Merry Christmas

For my holiday project, I decided to watch all 6 Christmas-adjacent episodes of The West Wing. Only 6, as the 7th season had a wedding episode in the slot that a Christmas episode was normally in, and I don't remember it being at all Christmas-y. I did this because there's something wrong with me. In any event, I did it. Then I remembered I had a blog gathering dust, and realized I could commemorate this event. So, in reverse quality order, they are:

6th Place: Abu el Banat (Season 5)

I didn't hate this episode as much as I hated a lot of season 5. That's the best I can say about it. Grandkid Bartlet not being prepared to flip the Christmas tree switch was enh, the bit about assisted suicide wasn't developed in any interesting way, and the CGI Christmas tree at the end of the episode was borderline offensive in its fakeness. You had to zoom UP from Jed and Grandkid Bartlet turning the tree on and off? Really? You couldn't pull back to the whole of the White House with the tree blinking on and off? It's the only bit that the kid was vaguely charismatic at, and I liked where Jed was at, bringing him out there, and then I get all pissed off about the tree looking awful. I liked well enough the "Bartlet Family Can't Seem To Eat Together" subplot, but it wasn't anything new, and I hated-hated-hated the dumb son-in-law that wanted to run for Congress.

Oh, and apparently there was a subplot about missionaries being arrested in the Sudan or something. Clearly, that wasn't memorable. I guess I was pleased that the characters I liked were being who I recognized, more or less. Season 5 was a parade of characters saying things that kind-of-but-not-totally sounded like their usual selves. (It was, as you recall, the first season that Sorkin didn't write.) I've now wracked my brain for a few minutes, and gone back to the recap, and I can't think of anything specifically nice to say about this episode other than I didn't hate it. Oh, well, at least it's out of the way. Toby moves Will out of the West Wing because he works for VPOTUS Bob in this episode. It's very Cranky Toby v. Passive-Agressive Will, and I don't like THAT either.

5th Place: Impact Winter (Season 6)

The good news: Josh and Leo have the conversation about finding The Guy (who turns out, of course to be Jimmy Smits), and it's a delightful little exercise. Josh manages to be his post-Sorkin single-level self (frazzled to a degree that edges towards incompetent), which is always disappointing, but it's not egregious. There's a bit about an asteroid which actually involves a couple pretty funny exchanges, even if they're totally drama-free. No rational individual ever thought for a single instant that there would be any resolution other than "It missed us! The world didn't end!"for that storyline. President Bartlet visits the former location of Cleveland? The rest of the season is filmed darker, with everyone wearing parkas, as soot blocks out the sun? Daring, but unlikely.

The bad news: Donna quits, which is interesting dramatically and is character-driven, but the really obscene part is that they put a sassy temp in her position. A sassy temp who seems to have no idea how the White House works or that it's even, you know, an important place. It's super lazy and a dumb throw-in bit, and while I get that there has to be some evidence that she's left, it doesn't have to be a scene that doesn't make any sense at all. You'd think that the temp they'd hire would need stratospherically high security clearance and therefore be at least vaguely qualified to work in the West Wing and not, when requested to book the next available flight to Houston, respond, "Texas?" and then "hang on, hang on, let me get a pen..." This may be one of my top 10 least favorite moments in the show ever. The only reason this doesn't torpedo the whole episode:

The Curtis: I love Curtis and the Prez. They should have their own show. In the beginning of the episode, where the temporarily paralyzed Bartlet and Curtis "make a jailbreak" off of Air Force One is one of my top 10 most favorite moments. Maybe it's that Martin Sheen plays the weakness-and-power mixture so damn well, or that the actor playing Curtis is so damn earnest, or if it's something else, but this moves the episode into the 4th spot, if not for the bit about the temp and the drama-less asteroid drama. Meanwhile, the bit with Jed and Abby in the hotel where they both end up sitting on the bathroom floor with Jed raging about his paralysis is something I've almost taken for granted from Martin Sheen, but is really damn good, too. Still not enough to overcome the asteroid and the dumb-ass temp.

Oh, and also: the negotiations with China (the reason that Curtis had to carry Jed off of AF1) were so-so. But the end of the episode was deliciously drama-filled as the president collapsed as CJ was on the phone celebrating with Leo, and CJ and Toby get to be framed in a doorway (hallway?) as Abby shuts the office door on them. It's, again, an okay episode. I remembered that Kristin Chenoweth ducks under an open filing cabinet in this episode while avoiding briefing the press, and while the institutional terror of the press is a bit of a crutch (Afraid of The Press: Annabeth, Will, kind-of Toby. Terrible with The Press: Josh, kind-of Toby. Good with The Press: CJ... and that's it.), I like the visual gag. Congrats, episode, you just tied for 4th.

T-4th Place: Holy Night (Season 4)

Toby and Toby's Dad are good, and a reasonably charted sub-plot. Whiffenpoofs, snowed-in, Leo and Jed are troubled by the assassination of the Saudi Fauxrabian defense minister, so they make Josh do a lot of last-minute busywork. (Church of the Nativity repairs/infant mortality in the HHS budget) Oh, Dr. Stanley's back: I love Stanley, even if he's only in this episode so Jed can talk at someone and brag about his SAT score. We get good Sorkin lines like "pregnancy is a binary state," and "You said, 'no no no no, no.' Then you called me Mr. Justice." Danny's also back. As Santa Claus! Yay! And he's probably figured out about the Saudi Fauxrabian guy! Yay? In an unlikely-but-well-written-so-it's-almost-of-plausible way. But I like Timothy Busfield, so I'll allow it.

Honestly? I watched these in reverse chronological order, so I was just glad to have Sorkin's voice behind the characters again. Seasons 5-7 were always a little weird with somebody else writing the main characters. 7 was the best of the bunch because Vinick and Santos and Friends were new characters, so it was harder to say "Well, that doesn't sound like Leo/Josh/CJ/Donna/Jed/et cetera." It's tied for fourth, but there's a distinct gap between Holy Night and the third-place episode.

The top three I'll get to on Christmas proper, because I'm kind of tired.

This is the Jump.

When I Grow Up

An addition to the list of People I Want To Be When I Grow Up:

Mark McKinney. Not only worthy of rescue from the Studio 60 Island of Death, but insanely enjoyable in Slings and Arrows. I don't remember his years on Saturday Night Live, but there's the whole Kids in the Hall thing. I'm adding him to the emulation list, which needs reviewing anyway.

By the way, if you haven't watched Slings and Arrows, you're doing yourself a disservice of the highest order.

Oh, and I broke my foot over the weekend.

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iPod Wins Again!

Also, a few days ago, the following songs came up in order on my iPod, much to my delight:

Hey Baby, Northwestern University "Wildcat" Marching Band
The Hands That Built America, U2
Elephant Love Medley, Moulin Rouge Soundtrack
Paint it Black, Rolling Stones
Here It Goes Again, OK Go
I, Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha
Find Your Grail, Monty Python's Spamalot
Smoke, Ben Folds Five
Crimson + Gold, Carla Werner
The Long Day is Over, Norah Jones
One Angry Dwarf and 100 Solemn Faces, Ben Folds
The Pony Soldiers, NFL Films
Look Down, Les Miserables
Desire, U2
Heavy, Collective Soul
Tusk, Fleetwood Mac

At the time, this seemed very portentous. Now, I can't remember the connections. In any event, it's rare that I get through 16 songs on shuffle without skipping through stuff. I think the crossword/sudoku probably helped with that, along with me occasionally going "Hm, this really encapsulates how I feel right now," and then not paying attention again. As evidenced by the fact that I felt like "The Long Day is Over," "One Angry Dwarf..." and then the NFL. So, perhaps that theory's bunk. Also interesting is that I have a surprising amount of songs from musicals (we'll count Moulin Rouge in that category) on this list.

So, there's that. Good for you, iPod.

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Brain Dump, Wednesday, 2:45 PM

Here's four six bullet points, comin' at'cha.

• Madame, please endeavor to wear a dress that covers your entire butt when coming into the cathedral. The fact that your coat contends with your dress for length is extremely distracting.
• I think I got an entire palm tree smeared on my head. But that's okay.
• A thing I noticed that I started doing, and now it makes me giggle: I've started blowing by panhandlers and survey-takers by saying "I'm sorry," and doing this hand wave thing. It's sort of morphed into this Obi-Wan, "These aren't the droids you're looking for," kind of thing. I think I want to focus on that, really workshop it.
• Joe (in regard your comment on the previous post): I haven't talked ad nauseum about the College of Cardinals? Dude, Benedict XVI is the coach, clearly. I have a roster on Excel that tells me where everybody is, because of course I import them into Madden and want to keep track of them. Notables: Paul Joseph Cardinal Pham Dinh Tung is a safety for the Ravens, Miloslav Cardinal Vlk won the Groza award and plays for the Bears, and Julius Cardinal Darmaatmadja is a WR/KR who is battling for the Heisman with Tyrell Sutton.
• Oh, also, I'm basically live-blogging my blog, as I'm not putting together any sort of coherent thought process today. (Re: Joe's comment a couple posts ago, which I'm pretty sure was just making fun of me.)
• You can't use punctuation in post labels.

That's all for now.

This is the Jump.

Perhaps We Define "Exciting" in Different Ways

I said I'd do it, so here it is, the first... 15 things I can think of that are more exciting than the aforementioned "Most Exciting [whatever] Minutes in College Athletics." I've actually decided to limit myself to things in sports college "athletics" that last longer than 2 minutes and fewer than 6.* This, unfortunately removes these favorite things that don't take long enough*:

1. A safety caused by intentional grounding in the end zone.
2. A safety caused by holding in the end zone.
3. A safety caused by snapping the ball over the punter's head. (Extra credit if it's through the goal posts)
4. Smashing the backboard glass on a dunk. (Though the replacement takes a while...)
5. Smashing the glass at a hockey game with a puck. (See above)
6. The second ending to Push On. (Whatever, it's cooler than The Ex-Chief.)
7. Anything ending in "rooskie."
8. "It's a fake! It's a funny looking fake."
9. Flippy Cup

That said, the following things are more exciting than that thing with the touchy-toes and whatnot:

1. A vast majority of pre-game video montages, most of which lately seem to be scored with the theme from Pirates of the Carribbean.
2. Any play involving multiple laterals.
3. Any band marching into any stadium anywhere.
4. Rushing the field/court.
5. Whenever they blow up an old stadium.
6. Successive fast breaks in basketball. (There'd have to be, like, 4, wouldn't there? That'd be more exciting.)
7. Hockey shootouts. (They have these in college, right?)
8. Recognizing a college athlete in a college bar, and seeing him/her navigate people. Especially if they have the "C'mon, recognize me!" look going.
9. A member of the team conducts the band. Ususally something good has just happened, and everybody's giddy. This is very underrated.
10. On that same note, that one time Willie the Wildcat played drum set during basketball band. That was great.
11. People performing in capacities they have no business performing in. (Ex.: Punter/Kicker throwing passes, basketball player in a dress, linebackers playing "Chubby Bunny.")
12. 4 minutes of an actual football game.
13. Any pivotal baseball/softball at-bat.
14. Coaches going ape-shit on officials.
15. 4 minutes of Joe Paterno falling down.

I was going to say 4 minutes of any sporting event, and then I was going to qualify that, but it turned into this hellish Venn Diagram of scenarios. So, just roll with me on swimming, lacrosse, soccer, basketball, tennis, racquetball, frisbee, squash, field hockey, fencing, and team handball. Diving, shorter track-and-field events, archery, and other things that happen in quick bursts don't fall into this category. Archery, shooting, and the javelin only count if you're being chased by the archers, gunmen, or javelinas^.

Also, I didn't want to go all low-blow and pick other parts of marching band things, but really? Script Ohio isn't more exciting? The imminent death of Double Correct Rights, or the Floating Lion thing PSU does? Anything involving a drum major doing something bizarre? Hell, the Florida State Seminole uses fire! The Ex-Chief just wanders around like a nancy.

Nor did I want to go low-blow on the mascot or tradition thing, because that's pretty subjective, too. Goldy the Gopher spins his head. That'd be bizarre for 4 minutes. A 4-minute mascot fight would be pretty exciting.

Anyway, I'm glad that's over. I thought of a lot of things that were too brief*, which made this more difficult than I expected. Plus, when I started removing things that I thought might be too subjective (maybe people think the Script Ohio is overrated, I don't know) it got pretty hard*.

As always, I accept suggestions on what else is more exciting than the self-proclaimed "most exciting 4 minutes in all of college athletics." I'm positive I missed things.

*Har har.
^Yes, I know what a javelina is. Shut up.

This is the Jump.