Return to “The West Wing” (1)
“The West Wing” was my all-time favourite television series and I guess that I was not alone in finding it both immensely entertaining and informative. After all, it won two Golden Globe Awards and 26 Emmy Awards, a tie with “Hill Street Blues” for the most Emmy Awards ever won by a television drama series.
Now I watched all 154 episodes of the seven series as they were first broadcast on British television. Later I rewatched series one through to five on DVD. For Christmas, our son and daughter-in-law gave us DVDs of series six and seven and we’ve just started enjoying them.
Series six opens with the president having to decide how to respond to a Hamas terrorist incident in the Gaza Strip. He is advised to hit a wide variety of targets hard with military attacks but chooses instead to hit limited targets and contrive a set of Middle East peace negotiations.
Trouble in Gaza? Sound familiar? A proportionate military response while seeking negotiations? Sound fanciful? Of course, it’s only television …
January 6th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Yes, it’s only television, so it probably didn’t show the likely results a year or two down the line… Hamas treats the truce merely as a tactical pause and an opportunity to re-arm under the noses of the UN. (See, e.g., Gaza headmaster was Islamic Jihad “rocket-maker”.) Israel continues building its provocative and illegal settlements on the West Bank. Meanwhile, the Iranian theocracy edges ever closer to nuclear status. What could possibly go wrong?
January 16th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I’ve just reached the episode where rumours of Fidel Castro’s death lead to the US President trying to reach a political deal with Cuba. One or both of these developments is possible in the next few months.