Three straight home runs from podcast. Sorkin, Schlamme,and Whitford (Ron Butterfield was awesome too!).

Wow, did these two miss the point of a scene! They just spent ten minutes complaining that Bartlett smacking around radio lady came out of nowhere, wasn't cool.

Absolutely forgetting that scene's tag line:

Their point was that the radio lady could have literally been a mannequin because the audience had never been introduced to her. There was absolutely no payoff to seeing her get beaten down, since the audience literally had no idea who she was. In a world of fairly deep character development, this was jarring.

Radio Lady was obviously a stand-in for Dr. Laura - who was all over the news when this episode first aired. Most of the audience got this.

Sure - it's a really fun scene to watch for precisely that reason. But the WW approximately never relies upon the viewer knowing someone in real life - Sorkin developed all of the characters within the show, rather than relying upon the audience to say, "Oh, I know the background of this character because he's the obvious analog to real-life person X." I think they made the point in an earlier podcast that they don't ever reference real-life politicians - even presidents (welll, I guess post-1960 presidents) - because they don't want that kind of intermingling.

So while it's true that a character like Sam Seaborn is largely based on George Stephanopoulous, you don't have to know anything at all about George Stephanopoulous to appreciate Sam Seaborn's character. And that's not true about Radio Lady, which is why it's so jarring in this episode.

I disagree. The tag line I quoted above WAS the payoff.

The beat down wasn't about HER. It was about that other guy, that empty suit that Bartlett demolished in his younger days. Podcast Boys never mentioned that guy, hence my view that they missed the point of the scene.

They also could have pointed out that Dr Laura had some nudes leaked back then, which makes the Jenna Jacobs/Jameson burn a little more harsh.

(I once saw Dr Laura in person, before I had ever heard of her. It was the first time I thought an older lady looked hot. It's common now, but wasn't then. [/coolstorybro])

i dont see how you can argue that the scene wouldn't have been more effective if they had spent 2 minutes of airtime earlier in the show introducing her. They gave Dave in the Morning 2 minutes to talk about Howard Stern and Don Imus. They only gave Dr. Jacobs a throwaway comment about her hair.

Give CJ a convo with the Dr. instead 4-hr format dudes, and now there's plenty of context for the President to take notice of her.

Looks like I'm gonna have to rewatch this series again over the next four years.

I hadn't watched in forever, so I just pulled up a random Season 1 ep.

Was shocked to see that Josh's office was decorated with this:

i tried to rewatch this not too long ago, and i couldn't do it. too boring.

josh is one of the most annoying characters of all time.

i liked the show the first time around. some really great acting and writing

Of course, I then had to watch Josh getting shot. That scene where Toby finds him, looking up helplessly--now that's acting.

I may have to pull the trigger on this

WW Weekly at Town Hall

I tuned out of the podcast after about 20 eps.

I love this podcast. Learning a ton from it and so fun to reminisce about the show.

Yea the podcast episodes are pretty hit-or-miss imo (which is disappointing; I had pretty high hopes for this podcast).

The Sorkin interviews are awesome (for the S1 finale and S2 finale). Listening to 5 minutes of theater jokes sucks. I skipped around and have only listened to episodes that sounded interesting - only 10-12 so far for me, so maybe there are a few more gems that I've missed. I'll probably listen to their recent episode where they interview with Martin Sheen.

I'm still on board and listen to every episode, but it's definitely not with the same level of excitement as when it started. I thought the Martin Sheen episode was one of the least interesting in forever.

I started it late and I'm now on S2 E3. While I loved that Schlamme and Whitford were on the podcast, I really hated they were on the first two episodes of S2 (the backstory episodes, I think Shadow of Two Gunmen or named similarly) - they are two of my favorite episodes, and by having the guest stars, it eliminated a ton of the usual analysis/banter between Malina and Hirway, which I find very entertaining.

I agree Sheen episode was underwhelming.

I’m a pretty big fan of the podcast, the Sorkin interviews are great, but I really enjoyed the Debate Camp episode and so many of the interviews that are not necessarily cast member interviews.

Ah that's disappointing that the Martin Sheen episode didn't go over well. Oh well. (Re-reading my post, I think I come off a bit harsher than I intended).

I really enjoyed the Ainsley interview - haha I loved hearing that John Spencer would set up obstacle courses in his back yard for the newer actors to practice "the walk and talk".

Yes, Ron Klain Debate Camp episode was good (he's the guy who prepares Democrats for their presidential debates for the past like 25 years).

And this week's episode is great because "Game On" is a fantastic episode and it happens to be the first appearance of podcaster Josh Malina. Prompted me to watch Game On episode again tonight, and it's as good as I remembered.

"Can we have it back?"

My jaw dropped after that line.

Looool it's so good: "Unfunded mandate is two words..."

Funny you guys are talking debate camp, the other night I rewatched Game Change for the first time since it originally aired. I didn't know who Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace were back then, now that I do, I went back to watch Woody Harrelson and Sarah Paulson play them (Woody was incredible).

In THEIR debate camp scene, the staff burst into applause when Sarah Palin correctly pronounced "Ahmadinejad". So their debate prep was a little more, um, basic.

Talk on Twitter between Richard Schiff and Joshua Molina that Sorkin is thinking about bringing the show back...

I just came a little