by Mike Shea on 1 November 2005
In Ray Bradbury's novel, Farenheit 451, Guy Montag's wife watches a TV show that has random people speaking nonsense to one another with an ongoing musical chord growing in the backround. Every so often the characters will engage with the audience members at home but the story never changes based on what the watcher says. When the chord reaches its crescendo, the watcher is filled with a great feeling of satisfaction.
is our version of that show. I heard this show advertised as a whole new form of storytelling. That's true if that form of storytelling includes random people screaming the names of other random people and telling them to do or not do various actions that may or may not have a random effect upon one or more other random people. It is an expensive overproduced underwritten vehicle for creepy Burger King ads.
West Wing, however, is one of the best shows on the air. I just finished watching the episode "Two Cathedrals" and found it to be one of the fifty best TV episodes I've ever watched. It was powerful and moving and I can't wait until my Beyond TV grabs another episode.
As far as goes, I wish it had stayed lost.