I re-watched the original episode and this is a good re-telling of it with a laudable mission of getting out the vote. Presenting it on stage with no audience and minimal sets was well handled and I didn't miss the old sets. The actors from the show slipped into their old roles like riding a bicycle.
I was less than satisfied with Sterling K. Brown in the Leo McGarry role, replacing the late John Spencer. Spencer had a wry sense of humor and a way with the Sorkin dialog that hit all the right notes, He was also a sort of gnome-like figure with a wizened visage, (I could see him playing a live-action Yoda or Casey Stengel). Sterling K. Brown plays him like a stone-faced statue. I was trying to think of who i would rather have seen in the role. and Samuel Jackson came on to urge people to vote. Why not him? He's not identical to Spencer either but he's more interesting than Brown, who seems to have won a Dule Hill look-alike contest with that beard.
And where did Allison Janney get that hairdoo? It makes her look 20 years older. Actually, I guess she is. They all are. Which is why if they bring this show back, they need a new cast. Actually I thought it would have bene interesting to have Alan Alda win that 2006 election and see what the writers could do with a moderate Republican administration , contesting the Democrats but also the militant right wing of their own party that ahs done so much to wreck our politics since then. Maybe they can do something like that now.
As to this being candy for the left wing in this country, the only reason why getting out the vote is considered a partisan issue is because the Republicans have said they would lose if everybody voted and are trying to suppress it.
I was less than satisfied with Sterling K. Brown in the Leo McGarry role, replacing the late John Spencer. Spencer had a wry sense of humor and a way with the Sorkin dialog that hit all the right notes, He was also a sort of gnome-like figure with a wizened visage, (I could see him playing a live-action Yoda or Casey Stengel). Sterling K. Brown plays him like a stone-faced statue. I was trying to think of who i would rather have seen in the role. and Samuel Jackson came on to urge people to vote. Why not him? He's not identical to Spencer either but he's more interesting than Brown, who seems to have won a Dule Hill look-alike contest with that beard.
And where did Allison Janney get that hairdoo? It makes her look 20 years older. Actually, I guess she is. They all are. Which is why if they bring this show back, they need a new cast. Actually I thought it would have bene interesting to have Alan Alda win that 2006 election and see what the writers could do with a moderate Republican administration , contesting the Democrats but also the militant right wing of their own party that ahs done so much to wreck our politics since then. Maybe they can do something like that now.
As to this being candy for the left wing in this country, the only reason why getting out the vote is considered a partisan issue is because the Republicans have said they would lose if everybody voted and are trying to suppress it.