Airing three weeks after 9/11, and a specific response to that event. The regular story lines are dropped, as Josh and Donna (with drop-ins from the rest of the cast) try to explain Islamic terrorism to a group of high school contest winners, while they're all in White House lockdown because of a security alert. Leo interrogates a suspect (Ajay Naidu - OFFICE SPACE). His racist judgments, and Ajay's relative tolerance, are striking. Compelling narratives from Toby, Sam, Charlie, and Abbey, with humor provided by Jed. Josh almost "networks" one particularly bright student (Josh Zuckerman - SEX DRIVE), but instead tells him to just keep on doing what he's doing. It's just a dumb TV show...but it feels like much more. In this world, that may be as close to "truth" as anyone ever gets.
3 Reviews
11/02/222 - Still Relevant
ugaroberts2 November 2022
The other reviews view this episode in a vacuum, except it didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened in the wake of the darkest day of modern American history. In 2022, we're STILL suffering from US vs. THEMism, except the Thems look differently than 21 years ago. This is a well executed reminder that Them, whoever the Them-of-the-Moment is, doesn't actually represent the group they claim to speak for. This episode is timeless, & a well deserved place in history when none of us knew what was next. While Leo's character may have been out of character, he stood in for the Old Guard, representing the blanket fear many of us felt. He was as much a part of what we were going through as a nation as the scene in Spider-Man when the New Yorkers on the bridge shouted, "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us."
Isaac and Ishmael
lassegalsgaard28 June 2022
In response to the September 11 attacks, Aaron Sorkin asked NBC if it was possible for them to produce a non-canonical episode to start out the third season. After some talks, he convinced them to go ahead with the new opening and postpone their two-episode season premiere a few weeks, which made room for this. It really doesn't feel like there's a lot of connections to the actual show in this episode, and while I'm sure it was good for its time, it feels very inconsequential for the show today. In fact, instead of being poignant and honest, it came across as preachy and cheesy.
I totally understand why Sorkin would want to tackle this issue in one of the most popular and influential political shows on television, but to completely disregard the show's storylines to come with this bottle episode was a huge mistake. Not only does it fail to weave in any existing plotlines, but it also doesn't even reference any of them, and literally seems like time stopped for a while to make sure they'd be able to have this happen. All the characters seem out of their element here, especially Leo McGarry, who comes across as a completely different person than usual. I think it features some big lessons and a lot of what is conveyed in the episode is important knowledge, but it's done in such a weird way that it almost doesn't feel like a "West Wing" episode. It feels like the "Sorkin classroom" where he finds it necessary to give us an explanation as to what is actually going on with terrorism. Again, all of this is fine, if it was done in a subtle way. This is literally the opposite of subtle. There's no subtlety to be found anywhere. Luckily, it still features skilled performers who do their part, including the children in this episode, who I thought were very charming and knowledgeable. This is an episode, though, that seems like it was made for the time that it was during its production and not for today, which makes it stand out as one of the weirdest episodes of this show.
"Isaac and Ishmael" is clearly not meant to be taken as an episode of the show, but that makes me wonder why it even happened. The message is good and the information conveyed is interesting, but the episode that its packaged into is so far removed from the things we like, that it never quite takes off.
I totally understand why Sorkin would want to tackle this issue in one of the most popular and influential political shows on television, but to completely disregard the show's storylines to come with this bottle episode was a huge mistake. Not only does it fail to weave in any existing plotlines, but it also doesn't even reference any of them, and literally seems like time stopped for a while to make sure they'd be able to have this happen. All the characters seem out of their element here, especially Leo McGarry, who comes across as a completely different person than usual. I think it features some big lessons and a lot of what is conveyed in the episode is important knowledge, but it's done in such a weird way that it almost doesn't feel like a "West Wing" episode. It feels like the "Sorkin classroom" where he finds it necessary to give us an explanation as to what is actually going on with terrorism. Again, all of this is fine, if it was done in a subtle way. This is literally the opposite of subtle. There's no subtlety to be found anywhere. Luckily, it still features skilled performers who do their part, including the children in this episode, who I thought were very charming and knowledgeable. This is an episode, though, that seems like it was made for the time that it was during its production and not for today, which makes it stand out as one of the weirdest episodes of this show.
"Isaac and Ishmael" is clearly not meant to be taken as an episode of the show, but that makes me wonder why it even happened. The message is good and the information conveyed is interesting, but the episode that its packaged into is so far removed from the things we like, that it never quite takes off.
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