The West Wing

One way condensing my thoughts on a show into a single post after I've seen the whole thing is problematic is when that show lasted for 155 hour-long episodes over the course of seven years. There's just a lot to talk about. There's an easy way to sum it up, though. The West Wing is my favorite multi-season network drama of the last decade. Take away all the qualifiers, and it's still probably one of the twenty best shows ever made. It combines fantastic writing and direction with possibly the best ensemble cast ever assembled for a long period of time, and the balls to approach actual politics rather than creating false conflicts and ignoring party distinctions. Plenty of shows have revolved around political maneuvering to drive their plots, but they always have something else to entertain the audience. In The West Wing, the politics, and the characters who engage in them, are the fun part.

The show has two distinct eras; the four seasons where Aaron Sorkin produced it and essentially wrote it by himself, and the three seasons after he left. Before his departure, the show was wittier and more overtly liberal, often serving as a mouthpiece for his own ideas, but always being exciting. Also Rob Lowe was there, and his character was fun. After the two left, the show struggled a bit, having to deal with the leftovers of a silly plot thread (I wonder if Sorkin intentionally left a big mess to clean up knowing he was leaving) and not being sure what to do for an entire season. But its move to a more centrist perspective, allowing conservatives a voice and even a few likable characters, was a worthwhile change, and the plot determining who would replace Martin Sheen's President Bartlet after he left office breathed new life into the show before it could get stale.

The show is known for its rapid-fire dialogue and distinctive filming style, where rather than sit in a room discussing the matters of the day, the characters would trade barbs while making their points and walking somewhere through the labyrinth of the White House's many offices as the camera followed them. It a solid approach that wouldn't have worked without the great cast, which changed over time but retained a solid core for most of its run. Martin Sheen plays the President we all wish we could have, a man who's smart enough to run the country but likable enough to get elected to do so (please read nothing political into that statement). I still remember how in awe I was when he first entered the show near the end of the first episode, having been built up as a great titan of a man, and surpassing those expectations. He was somehow one of the only regular cast members not to win an Emmy, but it's certainly one of the best roles any actor could have, and he nailed it.

The rest of the main cast is mostly people helping decide policy and present it to America, from his chief and deputy chief of staff, to his press secretary, to his director and deputy director of communications (speech writers). Everyone is good, but a few who deserve pointing out are John Spencer, who plays Bartlet's right hand man and best friend, and unfortunately died before the show ended; Bradley Whitford, who somehow makes a whiny blowhard into a truly likable and sympathetic figure; and Allison Janney, who brought a much-needed strong feminine presence to the boy's club that is American politics. Janel Moloney's Donna is also a good character, though she mostly serves to get other characters to explain certain delicate political positions for the audience early on. The cast grows as the show goes on (and a couple characters leave), with two of the biggest additions being Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits as the two candidates to be the next President, a plot that comes on strong in season six and dominates season seven. I preferred Alda's performance, though both are good at getting across certain specific points the show wanted to make, and the live debate episode they carried together was one of those rare silly TV stunts that actually worked.

The show premiered before overarching serialized plots began really dominating critically acclaimed television (The Sopranos was just starting around the same time), so a lot of the time an episode would just introduce a few problems for a few different groups of characters, and they would all be resolved by the end. That approach is still fine when the writing and acting are as good as this show's, so it didn't really stick out, and they got better and better at introducing longer term story ideas as the show went on. An arc involving a medical condition that Bartlet hid from everyone is possibly the best achievement of the show's entire run. If there's one issue that crops up, it's the show's unfortunate tendency to make characters it no longer finds useful completely disappear without any mention, which seems lazy. It's especially noticeable when a regular character vanishes between seasons in the middle of a story, even though the cliffhanger finale and the continuing premiere take place on the same day. I imagine watching the show a second time would reveal a treasure trove of characters that I had forgotten even existed in the first place, that just left without a single line to explain it. The show is constantly pushing forward though, and if this was the price to pay for the consistency of its writing and the characterization of the people that do stick around, it was worth it.

I can't imagine a show this polarizing and intelligent premiering in the modern political climate, which is a shame, because even if you don't agree with a show's ideas, it can be worthwhile to see another side of a familiar debate. Lots of times the show would just experiment with fringe theories, throwing stuff at the wall and letting the viewer decide what stuck. If I had to pick one show to have an actual influence on the way world events were looked at in its wake, it would probably be The West Wing. And I guess that's a testament to how interesting it is. So many shows require sex or violence or something gimmicky to get people to watch, but The West Wing was a success just being itself, and that's commendable.

Dexter - Season 3

I found the third season of Dexter to be neither as enjoyable nor as believable as the first two, but it's still a solid show with an edge. It's hard to pinpoint the problem, because there's still a lot of good stuff going on. It just felt less like a show about a serial killer and more like a show about a guy who happens to kill people occasionally. When the show started, Dexter was a cold, mysterious person, with all of his outward niceness a facade to hide his terrible secret. He tracked down and killed criminals because he had an insatiable desire to. By now, he's basically transformed into the nice family guy he was pretending to be, it's just he still has to murder once in a while, but it's usually protecting himself anyway. This is all the result of developing the characters over a period of time and clearly intentional, it's just less of a compelling existence.

The main problem Dexter deals with this season is Miguel Prado, an Assistant DA played well by Jimmy Smits. He and Dexter become close friends, and eventually, he becomes the third person in as many seasons to learn Dexter's secret. And if you've seen the first two seasons, you know what's probably going to happen after that. The problem is that I just didn't buy his character arc as easily as the others. His transition from seemingly normal guy to a big problem to be dealt with is just too quick. He has strong convictions, but it's just not something you see happening that way. The supporting cast does a fair bit of growing and changing itself, and the major case the cops are working on is solid enough, if not as well connected to Dexter as it's been before. Another season's on the way, and I hope they can maintain the show's identity enough while still doing what they want to with the story.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

For some reason, when it came out, Sith got a decent amount of good press, and I'm not sure why. It's certainly darker and more violent, but that's not exactly what critics go for. It was critical for Anakin's inevitable turning to the dark side to work for the trilogy to be close to redeemable, and unlike a lot of people apparently, I don't think it did. It has to be believable that he'd turn, and making his motivation protecting his wife works. He should have been smart enough to see how he was manipulated, but it's understandable after seeing how emotional and selfish he can be, despite his characterization in Episode I as the nicest little boy in the galaxy.

But the scene of the actual transformation is awful. For one thing, it's somewhat laughable. Palpatine and Windu trying to convince him of the other's wrongness while moaning in their struggle, Palpatine's goofy-ass "No! No!", it's hard to take seriously. And it culminates with Anakin causing Windu's death because killing Palpatine would be wrong, even though he's the guy who made him kill Dooku. Tell me if that makes any sense. Yeah, he really helped Palpatine because he thought he needed him to save Amidala, but it was still a weak scene. Why's he sending the Jedi to arrest him anyway if he needs his help? Did he figure he'd visit him in his cell and learn the secrets of life there?

Besides the botching of the most important scene in the trilogy, Episode III is a combination of enjoyable violence, fan service, and too much post production. For some reason, the sound mix seems a bit off. Like, they rushed through adding the sound effects or something. And the over-reliance on visual effects is ludicrous. It's okay to declare that every clone trooper will be computer generated when they're all helmeted automatons, but when you're superimposing the actor's head onto a fake body, and it's obvious and looks terrible, what's the point? Make a costume, dude. It's fine. A lot of the movie just doesn't go right. Why is McGregor playing such an obnoxious cock now? How could anyone write romantic dialogue this lame? Why are all the robots starting to sound like idiotic children? It's really pretty sad. On one level it's satisfying to see how the world becomes what it was back in 1977, but I just wish it could have been better.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

When it came out, I thought Attack of the Clones was better than the first prequel, because I was 15 and it had MORE ACTION. But it's really not true. Is there some rule that people named Hayden have to be bad actors? Panettiere is pretty crappy on Heroes and Christensen is the same here. I hesitate to blame the prequels' badness on him because I honestly don't dislike that guy, but what else can you say when he's the star? I lay most of the blame at Lucas' feet, but a great Anakin could have done a lot of salvaging of the emotional core that makes these movies even close to relevant to the other ones. Without them being the story of Anakin's downfall, they're really just typical brainless science fiction. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here, really. I've heard that Christensen has been pretty good in other movies, and no one really seems to do their best on a green screen sound stage with Lucas' ability to direct actors being unknown beyond saying "faster and more intense!", so I'll go with my nerd instincts and blame it all on George.

I really don't hate any of these movies that much. Besides The Clone Wars, I mean. I can enjoy a silly movie with entertaining action scenes. And that describes Attack of the Clones pretty well. It's just disappointing to see the heart get slowly sucked out of a beloved series. Making Yoda digital is probably what really got the ball rolling. Yeah, seeing him flip around with a lightsaber like a mad man is hilariously entertaining, but at what cost? Why is doing so many extraneous tumbles through the air anyway. I prefer the old days when the fights weren't quite so elegant but every move had a purpose besides looking neat. Luke was trying to beat Darth Vader, not do the better triple salchow. The overreliance on computer effects is really what gets me more than the silly things that change the series' tone. Besides some background elements, they're rarely convincing, and it just pulls you out of the experience. And as the movies go on, they're pretty much all that's left.