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The West Wing, Season 7, Episode 7 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-06-03 00:27:08
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
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Content

The Debate

Files

Previews only

WW7 7

Comments

Yannick, from Montréal

If you re-watch, rent the full version.... There are some important parts in there to have a real full picture. I noticed they skipped the death penalty part, gun control, and both ending statements were chopped (I had to pause you guys to catch up) Little info: I never had to follow tie color on screen that much to see who was speaking at that point where you were. LOL ROT13: V ubcr gurl qvqa'g fxvc gur "Ahpyrne vf fnsr" sebz Ivaavpx

Darrell Henry

Love this episode. I think they wrote Vinick more conservative to give a fair representation to the other sides views. The show clearly had a bias and they wanted to show no side is right on every issue. PS: Could you imagine Bob Russell on that stage with no talking points. Santos did well but this performance shows why Vinick is ahead by 9 points.

Joy M

I couldnt wait, so I watched the Amazon Prime version over the weekend. The editing helped on Max. The Amazon version shows both candidates stumbling more, trying to find their words and it’s not nearly as impressive. In fact this has always been an episode that I skipped, because it was so rambling. Glad I watched on Max with you guys this evening.

Youtalkingtome
>>176009568

Yeah, while I like Santos's policies much more, Vinick felt more in control of this debate. Hard to out-charm Alan Alda.

shawn Johnson

Can you imagine what Bingo Bob would have done if Vinick suggested scrapping the rules?

Pam Nail

It's interesting that Lawrence O'Donnell wrote this, because he's said many times since that he doesn't think debates are that informative in terms of who's the better candidate. Vinick certainly *performed* the best, but that's at least part Alan Alda. What this episode does best is give you a clear glimpse of the candidates' respective positions. I don't rewatch this one much because it doesn't have a lot of dramatic interest for me. I think it's an excellent example of why Sorkin never included entire speeches or full debates in his stories. We see those all the time in real life and we know what they look like. Show us the most dramatic bits and move on. He was always more interested in the guy pacing at the back of the room, obsessing over every detail of the President's delivery. Best moment in the debate for me: "Liberals ended slavery in this country--" "A Republican President ended slavery." "A liberal Republican. What happened to them?"

Mithroch

You know... if I'm being honest... I think the editing helped. I've never been a big fan of this episode. I skip it most rewatches. It all feels so contrived... they mostly repeat their talking points and some of the timing is odd. It all just felt staged... which is ironically not what you want on a stage. This seems to have cleaned a lot of the awkwardness up.

Youtalkingtome
>>176014491

I see where you're coming from. This really worked for me, I love the fact that they chose to do it live as well

Alex Lee

When you mentioned that Lawrence O'Donnell wrote the episode, I didn't know who what was. So I looked him up and he was Bartlett's father in the flashbacks!

Weird Magic

Posting after most others have watched it already - very surprised with the negative thoughts. I was under the impression this was one of the most beloved episodes in the series because of how essentially groundbreaking it was. (The IMDB numbers agree.) For me - I loved the episode, and believe it is the most balanced and fairest representation of conservative views in this Series. As a moderate that doesn't agree with either side on all issues, it was nice to see the balance. Maybe subconsciously that's why some of the posters here don't like it (confirmation bias is an addition that exists in all of us, yours truly included to some level I'm sure). Originally airing on November 6, 2005, "The Debate" is Episode 7 of Season 7 of The West Wing. It is the 140th episode overall and has an IMDB rating of 8.8, placing it as the #3 ranked episode of this season and #18 out of all the episodes shown so far. P.S. Kudos to Alda and Smits and O'Donnell for taking on this episode!

Weird Magic
>>176042699

P.P.S. I think even Kevin was turning right on some of these issues...at least for a little bit :) :) :)

Kelsey Krehbiel

Ok, so a note on DC public schools, spending, and test scores as a DCPS grad. A few years after this episode, they installed Michelle Rhee as DCPS chancellor (controversial for many reasons and a mixed bag of results overall) and she uncovered a whole bunch of shit when she took over. There were multiple companies that were found to have identical contracts with multiple departments; they were getting paid multiple times to do one job—and sometimes still didn’t actually do the job! Finding that out helped! 😂

Allison O

I don’t think I’ve watched this since it aired, and being in DC I would have seen the East Coast feed. I’ll be interested to check what version is on the DVDs. Mostly I’m finding it distracting that the combination of the live cameras, on a newer HD TV, with the blue backdrop, just makes it look like they’re on Jeopardy every time one of them is talking.