Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

This blog will pay for itself.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The willow is too close to the house.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

In my day, never was longer.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: West Wing as 2020

Reader Interactions

75Comments

  2. 2.

    VeniceRiley

    Josh Malina follows me on Twitter. That’s my one connection to TWW. Don’t tell him Stockard Channing was my fave <3

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    I have never ever liked New Years Eve. Even as a kid. I don’t know why, but, I never did.

    Until this year. I cannot wait to be rid of this year. Just a rotten year.

  6. 6.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m not having fun because somehow without my intending it, my laptop shifted all my Word documents onto the cloud, and now my internet is slow and my documents are weird and I have no tech support until 1/11.

  8. 8.

    mali muso

    I have spent the past few evenings bingeing Bridgerton on Netflix and enjoying the TV equivalent of a giant box of chocolates and/or a warm cozy hug.  For me, it was a great way to detox from the hellscape that is 2020.

  12. 12.

    zhena gogolia

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I didn’t set up anything. There was some kind of popup last night and I thought I was ignoring it by clicking “continue” (I never agreed to anything), and this morning when I turned on the laptop all my Word documents were on iCloud and my internet is crawling.

  20. 20.

    Kristine

    Bingeing Dr Who on BBC America in between errands and work on a short story due on the 31st. Looking forward to the His Dark Materials finale tonight.

    A friend is arranging a New Year’s Eve Zoom. I’ve never been a NY party person, but I’m looking forward to raising a glass ? with these folks.

  21. 21.

    zhena gogolia

    @Major Major Major Major:

    But I didn’t click anything like that. I don’t understand what happened. I hope it’s reversible. I see all sorts of advice on the internet but I’m afraid to do any of it myself.

  23. 23.

    SaltWaterCleanse

    Today is my wife’s 50th Bday. We started talking about average age (which for her is now obviously 25) compared to what I’m calling “life median age.” I’m 56, but I consider my median age 40. In other words, I did half of my “living” from birth to 40, and the other half from 40 to 56 (i.e. lots of impactful stuff, learning, growth, changes from 40 to 56, equal to the growth from birth to 40. Whereas my wife says her median age, 22, is actually younger than her average age. Anyway, something fun to think about.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

         The Apartment with Shirley MacLain and Jack Lemon is a good New Year’s movie, if you can get it.

  27. 27.

    mali muso

    @schrodingers_cat:  BSG is one of those shows that I have on my “need to watch this sometime” list, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet.  Given how much time I anticipate we will be spending at home even in 2021, that may change…

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Thanks for the link, I shall check it out!  I’m an avid romance reader (read the Bridgerton series back in the early aughts when they came out), so I’m pretty chuffed to see the genre start to get the care and attention that I think it deserves when it comes to translating it to the screen.

    @Major Major Major Major: Fringe!  Hubby and I went down a rabbit hole of watching that one a few years back.  Super entertaining, with the action and adventure that he likes but with enough human interest and quirkiness to keep me engaged.

  29. 29.

    zhena gogolia

    @Major Major Major Major:
    I think I’m going to have to wait until 1/11 when the tech people come back. Gah.

    For people like me, the period between Christmas and New Year’s is prime work time, but our entire support staff is gone.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’ve noticed a lot of those “pre-prestige” shows, with 22 episodes per season, have… a lot of filler, lol.

    Way back when, shows were all “filler”.  Most scripted TV shows couldn’t make money in their initial run and would only be profitable if they made it into syndication.  When that happened, it was expected they’d be shown in more or less random order, so each episode had to stand on its own as a story.  It wasn’t until DVD sales replaced syndication as the post-run cash cow that it became common for shows to have season-long stories.

    That said, I think the quality of the filler episodes is the key difference between an OK show (or an OK season) and a great one.  In an OK series, the filler episodes are pretty forgettable.  In a great one, they can be some of the most memorable.  To pick a couple of personal favorites, “Hush” and “Tales of Ba Sing Se” aren’t important parts of their respective series’ main story lines, but they remain some of the most memorable.

  36. 36.

    Miss Bianca

    @Major Major Major Major: 

    Just finished Season 7 of Elementary, where JN plays Sherlock Holmes’s father. I was shocked how thin he looked at the end of Seasons 6 and 7 – wondering, “is he ill, or did he just lose a bunch of weight?”

    Thought about starting Fringe just because I like him, but I keep getting Fringe mixed up with Lost – those one-word monosyllabic titles throw me, I guess – and haven’t seen either yet.

  40. 40.

    Miss Bianca

    @Roger Moore: Yeah, but for me, “Hush” didn’t strike me as memorable at all except for its storytelling gimmick until I had seen the rest of Buffy the Vampire Slayer up to that point. My friends who were huge fans made the mistake of presuming that their favorite episode was a great way to introduce me to the series. My response being, “well, ok, that was…interesting? I guess?”

    Later, when I was watching the series and invested and becoming a fan, I finally understood what the fuss was about. Because I finally understood what the stakes (so to speak) and relationships were like for the characters.

  41. 41.

    Doug R

    @Major Major Major Major: As a resident of BC I enjoyed watching Fringe with the addition of recognizing local landmarks plus if you accept it’s X-Files 2.0 with a twist it’s good fun. Plus Leonard Nimoy, even in cartoon form.

  42. 42.

    Citizen Alan

    @Roger Moore:

    To pick a couple of personal favorites, “Hush” and “Tales of Ba Sing Se” aren’t important parts of their respective series’ main story lines, but they remain some of the most memorable.

    Pardon my fan-wanking, but if you’re referring to “Hush” from BtVS, it was the episode where Buffy and Riley Finn found out about each other’s secret lives and it was the start of Willow/Tara, so I would characterize it as very important to the main story line, as well as being one of the most memorable episodes. Certainly, it was the highlight of S4, IMO.

  44. 44.

    Doug R

    @trollhattan: First season of BSG reboot was good, got a little hopeless with all the Cylon reveals.

    That episode about bombing really brought out the parallels to Iraq, helped to see the other side.

  49. 49.

    Mary G

    @dmsilev: Yes, but I can’t see them daring to do this on their own. They probably showed Twitler the lousy bookings, and after the tantrum, he decided to get what he could.

  51. 51.

    Al Z.

    I get the whole fuck 2020 thing but Pandemic fatigue is going to really get dialed up to eleven after the New Year and that ain’t going to be a good thing.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @Citizen Alan:

    There was some secondary stuff in “Hush”, but it was mostly a monster of the week episode.  It had a couple of important character moments in it, but those aren’t the reason it’s memorable and a fan favorite.

  54. 54.

    BC in Illinois

    @Mary G:

    The Trump Hotel in Washington DC has conceded the election. They’ve unblocked all the rooms they had reserved for Inauguration Week, and have made them available to anyone, at a 25% discount.

    All the people on Tik-Tok should proceed to book all the rooms.

  55. 55.

    tinare

    @mali muso: Me too. I love a good costume drama.

    I had resisted watching Broadchurch despite having it highly recommended to me, but I binged it recently. So good, but damn the British and their restraint with letting shows go too many seasons. I didn’t want it to end.

  58. 58.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Spanky:  But watching the calendar turn into 2021 lets me know that the transition is really getting started.  The low gray clouds hanging over my life will start to move a bit.

    Watching out for when I will get my vaccine.  Fairly high up on the list and hoping to hang on until I get it.

  59. 59.

    mali muso

    @tinare: Broadchurch was so so good.  Almost too dark for me, but I’m still glad I watched it.  David Tennant and Olivia Colman are treasures.

  60. 60.

    Joe Falco

    @Mary G:

    Never have I ever felt a desire to take as many towels from a hotel until now, but then I would have to actively give the Trumps money to do it so forget that.

  61. 61.

    pamelabrown53

    @mali muso:

    Me too re: Bridgerton. In fact I overbinged (is that a contradiction of terms?) and plan to watch the last 2 or 3 episodes again.

    Loved Shondaland’s interpretation of trashy Regency romance! Too much fun: just like dark chocolates with caramel centers and nuts.

  63. 63.

    Miss Bianca

    @pamelabrown53: I just had a friend tell me about this one the other day – as a confirmed Regency romance fan (both trashy *and* good!) it sounded like it would be right up my alley!

  68. 68.

    pamelabrown53

    @Major Major Major Major:

    LOL. I thought that Richard Roxbourgh’s “Cleaver Greene” was an apt portrayal of a “Rake” except for one major flaw: he rarely got away with it. Guess that makes him more a scallywag?!

  70. 70.

    mali muso

    @rikyrah: I quite enjoyed it.  Particularly struck by (new to me) leading man Rege-Jean Page who is not only gorgeous but a very gifted actor.  Link here to interesting interview.

    When it comes to representation of people of color, he says, “If we’ve endured white Jesus for this long, then folks can endure a Black Duke.”

  71. 71.

    Miss Bianca

    @mali muso: Oh, is that whose photo I’m seeing? He’s pretty dashing, I have to say. Dunno about the beard shadow – doesn’t strike me as period.  ; ) The sideburns, however, definitely a good look.

  72. 72.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @mali muso: We’ve only watched one episode so far but loved it.  My wife loves Brittish, period stuff and it’s nice to see one with some actual diversity and a self-awareness (almost self-mocking) about the genre.

  73. 73.

    zhena gogolia

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    I thought Rhimes had a good point. They treat Jane Austen like romance novels anyway, so why not just do romance novels instead of redoing the same Austen novels over and over?

  74. 74.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @schrodingers_cat:  I loved the first couple of seasons. Watching the Expanse now but have to stop for a while. It’s reached the really upsetting part ( I read all the books so far so I knew it was coming) and I can t watch that right now. Hope you are doing ok.

  75. 75.

    Darkrose

    @rikyrah: I started watching it today, and I’m totally hooked. I love the idea of Queen Charlotte being Black and embracing it as the basis for a Regency romance with a diverse cast. Also, Regé-Jean Page is insanely hot.

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