Last Night's West Wing episode

[yesthattom]

It's a little known fact that in 1975 the U.S. passed a law requiring TV stations to produce at least one "View the show from a reporter's eye" episode per year. The law went into effect in 1976 and kicked off with the famous episode of M*A*S*H that used this theme. While most such episodes dropped into obscurity some episodes, such as the Babylon 5 episode And Now A Word, became famous for their creative use of this plot vehicle.

This year the rotation moved to NBC to produce the plot line required by law. Unlike other networks that rush the episode through at the end of the year, NBC took the unique tact of producing this episode in March, presumably to get it out of the way.

When compared to other such efforts, entertainment critics report that the West Wing effort was above average, but lacked the innovation of other attempts. For example, the Babylon 5 episode used the piece to move the "story arc" forward, while previously other attempts had merely used it as a filler "slice of life" episode, often as a professed protest against the U.S. government's law which TV producers feel violates their right to creative control.

We hope you enjoyed this week's column. Next week we'll have an exclusive interview with Will Smith where we'll ask him about his new movie "I, Robot" and he'll talk about his feeling toward the 1995 law requiring Hollywood to release a science-fiction blockbuster starring him every other July 4th weekend.

APRIL FOOLS!

Comments

[labrown.livejournal.com]

Skipping the April's Fools take...

I thought the West Wing episode was fantastic. What a cool look into CJ's daily life.

[geminigirl]

It was mostly fantastic. There was one thing that I'm pretty sure was a glaring continuity mistake...anyone recall CJ being in California when Toby recruited her? That whole bit where she fell into the pool, and kept telling him not to look at her, because he'd see through her clothes?

[geminigirl]

Yeah, that was my thought-that BFA couldn't have been her first campaign, although quite likely it could have been her first campaign with Toby. I was in the kitchen, and haven't watched the tape, so it's plausible that I could have missed a bit.

By the way, Hi.

[geminigirl]

Do you have any clue who I am, or are you without clue?

Re: Clueless

[geminigirl]

I had a funny feeling you might be.

(You know me online by another name-anathema might be more familiar.)

[stormsweeper.livejournal.com]

I think the second law also requires the movie to suck, depsite having potential to be a good B-flick.

UGHGH

[lovefox1.livejournal.com]

I DIDN'T SEE THE LAST LINE AND I TOTALLY FELL FOR THAT, and I was smiling that this "law" was passed the year I was born, which threw my thinking off making me fall for it even more...


UGHGHHG

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Linguistic peeve: 'take the unique tack' - as in to tack a sailing ship.

Otherwise, very nice.