which I totally got into starting a couple of months ago after buying the Complete Series Collection. Never watched it First Run.
Watching Season 6 now and I'm really getting sick of the writing where every character's delivery just sounds like everyone else's delivery of the lines. It's like c'mon, people really don't talk like this! The early Sorkin episodes until he left seemed more real. Then in later seasons the "wanna be Sorkin" writers just seem to be taking it over the top. The fast talking, so educated, so ain't I clever attitudes in the delivery are really getting to be too much. And they all sound the same. I see all the characters blending into one fast talking all knowing, so pleased with themselves character that it is getting really boring. Even the walk-on "5 and under" actors sound the same. Everyone says every just like everyone else.
Just feeling that. It just seems the characters were more defined in the earlier seasons. Now it's just a "Sorkin wanna be" fast talking Borg ship. But glad they got rid of the red headed press guy from 30 Something and the young Princeton kid! The press guy always seemed liked the part was written for a woman. In my opinion can't see any attraction C.J. had for this guy. Mark Harmon was definitely her man. Charlie just got too smug for my tastes. Toby can be so unlikeable as so many other characters. Josh's girlfriend that comes and goes. Was she a lobbyist? An advisor. She's so unappealing. Mary McCormack just seems totally non-essential. I liked how Donna grew away from Josh. Even Josh's new Temp with the attitude doesn't seem really and when she gets on the "wanna be Sorkin" dialogue train, gimme a freaken brake.
And I'm really not liking Josh as the series gets to it's end. I guess they are doing their jobs right to get me to feel so much.
Am I making any sense?
Okay, gotta get back to the show. Yes, I'm still hooked.
Seasons 6 & 7 pretty much stink, but there are brief periods of greatness. I don't remember the name of the episode, but it's the one that's a documentary following C.J. around...I think that was in season 6 or 7...a definite highlight. The live debate episode is pretty fun, though it's somewhat stale. The final episode...meh. It's a more a relief that it's over instead of a sadness.
The one episode they missed doing was where Toby finally has a drunken sexual abandon night with that Latina Sexpot assistant of his. Her stint lasted a few episodes. She was always screaming to be fugged by somebody. Should have let Toby had one night of total "out of his mind" crazy sex swinging from the chandelier in the Mural Room!
Funniest moment ever for me. C.J. and Kristen Chenowith walking and talking together, one soooooo tall and one sooooooooo short and C.J. saying "Are we of the same species?"
It's like c'mon, people really don't talk like this! The early Sorkin episodes until he left seemed more real. Then in later seasons the "wanna be Sorkin" writers just seem to be taking it over the top. The fast talking, so educated, so ain't I clever attitudes in the delivery are really getting to be too much.
I never saw THE SOCIAL NETWORK (2010), but when that movie portrayed Harvard students as talking just like this, real Harvard students were interviewed and they laughed about it. Real people do not in fact talk like that. It's just a Hollywood device to portray high intelligence, like you're saying.
I think the world pretty much agrees that the first 5 seasons were vastly better than the last two. I know Aaron Sorkin is not universally loved, but I do love his dialogue if not always his plotting. I was sorry to see The Newsroom go away, even if the various contradictory and conflicting love stories were pretty much ridiculous. I forgive all that for the few stellar pieces of on-air commentary by Jeff Daniels' character, and for Sam Waterston's and Jane Fonda's terrific performances. For me, the first 3 years of West Wing pretty much said all there was to say with that (also wonderful) ensemble of characters.
I'll agree with you pretty much Dana. Up until they killed off Mark Harmon as C.J.'s Guard/Almost Lover, the show rocked! The "after Sorkin" years were "Sorkin Wannabe" years and you could tell.
When they got away from the main cast it got to be "The celebrities doing Sorkin Wannabe lines Hour".
Remember when that young kid appeared in the 6th season on the White House Tour, who wanted the president to lower the voting age for children and who wanted Children's rights? Great example of a not very good kid actor delivering "Sorkin Wannabe" lines not very well and oh so embarrassingly pretentious.
Kids doing Sorkin. That might be fun, if they could act.
Loved it when Toby let the kid in on the Press Conference and he got to ask Martin Sheen a question. And he had a "FOLLOW UP" question. Give me a break and give that kid a PB and J and a Hula hoop to play with.
Cody Zucker: "Mr. President, I have a Follow Up question!" The kid looks too much like me when I was 12 and riding my Stingray Bike.
