Entertainment For Lively Minds
The West Wing
Posted by MurkeyChris on 27 January 2011 - 6:37pm.
Hi all,
My local Oxfam has the complete West Wing DVD box set for £40something. Now I'm not particularly short of DVDs at the moment (I'm half way through the complete Dad's Army, most of the way through Tales from the Green Valley and just bought Series 1-3 of 24 in the same Oxfam), but am wondering if this is an opportunity I should be taking.
I've never seen the show, but am vaguely aware that it's quite well rated. Should I go for it? Is there anywhere I can legitimately / safely view the first episode online to see if I like it?
Oh and no spoilers if possible please, I prefer to know as little as possible about a show before I watch it - I won't even read the blurbs on the back!
Chris
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IT IS THE BEST TV SHOW EVER MADE
How's that for a recommendation?
Seriously, I can't recommend it highly enough, although that price isn't much better than a new one in HMV, IIRC.
I've watched all 7 seasons four times. I never get tired of it. I LOVE IT.
Buy it
Just buy it
and immerse yourself in its intelligence, wit, gravitas, characterisation and damn good storytelling of the highest order. It is peerless drama.
Definitely buy it...
...but I got it new for less than £40, so I think (as usual) Oxfam's pricing is way out.
I'd agree..
I posted on this a few weeks ago after getting it for Xmas. I didn't really fancy it to be honest and had to pretend I was pleased on the big day, but two episodes in I'm utterly hooked. Top telly.
Just buy it
You won't regret it - (US) TV at its best.
If I was there , I'd buy it for you...
... and you could pay me the £40 when you realise it is one of the finest things ever written (never mind acted, directed etc)
Yeah, I'd get it, but...
It's not quite in the same league as The Wire or The Sopranos - unlike those two, it's far too concerned with reassuring the viewer that the world is ok in the right hands; and, like M*A*S*H, it has a patriotic streak a mile wide which lets it down rather. But it's still worth having, and a bargain.
I envy you
It is magnificent and there are some episoides that are so well written that you´ll want to warch them again and again.
Hand over £50 and tell the charity to keep the change.
Bargain! The Best Show Made Since God Were A Boy. Intelligent, thoughtful, provocative scripts, well acted - it's the real deal.
Go for it
the complete box set is currently on Play.com for £37.99 inc. del. So I guess it depends on how much you want to give to Oxfam on who you go with but it might be safer to go with Play as all the discs will be new.
What they said ...
It's the best tv series ever. First time through I had to stop myself from watching more than 5 episodes on the trot. Even third time through I'm watching two or three in a row.
Great characters - some people find them smug, but think about it: if you were passionate about politics, to the extent of sacrificing your personal life to work in government, and you landed a job in possibly the most powerful government in the world, wouldn't you be a tiny bit smug?
Buy it from somewhere..............
...........there's no way you'll regret it.
Can remember buying the first box from Virgin a fair few years ago after reading a piece in Word (which is worth digging out) and was hooked. There were a few evenings where four, five or occasionally six episodes were watched.
To repeat the wise words from On The Fence - I envy you!
What everyone else says
you cannot go wrong with this series. Absolutely top dog telly.
Buy It
Also: the series two finale features the best use of the music of Dire Straits in all of popular culture (and I'd include all their albums in that sweeping statement).
buy buy buy buy buy
watched the whole thing in less than a year, watched little else. £40 well spent
Buy, no question.
But hands off C.J. Cregg. She's mine...
Hang on ...
... I am CJ (in my dreams, "like a ninja with a Prada clutch")
I'll take Amy Gardner then
Or Donna. Or both. Josh was a lucky guy!
I'll echo all the praise so far, including Fraser's Dire Straits post. That season 3 finale, 'Two Cathedrals', is my favourite episode of any tv show ever. I would often watch four or five episodes in an evening. On the night I watched 'Two Cathedrals' when I finished the episode I watched it again immediately. And again the next day. Martin Sheen is immense in that episode.
I watched the whole show on my own a few years back. Currently watching it again with my gran. I visit her once a week and we have tea then watch a couple of episodes. My gran is 82 and absolutely loving it first time round. I'm finding it even better second time round.
We just passed the halfway point - it's taken us a year to get that far, so still another year's worth of episodes to keep up entertained every Friday evening.
You, outside, now.
She's leaving with me.
Not being contrarian
And this won't make the slightest difference to your decision I'm sure, but I don't think it's that good. I found it terribly worthy and rather sentimental, surprisingly so; and, as has been noted, idealistic to the point of Utopian. Is it well written and acted? Yes. Is it the best thing ever on TV? No.
Regarding "worthiness"
I always thought of it as wish-fulfilment: What if the people in The Whitehouse were intelligent, selfless, and idealistic; and wanted to do only what was best for their country?
Easy to see why that struck such a chord during the Bush years...
It was sentimental. And it was worthy
And that was a lot of why I loved it.
Fantastically well written (later seasons blip excluded). It never treated the viewer as anything less than intelligent. But the emotion was I think at the core of the show.
Maybe it's because I can be an arch sentimentalist, but strip that out of the show and you take the heart out of it.
I'll agree with you too, Rosbif.
TWW is very good. The OP is getting a bargain, and should pick up the box-set. It's well written, well acted and it has 'heart'.
I don't think it's the best thing ever on telly; that has to be the Sopranos. However, intelligent political drama is rare, and TWW is top of the heap in that area with Leo McGarry is one of my favourite characters in any television show.
For Leo alone, it's worth the trip, but tell me (I'm speaking to the OP) if Toby gets on your tits, will you? I need to know that it's not just me!
Toby...
...is my hero!
I want to be Toby when I grow up.
The main complaint...
...tends to be that it suffers by comparison with wiresopranosetc because it's not as edgy, pessimistic and therefore "real". I can understand that point of view, but I don't think an edgy and pessimistic view of the world necessarily makes a drama more authentic or better art.
When it comes down to it, what would I rather watch out of my two favourite shows of all time, The Wire and TWW? TWW, no contest. The Wire is wonderful, but still flawed in its way, and not always entertaining so much as gruelling. TWW's main flaw is that it's too nice, fully focused on storytelling and entertainment at the expense of grit, and frankly I'll take those flaws every time!
Have
an up Bob, 'cos I think you've articulated the difference between the two most talked about series in decades accurately and succinctly.
It's TWW for me; simply the finest written, acted and produced series ever, and if it suffers from being worthy and idealistic, then thank heaven (or Aaron Sorkin) for that.
How many TV dramas have we got full of realistic (read: pessimistic and depressing) and edgy storylines - if that's your thing, fine. TWW stuck out like a sore thumb for being, largely, one man's interpretation of why exercising your vote matters and what those you vote for should be doing with their time. There's nothing wrong with a bit (or a lot) of '...if only.'
Watched it when it was serialised, watched it many times since. It's an inspiration, full of brilliant soundbites, superlative acting and characters so well crafted you feel every good and bad day they have with the same joy and disappointment.
Unsurpassable.
And Ainsley (enough to make a good dog break its leash) Hayes is mine!
Oh, Ainsley.
*sigh*
But let's not spoil it for the OP. Except just a little bit:
The Good Wife
is worth a watch. Nearly as good as TWW.
Buy it
TV at its finest.
Oh wow!!!!!
Just watched the episode of the funeral and the will he won't he... what a brilliant, brilliant episode.
I'm at home - my wife is out and the girls playing on the PS3 upstairs. I should be listening to music but I'm going to put another episode on.
tweety
Good man Neil. You do that.
Beginnings
Usually you all beat me to the point I thought I might make re the subject under discussion but none of you have caught this yet so I'll just throw it out: S1 E1 (POTUS)? Sheen's introduction to the audience as the president "I am the lord thy God..." Could watch it on an endless loop.
When Obama was running and wobbled
Aaron Sorkin imagined a meeting between the candidate and a retired Bartlet. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd-sorkin.html?adxnnl=1&ad...
Thank you!
Thank you to everyone. So I figured that you weren't really bothered so didn't buy it.
Not really, I am now the proud owner of the complete West Wing, to watch some point in the next ten years, as well as series 1-5 of 24. And Oxfam now has £86 more to go and save some lives. That's what we call at work a win-win.