Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2007 1:35 pm Posts: 4407 Location: Philadelphia/Los Angeles Gender: Male
"Noel" was the 10th episode of season 2, 32nd overall, "story by" credit goes to Peter Parnell while the actual teleplay credit belongs to Aaron Sorkin, and it was directed by Tommy Schlamme, the person who directed more episodes of the series than any other thru the 4 seasons he was there. Original air date was December 20th, 2000.
I would imagine it's pretty much obvious why I'd pick this one for the December episode, but this also happens to be one of my favorite Christmas themed episodes of any series in the history of television.
The official write up thanks to Wikipedia:
Quote:
Josh spends the day with a psychotherapist from ATVA (American Trauma Victims Association) recounting events that ended in him putting his hand through a window in his apartment. He recounts that on the day that his troubles started, his assignment was monitoring a tense situation where an Air Force pilot who had been shot down and injured in Bosnia had broken away from his fighter jet's training formation in the U.S. and cut off radio contact after saying "It wasn't the plane" and later killing himself by crashing his plane into a mountain in Mexico. Josh is troubled by the fact the pilot had the same birthday as him and wondered if he himself might have been suicidal, too. Josh nearly starts screaming at the President in the Oval Office, at which point Leo calls in the ATVA people to talk to him. Josh is in denial over having injured himself for a long time, but when he realizes what happened, the ATVA leader tells him that his emotional problems were triggered by a musical display by a brass quintet at the White House, which subconsciously remind Josh of police and ambulance sirens and take Josh back to his own shooting and near-death in Rosslyn. He is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and Leo promises him "as long as I got a job, you got a job" in a moving mini-speech which aligns Josh's trauma with his own past.
In another story, C.J. is told by a reporter that a woman saw a painting on the White House Tour and began screaming. C.J. does some research and finds out with help of the White House's unctuous but competent Protocol Chief that the painting was owned by a Jewish family in Europe and seized by the Nazi collaborationist French Vichy Regime, and given as a gift to the White House by the French government. The woman's father owned the painting, and C.J. returns it to the grateful woman and her grandson.
Sam is interested in a measure to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to reduce high gas prices, and the staff decides to review the issue when the new year begins. And the President wants to sign all of his holiday cards by hand, until he is told the total number of cards is well over one million!
Although I have to say that unofficial synopsis doesn't really even come close to doing justice to the power of this particular episode. For one thing it's actually sort of turned into a mystery, how exactly it was that Josh cut his hand, that's not revealed until the end in a very riveting scene. Those who had been fans of the show since the start of course remembered how the first season was left off, an assassination attempt that left the audience not knowing who was hurt, or possibly even killed. And in classic West Wing fashion, Sorkin bypasses what would be the most obvious resolution of this story development in that we find out in the season 2 premiere that it was not an attempt on President Bartlet's life at all, but rather a pair of skinheads were trying to take out Bartlet's personal body man Charlie Young, because he was black and they were none too happy about the fact that he was dating Bartlet's youngest daughter Zoey at the time. Young comes out of it unscathed, Bartlet takes a minor hit but it's Deputy Chief Of Staff Josh Lyman who bears the most brunt of the attack, taking a shot to the belly. "Noel" is an intense telling of the ramping up affect that Josh experiences in the aftermath of the shooting all the way til Christmas of that year, when his PTSD hits its peak.
And of course the episode features the first of two excellent guest starring turns by the great character actor Adam Arkin playing psychiatrist Dr. Stanley Keyworth (his one and only return would be to counsel a Bartlet that hasn't been able to sleep for almost a week in the Season 3 episode "Night Five").
However it also includes not only the presence of the incomparable cellist Yo Yo Ma, but also appropriately enough, a sample of his talent. Keyworth is trying to get Josh to realize the heart of what is wrong with him, and Josh is flashing back to the night of the White House welcoming in Ma for a holiday concert, the music sets him off and it's later on in his apartment that Josh reaches his boiling point and shatters the window with his hand.
As far as the memorable speeches that Sorkin has written over the years, "Noel" has what many hardcore WW fans regard as one of the finest of the entire series. It's right at the end, Josh has had his breakthrough while talking with Keyworth, he's been in there the entire day hashing it out, and he's walking back to his office to pack up when he sees his mentor and direct supervisor, the Chief Of Staff Leo McGarry, has been sitting and waiting for him to finish the session.
And in fact this scene has a great call back later during Season 3's holiday episode "Barlet For America" when Leo has to testify in front of a Congressional oversight committee on the day before Christmas Eve regarding the alleged Bartlet MS coverup, and Josh is trying desperately to get one of the committee members out of the room before he asks Leo a question that has to do with his alcoholism aimed at embarrassing him. Leo doesn't know why Josh is working so hard to spare Leo this public humiliation when, over the phone, Josh recounts one line of the story back to him.
(the part I've described is included in this clip at about the 1:30 mark, the overall clip is 5:10 long)
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Bartlet realizing the impracticality of wanting to sign his name by hand to all the Christmas cards he's mailing out in "Noel"
"This guy's walking down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep, he can't get out. A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up, "Hey you, can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up "Father, I'm down in this hole, can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. "Hey Joe, it's me, can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "Are you stupid? Now we're both down here." The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before, and I know the way out."
Oh my God you have that scene up, haha, i didn't even check. I have only seen the first two seasons and they were spectacular. I didn't want to go any further because I was afraid it would decline. But this episode stood out the most for me.
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2007 1:35 pm Posts: 4407 Location: Philadelphia/Los Angeles Gender: Male
I Hail Randy Moss wrote:
Oh my God you have that scene up, haha, i didn't even check. I have only seen the first two seasons and they were spectacular. I didn't want to go any further because I was afraid it would decline. But this episode stood out the most for me.
Wow, that's a first. "I absolutely love this show, but now I'm going to stop watching because I'm afraid further seasons won't be as good" WTF??
Nah I'm just kidding you, but that does sound funny. Trust me, seasons 3 & 4 are also stellar. As I said in the first month's thread, Sorkin and Schlamme both left after the 4th season so there's definitely a dip in quality for the 5th, but it picks steam back up for the 6th and 7th. But dude 1-4 = gold.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:55 am Posts: 9080 Location: Londres
Time to revisit this brilliant episode again. Was just watching the Christmas episode of Studio 60 on Sunset Strip last night, and followed that up with Holy Night from season 4...
No show, no writer does Christmas as consistently great as Aaron Sorkin.
Still, those two episodes pale when lined up next to Noel.
Leo's speech is just the finest pieces of tv writing I've seen. This kind of playwright-style speech isn't supposed to work on the small screen. But it does, and John Spencer delivered it with aplomb.
It really is just a flawless piece of television. The dialogue in that Leo scene. The plot twists as we get to see exactly what went on with Josh. Thomas Schlamme's signature camera sweep. Brad Whitford's acting throughout. The use of the soundtrack, with Yo Yo Ma's performance being directly linked to the story, and the editing work around that act of the episode. The set design.
Forget film school- this should be essential viewing for high school drama/media class. The teacher wouldn't need to say anything, just put the damn thing on and let it run.
Emotionally, I'm more attached to a couple of season 7 scenes, with Josh's "Thanks, boss." in Election Day part 2, and Bartlett opening up Leo's final gift to him in the last TWW scene in Tomorrow. Those 2 moments are the ones that break me down completely. But technically, Noel is just the closest TWW got to perfection.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:55 am Posts: 9080 Location: Londres
I can understand IHRM's thing about sticking to seasons 1 + 2. You get the feeling from watching those 2 seasons in particular that 'wow, this is just the best fly-on-the-wall doco ever'. Season 5 was especially melodramatic, and season 4 loses a bit because of Rob Lowe's departure (and the fact that I hated the idea of Jean Paul's character).
It's really around the time of Noel when TWW was at its purest, with the support writers, directors and the actors all having found a groove and shaken off any rustiness (ahem Mandy) in season 1.
I'd recommend you take a look at season 3. Season 3 doesn't lose much at all compared to season 2.
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