Doctor Who Club of Australia

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From TV WEEK, The West Wing will have a double episode on May 11 at 8:30pm. Do not know whether this will be the norm. It comes fourth place in TV WEEK's highlights of the day.

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The ABC is trying to catch up with the episodes already shown by Nine.
We are still in season 4 and Nine got through more than half of season 5 before they pulled the show.

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The double episode of West Wing on May 11 is listed in the Must see TV section in the latest issue of Who Magazine. It hasn't been previewed and all it says that from this night the ABC would be showing two episodes each Thursday and anticipates the previously unscreened on Australian TV episodes would be shown by early August.

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The West Wing on June 1 is fifth place in TV WEEK's highlight of the day.

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Red Raven's On Fire:
Looks like Sam is going to lose the election. That is implied what is going to happen because according to TV.com it does not seem to be a follow-up on this.

Privateers:
This was quite fun especially the scenes with Amy. Funny.
This seems to be a breather to bigger things to come if the preview for next week is any indication.
A couple of hours before this episode was on, I saw Trent Ford (Jean Paul) in the Smallville episode Jinx on 10.

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The West Wing on June 1 gets three stars from Who Magazine.

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Angel Maintenance:
Quite a tense episode as Air Force One is stuck in the air.
Quite a nice but failed attempt by Will to get the reporters to look at something else instead of the other plane.
44 1/2 hours before seeing this episode I saw James Morrison (Weiskopf) in the pilot for Point Pleasant on 7.

Evidence of Things Not Seen:
I am not someone who watches Friends normally but Matthew Perry was very good.
The shooting was definitely a shock to my system.
Interestingly how the shooter was caught but we as the viewer never got to see his face. Perhaps seeing the shooter's face was not necessary.

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Saw Allison Janney in last night's At the Movies as her movie Chumscrubber got reviewed.

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Life On Mars:
Life On Mars is the name of a David Bowie song. The reason why I know that is because of the BBC TV series of that name which is coming soon to the ABC.
Joe Quincy has a first day he is definitely not going to forget as he has bought down the Vice President.
The episode begins with President Bartlet getting Vice President John Hoynes' resignation letter and then we go back 24 hours seeing what happened that led to the resignation.
The flashback begins with CJ getting a leak about classified information about Mars. When originally aired the viewers I think probably thought that Hoynes resigned because he was a conspiracy nut. However amazingly it turns to be just a plot cover for a much more serious situation.
Matthew Perry as Joe Quincy excels in uncovering the leak to Vice President Hoynes and special mention should also go to Tim Matheson as Hoynes as he admits that is no way out of his situation except to resign.
I love that scene of the bird bothering Donna.

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Interestingly enough four nights after Life On Mars was shown, the Commander In Chief episode Ties That Bind shown last night on 7 also featured the resignation of the Vice-President.

Meanwhile The West Wing on June 22 comes fourth place in TV WEEK's highlights of the day.

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Twenty Five:
Twenty Five refers to the 25th amendment. Although this episode is called 25, it does however feel like a 24 type situation with the abduction of Zoe Bartlet.
This ended the fourth season which was shown at the same time as that season 2 of 24 which also had the Cabinet meeting as a result of the 25th amendment being invoked. Ironically Alan Dale who is the Commerce Secretary in the West Wing, had also played the Vice President in that season of 24.
What a dramatic end to this season as President Bartlet not coping with Zoe's abduction and his MS at the same time willingly removes himself in office and Speaker Glenallen Walken (John Goodman) becomes Acting President.
John Goodman was not credited in this episode obviously to keep his presence a surprise as his face was concealed until reaching the White House. However there seemed to be a hint of this in the previous episode Commencement when Josh mentioned the Speaker (but not Walken's name).
I already knew that Walken was going to become Acting President as a result of The Einstein Factor.

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7A WF 83429:
This is a good beginning to season 5.
With no Vice President and no Speaker, Will was right when he said the Senate pro temp was the next in line for the presidency after Walken made a mistake of saying that the Agriculture Secretary was the next in line.
I do not think the Senate pro temp is as well known as the President, the Vice President and the Speaker and next in line after the Senate pro temp is the Secretary of State. Therefore it would have been an understandable mistake if Walken had thought that the Secretary of State had been the next in line. Why he thought it was the Agriculture Secretary baffles me. Perhaps he thought the importance of the Departments are ranked alphabetically hence Agriculture beginning with A.
It could possibly be an in-joke to a Sam's promise about running in the congressional seat in Orange County. In Election Night, Sam had remarked to Donna that his promise was like the Agriculture Secretary preparing to take on the presidency in the event of all the others that precede him in the succession line dies.
The Senate pro temp was mentioned to be 90 years old. This is not coincidental since the post has been held by the most senior Senator in the majority party.
Very surprise to see Annabeth Gish as one of Bartlet's daughters.
I haven't had a chance to comment on this before but Geoff Pierson who plays a Senator on The West Wing including this episode was also a Senator in 24.
That ending was very lovely with that song towards the end.

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Last week's episodes The Dogs of War & Jefferson Lives will be bizarre to anyone who watches Stargate SG-1 & 24.
William Devane plays Secretary of State Lewis Berryhill in these two episodes and in the latter episode becomes President Bartlet's choice as the new Vice President. A choice that Bartlet was forced to withdraw due to objections from both Republicans and Democrats.
While Berryhill did not become Vice President, William Devane does become President in Stargate SG-1but gets demoted to Defence Secretary in 24.
Funnily enough Josh actually says that Berryhill radiates presidential!!!
On 24, Devane plays the Defence Secreatry under the President who was played by Geoff Pierson. Pierson appears once again in this West Wing episode as Senate Minority Leader Senator Tripplehorn who ironically was among those to raise objections to Berryhill's suitability as Vice President.
Again funnily enough Josh mentioned that Senator Tripplehorn intends to run for President!!

Also in Jefferson Lives, Aaron Burr is mentioned. In case no one knows who this was, he was Vice President (1801-05) in Thomas Jefferson's first term. (I wasn't quite sure how well known past Vice Presidents were to the audience since for example my mother did not know who Walter F. Mondale is.)

Gary Cole who plays Bob Russell the next choice for Vice President was the lead in the short-lived Babylon 5 spinoff Crusade. He was also Mike Brady in the Brady Bunch movies.
Also appearing is Steven Culp as new Speaker Jeff Haffley. He has since played Rex Van De Camp in Desperate Housewives.

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Han:
President Bartlet in a difficult position when a renowned North Korean pianist wants to defect. Ultimately he had to turn him down due to delicate negotiations. This has quite an emotional impact.
Bob Russell is confirmed as Vice President. The theme of the Vice Presidency has been made more than abundantly clear with references to real life Vice Presidents even though their tenure to the Vice Presidency was not specifically mentioned. In the previous episode Jefferson Lives, John Adams (1789-97), Thomas Jefferson (1797-1801) (both of whom ultimately becoming President) and Aaron Burr (1801-05) were mentioned. In this episode John C. Calhoun was mentioned by President Bartlet. Calhoun was Vice President under Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson from 1825 to 1832. Bizarrely Calhoun became the first person to resign from the Vice Presidency barely over two months before his Vice Presidential term expired in order to become a Senator!!! Spiro T Agnew became the only other person to resign from the Vice Presidency.
Also in this episode a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt can be briefly seen. He too was Vice President (March to September 1901) prior to becoming President.
Absolutely unbelievable and funny that Toby and Will's speech on Russell becoming Vice President which mocked him happened to appear on the monitor for Bartlet to read from. Good thing Russell saw the humour in it.
CJ and Amy looked gorgeous in their dress they wore in the piano concert.

I wasn't able to mentioned it before but The West Wing on the ABC and 24 on 7 are now both being shown from their fifth season. Nice timing.
Heard the ratings for The West Wing was much lower than the ABC had hoped for. Since both shows features a President, wonder if it would have made any difference if the ABC had shown 24 and 7 had shown The West Wing instead. Just a thought.

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The first of the two episodes shown last week Disaster Relief featured the first appearance of Terry O'Quinn as General Nicholas Alexander. Of course these days he is now well known as Locke in Lost. Funnily enough when the ABC showed this episode, he was also seen on 7 at exactly the same time as Lost: Reckoning was on. Therefore he was in two places at the same time.

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Last week's episodes Shutdown & Abu El Banat was very interesting in its casting. The former featured Steven Culp while the latter featured Mark Moses. What is interesting about it is that both of them went on to be regulars in Desperate Housewives.

Another interesting thing about Abu El Banat is that Dylan Baker played the Attorney General. Like William Devane, this is not the only time that Baker has played a member of the US Cabinet as he played Defence Secretary Robert McNamara in the movie Thirteen Days.

The West Wing on July 27 is fourth place in TV WEEK's highlight of the day.

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On August 3 the ABC will be showing first-run episodes for the first time in a long time and it gets three stars from Who Magazine. It also says that the first of the two episodes features Terry O'Quinn as General Nicholas Alexander meaning once again he will be seen here at the same time of his regular role in Lost.