i fell for the Donna/Josh relationship hook line and sinker…i’m all about it. i’m still thinking about it.
but yes, josh = toolbelt. IRL, there’s no way i wouldn’t smack him in the mouth for behaving like such a twat.
“I suspect your tolerance level is very, very low.”
I was surrounded by this type at university (I *was* that type at university; heh). I probably have a thicker callus than most in response to That Guy; it’s when they never grow out of thinking that “smarter” = “better than you” that I’m not so into it.
I really didn’t like Amy either. I get that she’s supposed to demonstrate that hot chicks can be smart, but I never bought her because of ML-P’s drawley-stoned-drunk line delivery making her sound like she’s stumbling through a kebab order at 3am, plus the fact she kept losing her job. They made a joke of it, but I couldn’t take her seriously and I don’t think they did a good enough job of explaining why anyone in WW-universe would either.
also, lol at Will/Kate sex. Never really thought of it like that, I was just glad they didn’t make Kate the Token Lesbian (TM).
The pilot episode of the West Wing started with everyone doing damage control because Josh acted like an obnoxious, self-satisfied, egotistical jerk and nothing really changed, at least as long as I watched the show.
Wow – just last night, we gave CSI its last chance on our DVR list; it was the Freidken-directed episode, and sadly, it did not pass, through no fault of Friedken. I just was not feeling Fishburne, much as I love him, and I think it’s because his character was brought in, in a way that totally inverted the structure. I’m sorry, but you will never convince me that Fishburne is a NEWBIE at anything; dude has gravitas coming out of every hole in his body. To make him just one of the team, shift Marg up to the top, and then completely ignore her, killed it for me. It seems to me as though they felt like they couldn’t just replace Petersen with another Alpha male, so they made Fish a prole, but Fish is the star, so now we spend waaay too much time with him, frequently losing the multiple story arcs-per-episode that kept things jumping fast enough for me to ignore the gaping logic and legal issues. I’m really sad, actually, because I loved CSI:Original Recipe, but…it’s off the Season Pass list.
“Then again, what with the “last-call-at-a-singles-bar” vibe the series took on towards then end, there was an awful lot weird hook-ups happening. (I mean, c’mon: Will Bailey and Kate Harper? Leo and Annabeth? Really, West Wing!?)”
I actually think that’s pretty true to campaign season. Everyone’s away from home, stressed out, around the same people 24-7. on emotional highs and lows from how the race is going…you get some very, very odd pairings.
I was just thinking about RW last night, and how I hadn’t seen one single episode, and was it over, and if it was over, how I didn’t miss it a bit. I never thought I’d achieve a RW-free lifestyle. The challenges are a whole ‘nother ballgame (a little Opening Day reference there…w00t…); why I find CT’s derangement so compelling is beying explanation.
This season of RW may be the one that put me over it. I have been watching for, what, 17 years since the first season, and this was the first one where I felt like, damn, these kids are SO YOUNG and foolish. Especially that Chet kid, who I hope looks back someday and is like, “Dayum, I was an eeeddjjjiiot!” I really felt my age, looking back on my early 20s when I knew everything (that I now, in my 30s, realize I don’t really know), and wanting to smack the crap out of these kids. Their pranks weren’t funny, the serious issues were dealt with haphazardly, and it became like the Ryan show, which…BORING.
Totally in the stocks with you. To make it worse – I could never really get into TWW because I hated Josh so much.
“I probably have a thicker callus than most in response to That Guy.”
I went to the same college and so developed the same callus for those guys in real life but on the TV and in movies, they give me migraines.
What I really couldn’t stand about the Lyman character was that nobody called him out on being the most amazing combination of self-righteous, condescending, awful with people, and awful at his job. It was as if Sorkin liked those traits and expected the rest of us to like them too.
But, I have to give Sorkin (and Whitford) credit for creating characters about whom I care enough to still despise years later.
‘Honestly, what the hell with finding Bradley Whitford hot at all???’
I am with you on this and, like you, do not care at all. I just think he’s adorable. I think it has a lot to do with Brad Whitford’s personality. Not like I know him or anything, but he just seems like a genuinely nice guy and I think that bleeds through. Like that guy in high school who was just decent looking, but had such an awesome personality that it made him way better looking in your head.
If you haven’t read the Esquire article that Brad’s brother wrote about him, you really, really should. It won’t make you like Josh anymore, but it’s just a really nice piece, ‘the older brother getting to know his younger brother even better by writing it’ kind of thing.
@ Tulip – aw, yeah, the Numb3rs guys. Taxi was part of my childhood, and Northern Exposure hit hard just after college, and David Krumholz is just way cute – what’s to be done? Heck, I even like Peter MacNicol in a friendly way on that show, despite the horror that was Ally McBeal. Plot? Math? Eh, whatever – something pleasant to give the remaining 1/3 of my attention to as I do whatever computer thing I’m doing Friday night. Likewise Simon Baker on Tuesdays – hate much of the show, am unable to resist him.
@Sars – “I also came to dislike the exchanges in which Donna didn’t know why a given thing was key to the episode, and Josh pedexplained it to her” OMG YES. I love the show but I find myself so irritated whenever the writers fall back on that strategy – and they use it ALL. THE. TIME. And it is always (well… based on an unscientific search of my memory) a female character who says, “I don’t understand this. Explain it to me.” The worst is in the season 2 (I think?) episode where Toby meets with the anti-WTO protesters, and the security guard fully turns to him and says, “So, Toby. What’s this all about?” Really, Sorkin? REALLY? Argh. I’m tearing my hair out as I type this.
RE: Making the Band, I am thinking that there is some weird dynamic between Que and his mom/family. I thought her priorities and demeanor were really off when she showed up in the last episode and they’ve also said that she quite her job and expects Que to support the family. I think that kind of pressure when you’re that young can mess with your head. I totally agree that we should be seeing Dawn’s position in all of this. It’s possible she’s telling him to chill out, but it would be interesting to see.
@rab01
“What I really couldn’t stand about the Lyman character was that nobody called him out on being the most amazing combination of self-righteous, condescending, awful with people, and awful at his job. It was as if Sorkin liked those traits and expected the rest of us to like them too.”
Its…Aaron Sorkin. He probably did.
If you haven’t read the Esquire article that Brad’s brother wrote about him, you really, really should.
That sounds wonderful; I’ll check that out. I happen to know their sister, and she is one of the nicest, sweetest people you could ever hope to meet.
As for Josh Lyman and Aaron Sorkin… I agree with everything that’s been said here, and yet I am STILL their writhing fangirl. Josh is an arrogant blowhard and easily my favourite character on the show. I don’t know if I like what that says about me…
“I really didn’t like Amy either. I get that she’s supposed to demonstrate that hot chicks can be smart,” … I think Sorkin instead succeeded at demonstrating that smart people (even chicks!) can be insufferable a-holes, which… I don’t think was a lesson we all needed.
I really loved the WW, but sometimes when I think about it I get mad at it. I just have to remember it was so much more than the sum of its cocky, condescending, a-hole parts.
“The worst is in the season 2 (I think?) episode where Toby meets with the anti-WTO protesters, and the security guard fully turns to him and says, “So, Toby. What’s this all about?” Really, Sorkin? REALLY? Argh. I’m tearing my hair out as I type this.”
No, no, I beg to differ with you there. The absolute worst was when C.J. (You know, 22 years of schooling, played by the brilliant and beautiful Alison Janney) askes SAM (Really, Sam?) to explain to her about the census. Excuse me? What? Does she need to borrow my third grade social studies text book? And really, why am I (fictionally) paying the government salaries of people who can’t seem to open up the encyclopedia? I’m going nutso right now as I type this. Thanks so much for reminding me of that offensive episode.
As someone said above me, Josh almost gets canned in the pilot and then spends the next 7 seasons acting like a bigger horses’ ass then one would think is possible. And if you knew somebody in a real life relationship like Josh/Donna you’d want to kill yourself, or alternatively, them, for being so un-grown up about everything.
The only three female characters that Sorkin ever wrote with any degree of realism was Mrs. Landingham, CJ, and Sydney Ellen Wade. Every other female character was based on how Sorkin felt women “should” think, act, and talk.
And not liking Toby? Impossible, I say!. :) Of course, I’m ignoring those moments when Sorkin and co. would make Toby spew anti-islamic crap just because he was the “cranky” one. “They’ll like us when we win..” Oy. Veh.
RW lost me during the Vegas season, when I realized that TPTB were casting people willing to have sex on camera (repeatedly) instead of your typical self-obsessed 20-something. You compare and contrast the recent casts with the classic RW: LA and RW:SF casts and it’s jarring. The classic casts seemed like they were doing the RW thing before jumping head first into their choosen careers. The current casts seem like they’re taping their season while waiting for the Girls(and Guys) Gone Wild producers to call them back.
“If you haven’t read the Esquire article that Brad’s brother wrote about him, you really, really should. It won’t make you like Josh anymore, but it’s just a really nice piece, ‘the older brother getting to know his younger brother even better by writing it’ kind of thing.”
I read it, and it IS a very nice article, but it’s sort of funny that the message on his casting as Josh is “Brad kept getting cast as preppy douchebags, but not any more!” Heh.
Josh Lyman is not someone I would ever like as a person, but I do think he’s an interesting character in the last season or so — primarily because he starts to develop some self-doubt. I do think the campaign storyline allowed him to grow as a character precisely because you could see that there were times he was convinced he was failing or that he had made the wrong choice by backing Santos. He was still a douche, but you could see how he might turn out to be a real human being.
As for this season of RW, I watched a few episodes on Logo. I’ve never really watched the show, and the only time I did in the last several years was when I had to sub on a recap. But I did appreciate the fact that the openly gay guy wasn’t required to be the sane voice of maturity, tolerance, and reason. It’s about time television had an openly gay idiot with rage issues — that’s a very underrepresented minority. (However, he was kind of hot, so I was disappointed he wasn’t getting any action on the couple of episodes I watched.)
LTG! Hey, How you doing?
After I learned that the Josh character was based on RE, I rewatched TWW episodes in a new light. I realized what an asshole Josh really was… never realized it before. And what a great casting selection for BW. He seems to do those roles well (Billy Madison).
Hey wingers!
The character of Josh Lyman is deeply flawed and so are many of the characters on TWW. What always baffles me a bit is when I hear criticisms of the characters of TWW characters for their sexism (or the exposition) from the same critics that practically pee themselves praising The Sopranos, or Six Feet Under or other critical darlings of the same era.
A sexist character on TWW was lazy writing, or Aaron Sorkin’s truest feelings, or whatever else the critic felt like blathering about that day, but the same or worse on other shows? Doesn’t get a snif.
Josh Lyman was often an ass, but was still a compelling character in my book. And a fair representation of many of that ilk in DC. TWW got hammered a lot for it’s portrayal of sexism in DC, but it was pretty real.
I have no problems with people not liking that character (personally i lived for the moments when josh would “go gazebo” on someone’s ass), but sometimes I don’t get the critiques.
te writing in season 5 was very inconsistent, and flowed poorly. It improved again in 6 and finished strong in 7, IMHO. But YMMV. Bradley Whitford the actor is a lovely person (or is insanely good at faing it!), though. In person he makes it hard to understand why he kept gettiug cast as “yuppie scum” for so many years.
The difference in the sexism of TWW and that of The Sopranos, to me, is that The Sopranos portray a sexism that exists, versus perpetrating a sexism. Yes, Tony treats women like crap — uses them, dismisses them, doesn’t take them seriously — but while this is uncomfortable to watch, it is recognizable, at least to me, as an actual state of the world that is reflected in the work.
TWW’s did not seem organic to the world it was portraying, and while I don’t find it as corrosive as some do, it’s more obnoxious to me because it comes from characters who consistently position themselves as the most enlightened and fair people in the room. This is not to say that it isn’t also a portrayal of things as they actually are in the White House; I just have more experience with things as they actually are in suburban New Jersey, so I can speak to that better.
But I didn’t feel like David Chase expected us to revere Tony as a beacon of progressive thinking while he was treating women like crap; Sorkin did seem to expect us to admire Josh, and if he wanted us to understand that he, Sorkin, also thought Josh was a sexist, that didn’t come through clearly. (There’s also a difference of degree here; a dink is not a felon, so the comparison doesn’t always work.)
But I think it’s also that Chase tries to tell you how things are, and Sorkin tries to tell you how things should be. The latter is a valid storytelling choice, but it does make it harder for the viewer to forgive hypocrisies that seem to proceed not from the character but from the creator. Sorkin usually gets by with it, to his credit, but when he doesn’t, he reeeeeally doesn’t, and that’s just a danger of that kind of writing.
I agree with you completely, Sars. And when Sorkin himself was accused of sexism on his show, he got incredibly defensive, even offering up the defense that he couldn’t be sexist because he was the husband, son and brother of strong, independent women. As if that put some sort of force field around him that made him impervious to other influences. In fact, that awful episode where he has the temp come in and berate Ainsley Hayes for not being feminist enough borrowed every argument ever made in TWoP’s “Anti-Female Sexism” thread. Now there was an episode where I hated just about ever character.
And there’s also the famous (or infamous) “Poet Laureate” episode where Sorkin took on TWoP, and wrote about someone obviously meant to be Deborah, a person he’d never met in person, and implied she was unattractive, sitting around in a mummu all day at the computer, chain smoking, because she dared to try to make him follow the rules of the site. There’s some rampant sexism for you.