Wednesday, May 14, 2003



#423 "Twenty-Five" (fourth season finale)

This may be not only the best episode of the season, but of the entire series. And why? Because it's a drama - not some fantasy in Aaron Sorkin's mind of what Presidential politics is like in the real world. This episode - tense with the chaos of a kidnapped daughter, a father on the brink of starting a war, and another realizing he loves his newborn babies (you come with hats!). This is an episode of real emotion, real characters - characters that, even though we may disagree with the politics, we care for them nonetheless.

The scene in which Toby is with his kids in the hospital room and the nurse comes in to tell Toby they're praying for the President. I couldn't help but think of when President Reagan got shot and the emergency room doctor told the President "today, we're all Republicans." And that's how I felt tonight.

Although, in the end, Sorkin couldn't resist to cast a fat, white guy as the Republican Speaker of the House, John Goodman announces his presence with authority. The government has a Leader and America will not be triffled with.

Tonight, in Bartlett's America - we are all Fathers, We are all Democrats, We are all Americans.

And that's how it should be in drama ... you get sucked in.

posted by James @ 10:07 PM 0 comments

I look up at the calendar and WHAMMO! I realize that a week has passed, the new ep. is tonight and I haven't ranted on the last one! I beg forgiveness:

#422 "Commencement" - By and large, aside from the telegraphed murder of a rather cute SS agent, and the fact that the entire country was placed on "Condition Bravo" BUT the Secret Service, which allowed Zoe to get kidnapped (yet another reason why Yahoo lists this series as a "fantasy") ... this episode wasn't that bad. (is that a run-on sentence or what?!)

But it wasn't that great either. At least there was very little liberal pontificating. In fact, this episode looked more like a tv series episode and less like a 60 minute campaign ad for the DNC.

And that's a good thing. And the fact that Sorkin is out gives hope that this will be the norm from now on.

TONIGHT: THE SEASON FINALE.

From TV Guide
"As the series' fourth-season finale begins, Zoey has just been abducted from the nightclub in Georgetown where she and Jean-Paul had been celebrating her graduation. Of course, the White House goes into crisis mode, fearing that the kidnapping is the work of terrorists. 'Certainly it's easy to imagine how this escalates to a military situation,' is the way one TV commentator puts it. And the Father-in-Chief fears he might do something impulsive.

posted by James @ 7:42 AM 0 comments