Our West Wing Obsession

Last Christmas I bought Eric The West Wing Season VII dvd box set. Having never even seen one episode of the The West Wing I thought it would take us a while to get through it. We ended up watching the whole series in two weeks. And after a good solid six months of watching little else, I can now safely say that we are officially obsessed.

The signs of this sickness are pretty evident and severe. We quote The West Wing all the time. We talk about the characters as if they were real people. We even visited Washington DC because of The West Wing (see proof below). At least I did anyway.


A few Christmases ago the Kirby kids gave wonderful posters to people as presents entitled What we love about... (They love Eric because he is the King of Fairies. I say, who wouldn't?) So I am entitling this top three 'What we love about The West Wing':

1. Great roles for women - CJ and Donna are two wonderful characters. They are dynamic, smart, warm and funny. It's a pity there is more roles like this for women in television or film.

2. Super dialogue - sayings and phrases from the show just stick in your head. Like when Bartlett was first running and they were trying to figure out a game plan, Leo said 'Let Bartlett be Bartlett', meaning Barlett as himself, without any spin-doctoring, could win the presidency. This is a handy phrase that can be adapted easily such as 'Let Eric be Eric' or 'Let Kusi be Kusi'. You get the message.

3. Martin Sheen as President Bartlett - when we watch his portrayal of an American president it makes us think of what the president of America should, and could, be like. It just makes me even sicker when I see George Bush making such a hames of the office.