There are not a lot of people who can get away with leaving someone hanging with such a cliffhanger like Aaron Sorkin. He did it in the first season but made up for it by immediately going in strong the next season, while here, he decided to start it off with an episode about 9/11. I understand that, especially for the time, but it was so removed from anything of value that it felt wrong. However, now we're right back in the ball game again. And this episode, while definitely having some pacing issues, gave a good insight into the immediate aftermath of Bartlet's announcement.
The opening scene of this episode reveals what we knew all along: Bartlet is gonna run for re-election. With that, a whole new set of issues start coming up and a lot of this episode was filled with different people wanting Bartlet to focus on different things to get the public back on his side. The whole present-day storyline (which is set four weeks after the announcement) came across as such a weird decision, that I wasn't invested in a lot of what was happening. I was much more interested in the immediate aftermath and the reactions of the people closest to Bartlet. Seeing what's going on inside the heads of his staff is a needed focus, especially given the fact that most of the people who learned about Bartlet's health seemed fine by the realization. It makes sense that some of them don't. I also think the growing issues with Haiti provided a nice countermeasure for Bartlet as he now had a chance to use the adrenaline he had build up during the press conference, and it may have resulted in some rushed decisions that could be lethal for his presidency down the line, but I'm not sure about that. All of that formed a lot of intrigues that I was onboard with, but the present-day storyline gave a lot of thought for the audience that I'm not sure we needed this soon in the season. I'm excited to see where they're going and maybe I'll see this differently after I've seen the second part.
"Manchester (Part 1)" was a good opening episode that misses the focus a little bit, but still uses its time to really affect the characters. The present-day storyline was very weirdly constructed and put a lot of stuff on the table a little soon, but the overall episode provided a satisfying return to this world.
The opening scene of this episode reveals what we knew all along: Bartlet is gonna run for re-election. With that, a whole new set of issues start coming up and a lot of this episode was filled with different people wanting Bartlet to focus on different things to get the public back on his side. The whole present-day storyline (which is set four weeks after the announcement) came across as such a weird decision, that I wasn't invested in a lot of what was happening. I was much more interested in the immediate aftermath and the reactions of the people closest to Bartlet. Seeing what's going on inside the heads of his staff is a needed focus, especially given the fact that most of the people who learned about Bartlet's health seemed fine by the realization. It makes sense that some of them don't. I also think the growing issues with Haiti provided a nice countermeasure for Bartlet as he now had a chance to use the adrenaline he had build up during the press conference, and it may have resulted in some rushed decisions that could be lethal for his presidency down the line, but I'm not sure about that. All of that formed a lot of intrigues that I was onboard with, but the present-day storyline gave a lot of thought for the audience that I'm not sure we needed this soon in the season. I'm excited to see where they're going and maybe I'll see this differently after I've seen the second part.
"Manchester (Part 1)" was a good opening episode that misses the focus a little bit, but still uses its time to really affect the characters. The present-day storyline was very weirdly constructed and put a lot of stuff on the table a little soon, but the overall episode provided a satisfying return to this world.