West Wing and Grey's Anatomy
Nov. 7th, 2005 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamadebWarning - there may be spamage today - nothing else to do.
So, first. I watched tv last night.
The West Wing
Or a show with the same name. This was the Live Debate episode, and it featured three men, one of whom is not an actor, but is, instead, a newsman from our own universe. The other two joined the cast last year.
As a debate, it was interesting. They "tossed out" the rules, and debated each other directly. They touched on a lot of important issues, but many of them only had bearing, really, in our universe, not theirs. The one time President Bartlett was mentioned was a bit of a shock, you know?
As a performance - well, Alan Alda is a wonderful actor. He never broke character, he was smooth and articulate and he never backed down. He *was* the longtime politician he was portraying. Jimmy Smits is a good actor, and he was Santos, but he was also stiff and awkward and kept flubbing things.
As an episode of The West Wing - it wasn't. There's no need to pledge about going to war for oil when no such war is in the offing. I don't know if Enron exists in the WWverse. Sorkin, if he were to do such a stunt, would have made sure they stayed in their own universe. They didn't. I've said this before. They're writing the campaigns as if the current president is George W. Bush, not Jed Bartlett. Not only is Bartlett politically liberal, but his biggest scandal to date was his concealment of his MS (a big deal, yes, but not enough to cost him a second term.) He's not Bill Clinton, in other words. This aspect will continue to bug me.
Grey's Anatomy
Other than the continuing plots and the canon "mpreg" (really a malignant teratoma), there was one scene that caught my attention.
This one doctor, who is apparently the bad boy of the group, showed up for rounds late and was assigned to "babysit" an eighteen year old girl in a wheelchair. To be precise, he was to keep her away from her overprotective mother so she could decide to have a procedure that, if successful, would make her life easier and make her more independent - and capable of having sex.
She's pretty and bright and funny, but apparently she's that rare creature (not!)- the high school girl who has never been kissed. So - and House fans know what's coming up. She asks the goodlooking intern to kiss her. And he kneels next to her (wheelchair, after all) and leans in and says "no" because a first kiss should be special and should be felt down to the toes.
And I couldn't help but compare it to the House scene - and it doesn't. It's not just that the actors involved were better, although they were. But the scene in House got me emotionally involved - a dying little girl who knew she'd never get another chance (and hey, pretty man!)for any kiss, the doctor who knew it was wrong all the way to his bones - ethically and morally - and who did it anyway. Because a pretty speech about "the right one" would be stupid here. And while I was shouting at the screen for him not to do it, and could barely watch when he did, I know he did it *for her*.
The GA scene was cute. And it was for the intern's story line - he'd taken another intern out to dinner and didn't kiss her goodnight, and she resented it. So at the end of the episode, he gave her a major smooch in front of everyone. Because it should be special or something. Other than that - I wasn't involved in it at all. If I hadn't seen the House scene, I'd have grinned at that and forgotten it.
So, first. I watched tv last night.
The West Wing
Or a show with the same name. This was the Live Debate episode, and it featured three men, one of whom is not an actor, but is, instead, a newsman from our own universe. The other two joined the cast last year.
As a debate, it was interesting. They "tossed out" the rules, and debated each other directly. They touched on a lot of important issues, but many of them only had bearing, really, in our universe, not theirs. The one time President Bartlett was mentioned was a bit of a shock, you know?
As a performance - well, Alan Alda is a wonderful actor. He never broke character, he was smooth and articulate and he never backed down. He *was* the longtime politician he was portraying. Jimmy Smits is a good actor, and he was Santos, but he was also stiff and awkward and kept flubbing things.
As an episode of The West Wing - it wasn't. There's no need to pledge about going to war for oil when no such war is in the offing. I don't know if Enron exists in the WWverse. Sorkin, if he were to do such a stunt, would have made sure they stayed in their own universe. They didn't. I've said this before. They're writing the campaigns as if the current president is George W. Bush, not Jed Bartlett. Not only is Bartlett politically liberal, but his biggest scandal to date was his concealment of his MS (a big deal, yes, but not enough to cost him a second term.) He's not Bill Clinton, in other words. This aspect will continue to bug me.
Grey's Anatomy
Other than the continuing plots and the canon "mpreg" (really a malignant teratoma), there was one scene that caught my attention.
This one doctor, who is apparently the bad boy of the group, showed up for rounds late and was assigned to "babysit" an eighteen year old girl in a wheelchair. To be precise, he was to keep her away from her overprotective mother so she could decide to have a procedure that, if successful, would make her life easier and make her more independent - and capable of having sex.
She's pretty and bright and funny, but apparently she's that rare creature (not!)- the high school girl who has never been kissed. So - and House fans know what's coming up. She asks the goodlooking intern to kiss her. And he kneels next to her (wheelchair, after all) and leans in and says "no" because a first kiss should be special and should be felt down to the toes.
And I couldn't help but compare it to the House scene - and it doesn't. It's not just that the actors involved were better, although they were. But the scene in House got me emotionally involved - a dying little girl who knew she'd never get another chance (and hey, pretty man!)for any kiss, the doctor who knew it was wrong all the way to his bones - ethically and morally - and who did it anyway. Because a pretty speech about "the right one" would be stupid here. And while I was shouting at the screen for him not to do it, and could barely watch when he did, I know he did it *for her*.
The GA scene was cute. And it was for the intern's story line - he'd taken another intern out to dinner and didn't kiss her goodnight, and she resented it. So at the end of the episode, he gave her a major smooch in front of everyone. Because it should be special or something. Other than that - I wasn't involved in it at all. If I hadn't seen the House scene, I'd have grinned at that and forgotten it.