{"id":5738,"date":"2014-02-07T17:47:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T22:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/?p=5738"},"modified":"2014-02-11T12:03:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T17:03:00","slug":"netflix-series-review-the-west-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/archives\/5738","title":{"rendered":"Netflix Series Review: The West Wing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheBy Hannah Hecht–<\/strong>With the advent of video-streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, many students are \u201cdiscovering\u201d movies and television shows that may have been too mature for them when they first came out. The rise of the Internet has caused resurgence with young people of shows like Doctor Who <\/i>or Freaks and Geeks.<\/p>\n

<\/i>However, there is one late 90\u2019s and early 2000\u2019s drama that no college student should overlook: The West Wing.<\/i><\/p>\n

Premiering on NBC in 1999, The West Wing<\/i> concentrates on fictional U.S. President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his administration. The series, produced and created by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network, The Newsroom, A Few Good Men<\/i>), ran for seven seasons and won three Golden Globe and 26 Emmy awards, including four for Outstanding Drama Series. The show features an all-star cast, including Rob Lowe, John Spencer, Dul\u00e9 Hill, Bradley Whitford, Allison Janney, Stockard Channing, and Richard Schiff.<\/p>\n

The West Wing<\/i> is a fast-paced show that invites watchers into the White House to watch U.S. democracy in action. The issues that the Bartlet administration deals with are real, and, for a show that premiered fifteen years ago, they are surprisingly relevant to today\u2019s political climate. The characters are poignant, quick-witted, and lifelike, and the acting leads viewers to laugh, cry, and sympathize with the White House staffers.<\/p>\n

I started watching the series this summer as a way to pass the time, but it came to mean a lot more to me than other television series. As I got further into the seasons, I found myself thinking more and more about political issues. I would find myself reading the newspaper online, hungry to learn about politics. And, more often then not, I\u2019d see something that would remind me of \u201cthat time in The West Wing<\/i> where the government shut down\u201d or \u201cthe time when President Barlet had to respond to a natural disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then, I\u2019d wonder, \u201cwhat would C.J. Cregg (the Bartlet White House Press Secretary) think about this?\u201d or \u201chow would Leo McGarry (Bartlet\u2019s Chief of Staff) solve this problem?\u201d Most importantly, I\u2019d wonder, \u201cwhat do I<\/i> think about this?\u201d and research further to see how our real president and Congress were responding.<\/p>\n

As college students, we are at a point in our lives where we have the chance to reexamine our political beliefs and decide how we\u2019re going to cast our ballots or whom we\u2019d like to help campaign for in the next election. <\/i>Obviously, a fictional television drama shouldn\u2019t be the only way we learn about our government and the issues facing the country, but it\u2019s not a bad place to start. Plus, you can only learn so much from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Hannah Hecht–With the advent of video-streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, many students are \u201cdiscovering\u201d movies and television shows that may have been too mature for them when they first came out. The rise of the Internet has caused resurgence with young people of shows like Doctor Who or Freaks and Geeks….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":5739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5738"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5756,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5738\/revisions\/5756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}