7.6/10. So this is the love episode, which is odd because it’s also the legacy episode, which is odd because it’s also yet another “who will stick to their principles” Santos vs. Vinick episode. That means that what we get as a whole in “The Cold,” feels a little muddled. The pieces fit together decently well, but the fit is a little awkward in places as the show tries to juggle its romantic storylines, its campaign storylines, its Presidential storylines, and its international relations storylines all at once.
But let’s focus on the light stuff to start out with! As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never been especially invested in the Josh-Donna relationship. They’ve often been sketched as too condescending a pairing for me to really get behind them as a couple, and the show hasn’t gone far enough to show Josh earning Donna’s affections by respect her or treating her as a peer rather than a pontification toy for me to change my mind.
The way their flirtations here were dramatized didn’t do much for me either. I understand that “Will They, Won’t They” has been the most dependable story engine on television for decades now, but I grow weary of these teases, and wish the show would do it or get off the pot already. Bradley Whitford and Janel Moloney do a good job at elevating generic romcom-level waffling, and the missed connection slip of the hotel key is a solid touch, but I’m perturbed, rather than anticipatory, at The West Wing drawing this out rather than pulling the trigger.
I did, however, enjoy the use of C.J. as someone who can detect both that something’s up with Donna and that there’s something going on with Will and Kate. The latter couple doesn’t really have the chemistry to make them compelling, but there’s some cute enough (again) rom-com-y material between them that works as a garnish to the rest of the story and a parallel to Josh and Donna unpacking their fateful kiss.
The opening, which featured that kiss, was done about as well as you can imagine. It was a great set piece to have the Santos team frantically checking polls, waiting for the newest update, and then have a jaunty tune slowly pipe in as they gather round the same screen to see the good news revealed. The ensuing scenes of the team slamming on doors to wake up the crew and tell them that Santos is officially tied was fully of fun and energy, and lent the right air to that fateful kiss.
But while the episode opened with jubilant music and two people coming together, it ended with a much more melancholy music selection, and two people breaking apart (albeit not romantically). Starting the episode with Santos’s altogether and celebrating, and closing it with Vinick all alone, practically in mourning, tells the story of the trajectory of these two campaigns.
Sheila basically making the call of firing herself as campaign manager to signal a shakeup to the public and get Vinick’s campaign back on track was quite sad. Sheila (Jill Taylor, to we T.G.I.F. fans), has been the rock of Vinick’s campaign, someone whom he trusted and who served as a voice of reason who could channel the Senator’s impulses into something crowd-pleasing and digestable. You also got the impression that she was one of Vinick’s few friends on the campaign trail, someone who was looking out for him as a person and not just as a project. Her leaving signals a shift, a departure in more ways than one, that more than his nascent illness, leaves Vinick a little dispirited.
It’s part of the classic blueprint and philosophy that this show has employed from the beginning. In the early parts of the episode, the Santos team is all atwitter about how to capitalize on their newfound success and the fact that Santos had campaigned against nuclear power prior to the San Andreo accident. There’s tons of talk about campaign verbiage in shades of “look to the future” and “21st century ____.” But in the end, the team decides to stick with what’s worked for them, an image of consistency and stability rather than forward-looking buzzwords, with a “right from the start” tagline to emphasize that.
Meanwhile, Vinick is presented with a similar option in the fallout (no pun intended) from the San Andreo accident and his plummeting performance in the polls: he can either choose to stick with the moderate 50-state strategy that Bruno has been pursuing from the beginning, or he can shift to appeal to the Republican base as his VP candidate, Bob, the RNC chairman, and a rising star RNC fundraiser and campaign manager heir apparent advise. It’s clear that Vinick is reluctant to pursue these “values voters” because doing so would represent a departure from the principles that made him the legislator he’s been for decades. Sheila essentially makes the decision for him, stating that it’s the best chance for him to win and for her to keep her promise to get him elected. But people in the world of The West Wing get punished for not standing up for what they believe in, and it’s clear that Vinick is already feeling the sting of the compromise he’s been pressured to make.
But Vinick isn’t the only person in the episode struggling with what the future holds. President Bartlet, at this late point in his Presidency, is worried about his legacy. He gazes at sketches wondering whether he’ll be remembered as a man who needed a cane or as the vigorous man he sees himself as, and whether his accomplishments over the last eight years will be overshadowed if he gets the country into a protracted war in Kazakhstan. It’s an interesting look at how the awkward period where one president is on the way out and another is likely to come in changes the decision-making in these crucial moments.
To that end, I liked how it led to a sort of White House cold war with the Vinick and Santos camped holed up while the candidates waited to speak with the President about this big decision. (I also loved Leo being brought in to give his old friend advice and Deborah Fiderer being her usual pugnacious self.) The moment when the President and the two candidates were in the room was sobering. If Bartlet goes through with this, gone are Santos’s education plan and Vinick’s tax cuts.
As we’ve learned over seven seasons, so much of what it is to sit in the Oval Office is to be reactive, to have to adjust your plans to handle unexpected developments and unaccounted for realities. Seeing these two hopefully be told that much of their plans would be preemptively dashed by the guy who wouldn’t have to stay in office to see the consequences, even if he believes it to be the right thing to do, made for an interesting dynamic for the three men who, for time being, hold the country’s future in their hands.
That said, where the episode was weakest is where it felt like “The Cold” was speaking more directly about the then-contemporary Iraq War rather than the conflict presented in a fashion that felt a bit strained. The show is no stranger to shoehorning in commentary on real life current events without much consideration for how organic it is to the universe of the show, but it always bugs me just a little when I can “see the strings” in that regard.
So much of the legacies of these individuals, whether it’s Bartlet and Leo and C.J. as the decision-makers of an administration, or Santos and Vinick as candidates, or Sheila and Bruno as campaign managers, or Josh and Donna as partners, are directed by forces beyond their control: foreign incursions, nuclear disasters, and spur of the moment romantic enthusiasm. They, and we, don’t know when some event will come in, upset the applecart, and change the nature of this race, this country, and these people, all over again.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-10-18T21:07:06Z
7.6/10. So this is the love episode, which is odd because it’s also the legacy episode, which is odd because it’s also yet another “who will stick to their principles” Santos vs. Vinick episode. That means that what we get as a whole in “The Cold,” feels a little muddled. The pieces fit together decently well, but the fit is a little awkward in places as the show tries to juggle its romantic storylines, its campaign storylines, its Presidential storylines, and its international relations storylines all at once.
But let’s focus on the light stuff to start out with! As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never been especially invested in the Josh-Donna relationship. They’ve often been sketched as too condescending a pairing for me to really get behind them as a couple, and the show hasn’t gone far enough to show Josh earning Donna’s affections by respect her or treating her as a peer rather than a pontification toy for me to change my mind.
The way their flirtations here were dramatized didn’t do much for me either. I understand that “Will They, Won’t They” has been the most dependable story engine on television for decades now, but I grow weary of these teases, and wish the show would do it or get off the pot already. Bradley Whitford and Janel Moloney do a good job at elevating generic romcom-level waffling, and the missed connection slip of the hotel key is a solid touch, but I’m perturbed, rather than anticipatory, at The West Wing drawing this out rather than pulling the trigger.
I did, however, enjoy the use of C.J. as someone who can detect both that something’s up with Donna and that there’s something going on with Will and Kate. The latter couple doesn’t really have the chemistry to make them compelling, but there’s some cute enough (again) rom-com-y material between them that works as a garnish to the rest of the story and a parallel to Josh and Donna unpacking their fateful kiss.
The opening, which featured that kiss, was done about as well as you can imagine. It was a great set piece to have the Santos team frantically checking polls, waiting for the newest update, and then have a jaunty tune slowly pipe in as they gather round the same screen to see the good news revealed. The ensuing scenes of the team slamming on doors to wake up the crew and tell them that Santos is officially tied was fully of fun and energy, and lent the right air to that fateful kiss.
But while the episode opened with jubilant music and two people coming together, it ended with a much more melancholy music selection, and two people breaking apart (albeit not romantically). Starting the episode with Santos’s altogether and celebrating, and closing it with Vinick all alone, practically in mourning, tells the story of the trajectory of these two campaigns.
Sheila basically making the call of firing herself as campaign manager to signal a shakeup to the public and get Vinick’s campaign back on track was quite sad. Sheila (Jill Taylor, to we T.G.I.F. fans), has been the rock of Vinick’s campaign, someone whom he trusted and who served as a voice of reason who could channel the Senator’s impulses into something crowd-pleasing and digestable. You also got the impression that she was one of Vinick’s few friends on the campaign trail, someone who was looking out for him as a person and not just as a project. Her leaving signals a shift, a departure in more ways than one, that more than his nascent illness, leaves Vinick a little dispirited.
It’s part of the classic blueprint and philosophy that this show has employed from the beginning. In the early parts of the episode, the Santos team is all atwitter about how to capitalize on their newfound success and the fact that Santos had campaigned against nuclear power prior to the San Andreo accident. There’s tons of talk about campaign verbiage in shades of “look to the future” and “21st century ____.” But in the end, the team decides to stick with what’s worked for them, an image of consistency and stability rather than forward-looking buzzwords, with a “right from the start” tagline to emphasize that.
Meanwhile, Vinick is presented with a similar option in the fallout (no pun intended) from the San Andreo accident and his plummeting performance in the polls: he can either choose to stick with the moderate 50-state strategy that Bruno has been pursuing from the beginning, or he can shift to appeal to the Republican base as his VP candidate, Bob, the RNC chairman, and a rising star RNC fundraiser and campaign manager heir apparent advise. It’s clear that Vinick is reluctant to pursue these “values voters” because doing so would represent a departure from the principles that made him the legislator he’s been for decades. Sheila essentially makes the decision for him, stating that it’s the best chance for him to win and for her to keep her promise to get him elected. But people in the world of The West Wing get punished for not standing up for what they believe in, and it’s clear that Vinick is already feeling the sting of the compromise he’s been pressured to make.
But Vinick isn’t the only person in the episode struggling with what the future holds. President Bartlet, at this late point in his Presidency, is worried about his legacy. He gazes at sketches wondering whether he’ll be remembered as a man who needed a cane or as the vigorous man he sees himself as, and whether his accomplishments over the last eight years will be overshadowed if he gets the country into a protracted war in Kazakhstan. It’s an interesting look at how the awkward period where one president is on the way out and another is likely to come in changes the decision-making in these crucial moments.
To that end, I liked how it led to a sort of White House cold war with the Vinick and Santos camped holed up while the candidates waited to speak with the President about this big decision. (I also loved Leo being brought in to give his old friend advice and Deborah Fiderer being her usual pugnacious self.) The moment when the President and the two candidates were in the room was sobering. If Bartlet goes through with this, gone are Santos’s education plan and Vinick’s tax cuts.
As we’ve learned over seven seasons, so much of what it is to sit in the Oval Office is to be reactive, to have to adjust your plans to handle unexpected developments and unaccounted for realities. Seeing these two hopefully be told that much of their plans would be preemptively dashed by the guy who wouldn’t have to stay in office to see the consequences, even if he believes it to be the right thing to do, made for an interesting dynamic for the three men who, for time being, hold the country’s future in their hands.
That said, where the episode was weakest is where it felt like “The Cold” was speaking more directly about the then-contemporary Iraq War rather than the conflict presented in a fashion that felt a bit strained. The show is no stranger to shoehorning in commentary on real life current events without much consideration for how organic it is to the universe of the show, but it always bugs me just a little when I can “see the strings” in that regard.
So much of the legacies of these individuals, whether it’s Bartlet and Leo and C.J. as the decision-makers of an administration, or Santos and Vinick as candidates, or Sheila and Bruno as campaign managers, or Josh and Donna as partners, are directed by forces beyond their control: foreign incursions, nuclear disasters, and spur of the moment romantic enthusiasm. They, and we, don’t know when some event will come in, upset the applecart, and change the nature of this race, this country, and these people, all over again.