6.6/10. You need what I might charitably call a “low impact” episode now and then in a twenty-two episode season. You can only have so many bits of high-anxiety, world-impacting drama, even on a show about the goings on of the White House, before it starts to become almost overwhelming and undifferentiated. You need chances to slow down and have a laugh or tell a story where the stakes aren’t so high to give the audience a chance to breathe before the next earth-shattering reveal.
But the upshot is that sometimes, as a viewer, you see a pack of perfectly good plots and sort of go “ho-hum.” Don’t get me wrong. I love Leo, and giving him a little focus in the context of the (traditionally not quite earth-shattering) Vice Presidential debate is generally welcome. In my last write up, I was just talking about how it’s refreshing to see the show deal a little bit with the issues of work/life balance, and carrying that theme onto the Santos campaign is a solid choice. And I’d be lying if I said I was terribly moved by the Will Bailey-Kate Harper pairing, but they’re cute enough. It’s just that none of these stories is especially compelling on their own, and it makes for a gentle, solid but unspectacular episode when they’re bundled together.
Leo’s story is probably the strongest. Having Martin Sheen address the audience directly regarding John Spencer’s death at the top of the episode adds some weight to the nigh cringe-worthy opening scene where Leo is preparing for the debate and doesn’t seem all there. From the beginning, the show has acknowledged that Leo is not a natural campaigner, that he’s used to being a behind the scenes power player and that’s the world he knows, but being in front of the cameras is less his forte. Seeing him struggle, and seeing his staff struggle with trying to get him ready for the big event creates what little stakes there are in this one.
It also creates a good amount of the comedy. Watching Josh, Lou, and the rest of the gang bend over backwards not to tell Leo that he’s awful out there (with the amusing reveal that Leo was leaking bad prep stories to lower expectations) leads to some good laughs. It also leads to the episode’s best scene, where Josh expresses his worries about the VP debate to Toby.
It’s scenes like these that make me wonder if we take the chemistry of the original cast for granted. Even when they’re clearly on different sets and probably not actually talking to one another live, there’s such a rapport between Richard Schiff and Bradley Whitford that the back and forth between their characters over the phone is still so endearing. Josh is, as he is wont to do, terribly worried about the potential for having led Leo into failure at Josh’s behest, and Toby has his usual grumpily smart remarks to reassure Josh and knock him down a little bit at the same time. It’s nice to see these two friends, even if there’s still some bad blood, reaching out to one another.
Those are frankly the best scenes in this episode – the ones that don’t necessarily move the plot too far forward, but which give you little scenes of people reacting to these situations and just being people. There was something almost sweet about Santos and Leo chatting on the phone, with Santos giving Leo advice on loosening up for the debate (which—gasp—turns out to be the key!) and Leo giving Santos advice on making up with his wife. There’s a chummy dynamic there, a budding version of what we saw with Leo and President Bartlet, that connects these two parts of the episode but almost warms you to both characters. The same is true when we’re watching the Vinick campaign joke back and forth about their own VP prep, or Santos is curling up with his wife and kids, or Josh is calling up an old friend. Showing us these individuals just being themselves, apart from all the campaign histrionics, is a welcome part of the episode.
Of course, the Santos family, or at least Mr. and Mrs. Santos, feel like they can’t be themselves with all the campaign hoopla going on. This is, frankly, the weakest part of the episode. It’s an interesting idea in principle – showing the toll that a grueling Presidential campaign takes on the family, and it’s nice to see an episode where Mrs. Santos is given a little more agency and perspective in all of this. But the results are just okay, feeling a little like this corner of The West Wing has slipped into Full House territory. (Or, for you BoJack Horseman fans, the season of Horsin’ Around where BoJack ran for president.)
After all, Congressman Santos bristling at not being able to go get his own mail works for a beat or two, but isn’t the type of thing to hang a plotline on. Similarly, Mrs. Santos presumably knew what the campaign would entail in terms of Matt’s free time, so it feels a little disingenuous, albeit very human, when she complains about him not being there to spend time with the kids. And the tabloids flipping out over a picture of Mrs. Santos’s underwear is an interesting dramatization of the privacy a family gives up when a family member embarks on something like this, and the gross, invasive indignities that possible first ladies have to deal with, but folding it all into what amounts to a “you spend too much time at work” plot, replete with Santos’s adorable little cough at the end, ties it all up in too neat and too hoary a bow.
But hey, not every episode can change the face of television. Some of them just feature a couple of characters with mild chemistry having a first date with take out while watching a Vice Presidential debate. (You know, like you do.) It’s a lighter entry in The West Wing’s canon, but now and then we need something lighter, a different energy or tone, to make the show feel varied and diverse.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-10-13T02:01:08Z
6.6/10. You need what I might charitably call a “low impact” episode now and then in a twenty-two episode season. You can only have so many bits of high-anxiety, world-impacting drama, even on a show about the goings on of the White House, before it starts to become almost overwhelming and undifferentiated. You need chances to slow down and have a laugh or tell a story where the stakes aren’t so high to give the audience a chance to breathe before the next earth-shattering reveal.
But the upshot is that sometimes, as a viewer, you see a pack of perfectly good plots and sort of go “ho-hum.” Don’t get me wrong. I love Leo, and giving him a little focus in the context of the (traditionally not quite earth-shattering) Vice Presidential debate is generally welcome. In my last write up, I was just talking about how it’s refreshing to see the show deal a little bit with the issues of work/life balance, and carrying that theme onto the Santos campaign is a solid choice. And I’d be lying if I said I was terribly moved by the Will Bailey-Kate Harper pairing, but they’re cute enough. It’s just that none of these stories is especially compelling on their own, and it makes for a gentle, solid but unspectacular episode when they’re bundled together.
Leo’s story is probably the strongest. Having Martin Sheen address the audience directly regarding John Spencer’s death at the top of the episode adds some weight to the nigh cringe-worthy opening scene where Leo is preparing for the debate and doesn’t seem all there. From the beginning, the show has acknowledged that Leo is not a natural campaigner, that he’s used to being a behind the scenes power player and that’s the world he knows, but being in front of the cameras is less his forte. Seeing him struggle, and seeing his staff struggle with trying to get him ready for the big event creates what little stakes there are in this one.
It also creates a good amount of the comedy. Watching Josh, Lou, and the rest of the gang bend over backwards not to tell Leo that he’s awful out there (with the amusing reveal that Leo was leaking bad prep stories to lower expectations) leads to some good laughs. It also leads to the episode’s best scene, where Josh expresses his worries about the VP debate to Toby.
It’s scenes like these that make me wonder if we take the chemistry of the original cast for granted. Even when they’re clearly on different sets and probably not actually talking to one another live, there’s such a rapport between Richard Schiff and Bradley Whitford that the back and forth between their characters over the phone is still so endearing. Josh is, as he is wont to do, terribly worried about the potential for having led Leo into failure at Josh’s behest, and Toby has his usual grumpily smart remarks to reassure Josh and knock him down a little bit at the same time. It’s nice to see these two friends, even if there’s still some bad blood, reaching out to one another.
Those are frankly the best scenes in this episode – the ones that don’t necessarily move the plot too far forward, but which give you little scenes of people reacting to these situations and just being people. There was something almost sweet about Santos and Leo chatting on the phone, with Santos giving Leo advice on loosening up for the debate (which—gasp—turns out to be the key!) and Leo giving Santos advice on making up with his wife. There’s a chummy dynamic there, a budding version of what we saw with Leo and President Bartlet, that connects these two parts of the episode but almost warms you to both characters. The same is true when we’re watching the Vinick campaign joke back and forth about their own VP prep, or Santos is curling up with his wife and kids, or Josh is calling up an old friend. Showing us these individuals just being themselves, apart from all the campaign histrionics, is a welcome part of the episode.
Of course, the Santos family, or at least Mr. and Mrs. Santos, feel like they can’t be themselves with all the campaign hoopla going on. This is, frankly, the weakest part of the episode. It’s an interesting idea in principle – showing the toll that a grueling Presidential campaign takes on the family, and it’s nice to see an episode where Mrs. Santos is given a little more agency and perspective in all of this. But the results are just okay, feeling a little like this corner of The West Wing has slipped into Full House territory. (Or, for you BoJack Horseman fans, the season of Horsin’ Around where BoJack ran for president.)
After all, Congressman Santos bristling at not being able to go get his own mail works for a beat or two, but isn’t the type of thing to hang a plotline on. Similarly, Mrs. Santos presumably knew what the campaign would entail in terms of Matt’s free time, so it feels a little disingenuous, albeit very human, when she complains about him not being there to spend time with the kids. And the tabloids flipping out over a picture of Mrs. Santos’s underwear is an interesting dramatization of the privacy a family gives up when a family member embarks on something like this, and the gross, invasive indignities that possible first ladies have to deal with, but folding it all into what amounts to a “you spend too much time at work” plot, replete with Santos’s adorable little cough at the end, ties it all up in too neat and too hoary a bow.
But hey, not every episode can change the face of television. Some of them just feature a couple of characters with mild chemistry having a first date with take out while watching a Vice Presidential debate. (You know, like you do.) It’s a lighter entry in The West Wing’s canon, but now and then we need something lighter, a different energy or tone, to make the show feel varied and diverse.