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West Wing recs
Dec. 6th, 2008 04:24 pmOn the West Wing box sets, all the extras that came with the individual seasons originally are put on two dvds at the end. Watching them (well, not all, as I'm not interested in the music) was fun. It amused the hell out of me that in both the s4 Abbey Bartlet and the s5 Jed Bartlet documentary, all three actors concerned described Abbey and Leo as "the wife and the mistress", and declare they're the two great love affairs of Jed B.'s life. It's always nice to get one's own impressions confirmed by actors. *g*
That aside, the interviews with the various real life White House staffers, mostly from the Clinton administration with some Reagan and Bush the elder mixed in, who served as consultants were very interesting, especially the ones with the presidential aides (i.e. real life Charlies). And in one of the documentaries they even get ex-presidents (Clinton, Ford and Carter) to comment. Ford and Carter described the most unpopular decisions they made. Ford said he still thinks pardonning Nixon was the right thing as a trial would have kept his entire presidency busy and hence unable to govern. Carter says he still stands behind negotiating in the Iran Hostage crisis, instead of bombing or using another type of military response, and continues that he knows this cost him the election but that all the hostages arrived home alive and safe, there was no war with Iran and no innocent Iranians were killed, and so he's still sure it was the right thing to do.
I still haven't be able to find the type of fic about Toby and Jed Bartlet I want to read, which makes me uneasily suspect I might be crazy enough to try writing it out of sheer desperation. That's how it worked with the Centauri and G'Kar. (Err, I don't mean the slash, I mean gen fic about Londo, Vir and G'Kar, of which there was almost nothing as late as 2003.) But that took me a decade. On the other hand, it's not that difficult to find good WW fanfic even if one isn't interested in the romances (and thus able to ignore the tons of Josh/Donna and Toby/CJ). It's possible all the WW fans on my flist have already read them, but maybe some escaped their notice, or some have, like me, only now gotten around to watching the entire series, so here are some favorites:
Giving: Abbey Bartlet post Dead Irish Writers, chatting with Lord John Marbury. You know, generally Marbury is one of the few characters on the show who just feels too over the top to be real (which is funny, considering I'm a Londo Mollari fan, but apparantly aristocratic politicians fond of wine, women and song, not to mention larger than life entrances, work better for me when they're aliens), but here he serves as a great foil for Abbey and her issues. A story both funny and melancholy, feeling very true to the episode.
Fell Clutch: Zoey between 25, the s4 finale, and The Dogs of War in s5. It's rare to find fanfic about the youngest Bartlet daughter and what there is deals with her relationship with Charlie, usually from Charlie's pov, and fanfic dealing with the events of these episodes usually is all about the impact they had on the other characters. But it was Zoey to whom they happened first and foremost, and I was really glad to find a story which investigates this, with a taut, intense and very well written result.
The Price: This one deals with the crucial decision made in the s3 finale, Posse Comitatus, from both the President's and Leo's pov, in all its morally grey shades.
Walk through the Shadows: if one uses the character name in a search engine, one finds out poor Cliff Calley seems to spend most of his fictional life in Josh/Donna stories, where presumably he is dealt with as an romantic obstacle. But he actually did some other important things on the show than briefly dating Donna, and arguably his existence turned out to be most important for Leo. So here is a tag scene to season 3's Bartlet for America, in which Leo questions Cliff about the choice Cliff made.
That aside, the interviews with the various real life White House staffers, mostly from the Clinton administration with some Reagan and Bush the elder mixed in, who served as consultants were very interesting, especially the ones with the presidential aides (i.e. real life Charlies). And in one of the documentaries they even get ex-presidents (Clinton, Ford and Carter) to comment. Ford and Carter described the most unpopular decisions they made. Ford said he still thinks pardonning Nixon was the right thing as a trial would have kept his entire presidency busy and hence unable to govern. Carter says he still stands behind negotiating in the Iran Hostage crisis, instead of bombing or using another type of military response, and continues that he knows this cost him the election but that all the hostages arrived home alive and safe, there was no war with Iran and no innocent Iranians were killed, and so he's still sure it was the right thing to do.
I still haven't be able to find the type of fic about Toby and Jed Bartlet I want to read, which makes me uneasily suspect I might be crazy enough to try writing it out of sheer desperation. That's how it worked with the Centauri and G'Kar. (Err, I don't mean the slash, I mean gen fic about Londo, Vir and G'Kar, of which there was almost nothing as late as 2003.) But that took me a decade. On the other hand, it's not that difficult to find good WW fanfic even if one isn't interested in the romances (and thus able to ignore the tons of Josh/Donna and Toby/CJ). It's possible all the WW fans on my flist have already read them, but maybe some escaped their notice, or some have, like me, only now gotten around to watching the entire series, so here are some favorites:
Giving: Abbey Bartlet post Dead Irish Writers, chatting with Lord John Marbury. You know, generally Marbury is one of the few characters on the show who just feels too over the top to be real (which is funny, considering I'm a Londo Mollari fan, but apparantly aristocratic politicians fond of wine, women and song, not to mention larger than life entrances, work better for me when they're aliens), but here he serves as a great foil for Abbey and her issues. A story both funny and melancholy, feeling very true to the episode.
Fell Clutch: Zoey between 25, the s4 finale, and The Dogs of War in s5. It's rare to find fanfic about the youngest Bartlet daughter and what there is deals with her relationship with Charlie, usually from Charlie's pov, and fanfic dealing with the events of these episodes usually is all about the impact they had on the other characters. But it was Zoey to whom they happened first and foremost, and I was really glad to find a story which investigates this, with a taut, intense and very well written result.
The Price: This one deals with the crucial decision made in the s3 finale, Posse Comitatus, from both the President's and Leo's pov, in all its morally grey shades.
Walk through the Shadows: if one uses the character name in a search engine, one finds out poor Cliff Calley seems to spend most of his fictional life in Josh/Donna stories, where presumably he is dealt with as an romantic obstacle. But he actually did some other important things on the show than briefly dating Donna, and arguably his existence turned out to be most important for Leo. So here is a tag scene to season 3's Bartlet for America, in which Leo questions Cliff about the choice Cliff made.
