Tuesday, June 09, 2009

A Little Mindless Entertainment

Sometimes mindless television is a really good thing.

Sometimes your brain is just too full to digest anything of substance.

Wife recently found some reality show about Tori and Dean, as in Tori spelling and her husband. It is kind of interesting in a voyeuristic sort of way.

On the whole though, I don't really like the reality tv shows, and you can only watch repeats of Frasier so many times. Our current standby entertainment is The West Wing.

Now, to call this "mindless entertainment" is not really accurate. It's politics - often heavy stuff - but still - it is passive - and that is nice. We hadn't gotten involved with The West Wing when it was actually on the air, but Wife's brother got the entire 7 season set for Christmas and encouraged us to take it home and watch it. We are now almost done with Season 3 and it is really good!



It took a few shows to start caring about the characters and getting to know their personalities and relationships, but now we are totally hooked. Martin Sheen is an awesome President with a heart, and wicked intelligence. (Quite the contrast with the real President of the US at the time - early 2000's.) Rob Lowe is a handsome, smart attorney-turned-speech-writer. Stockard Channing occassionally appears as the First Lady, and she plays the part with grace and humor. So many of the cast I do not know, but have come to love.

The show is well-written, funny, and still so relevant - in fact, some of the problems they were worried about or were dealing with are things we now see the results of and wish the past administration would have had the forethought of the television writers. I hear in later seasons there is a character that was based on Obama who goes on to run for President. (Forgive me if I have some of the details incorrect here - we haven't gotten that far, yet!) I'm looking forward to seeing those episodes.

Anyway, I highly recommend the series and if you see the very nicely packaged box set on sale, it is sure to give you at least 112 hours of good, thought-provoking entertainment.

2 comments:

blur_ said...

I loved West Wing. I wish I could watch it again for the first time!

hope bar study isn't killing you. it's killing me.

Dakota said...

It is not completely killing me - yet - it is more like slow, painful, deep wounds that the medication sometimes suffices to keep me from feeling....

I left a post on your blog. Don't know if you have any of the same lecturers for the NY bar. If not, you won't get the referece, but the gist is that we are supposed to be sheep. Give the bar examiners the same answer as everyone else. Do not get creative, lest the examiners wake from their stupor and carefully read your answer.

Best of luck!