Watching a TV series in continuous fashion, one episode after another without waiting a week in between — online video streaming — is really a remarkable way to enjoy stuff.
Instead of a long wait for another segment, it’s right there. And this quickness of action seemingly allows more time to catch certain subtle jokes or a delicate twist of plot, I most-likely would have missed after a week.

Movies, of course, are neat online, but that’s a view  usually at one sitting anyway, and then the experience is over — episodic TV, however, keeps moving forward, at least until cancellation.

(Illustration found here).

And in a lot of TV shows, this streaming effect allows me to see how the series (if it’s an old one) kind of got its shit together, like ‘Scrubs,’ for instance — watch as characters and situations are honed into a narrative that made the show popular and good. (The last couple of years, however, sort of sucked).
Or maybe, ‘Frasier,’ which stayed constantly funny all its run, and probably ended at the right time.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve become addicted to ‘The West Wing,’ (1999-2006), the Martin Sheen as president series, and I’m about to reach the end of the second season — that’s more than 40 hours of TV, mostly a couple at a time in the evenings, but last weekend I was nearly glued to my laptop and watched almost the whole first season.
Even back in the day, I watched the show every week. The series won Emmys, Golden Globes and all other kinds of awards in the middle of its run — I seemed to remember losing interest toward the end as did a shitload of people.
The show’s really political soap with snappy, near-continous dialogue, Aaron Sorkin style.
And CJ is still hot, and, she hates to lie to the press.

As it is, all politics, but with a strong progressive, leftist angle — these young, wise-cracking, know-it-alls in Josiah Bartlet’s administration attempt always to do the right thing, even if the original intention was not, and always there’s gush-full-plenty of swooning compassion. Sorkin and his co-horts layer on the emotions a bit thick, but it’s all-absolute fiction.
There was and never will be a presidency as portrayed via ‘The West Wing‘ — maybe in dreams.

Just as I started my ‘Wing‘ run, Armadno Iannucci, the Scottish comedy writer, director and producer, appeared on The Daily Show in an interview with John Oliver, who’s been sitting in for Jon Stewart this summer. And by the way, Oliver’s doing a bang-up good job — he’s really very funny and spot-on with stuff. Maybe another spin-off?
Iannucci’s really funny, too. And like Sorkin, he can way-churn-out rapid-fire dialogue from a vast array of characters, though, not for prime time TV. Iannucci’s  ‘In the Loop‘ is a hilarious political/war scream fest filled with a fuckin’-lot of cursing. The recently-deceased James Gandolfini was subtle-funny in it, playing a peaceful general.

Currently, Iannucci is involved with the creation of ‘Veep,’ the HBO comedy series starring the great Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays a female (of course!) vice president, and although I haven’t seen the show, its gotten good reviews, was recently renewed for 2014 by HBO, and Louis-Dreyfus won, among other honors, an Emmy for her performance.
Anyway, you can see the interview at The Daily Show, but the most-interesting part for me was near the end as Iannucci was explaining to Oliver about Washington, DC, and the fantasy of national politics. He says DC was “very obsessed with Hollywood” and the blend of fiction and reality is ridiculous:

Iannucci: I was being shown around the West Wing by Obama’s aide. He showed us into the Roosevelt Room…and he said to us, ‘This is the Roosevelt Room, this is where CJ and Josh would meet to talk…’ (Iannucci then held up his hands in baffling astonishment).
Oliver’s response: No, no, no, that’s not good. No, that’s not good at all.

Play acting in reality, as Iannucci retorted, “Josh is an actor!”
And Obama as 2008 candidate and Obama as 2013 president can be seen fine-tuning the narrative as we live-stream onward.