The Paper Chase (TV Series) War of the Wonks (1984) User Reviews

Kingsfield Vs. Machine, guess who wins

[allenblank · 10/10 · 9 April 2007]

This is one of the funniest episodes of the entire series. When the head of the Law Review, Gerald Golden, has his parking space taken by a computer geek, called a wonk, he has the wonk's car stolen This starts a war between the law review and the wonks. The war reaches the high point when the wonks takes over all of the law reviews hours on the schools mainframe, as well as the wonks dismantling Golden's car and putting it back together inside the law review office. That's when Professor Kingsfield takes over and challenges the wonks, him versus the computer. If he wins the law review gets their hours back.He also comments that Golden's left front tire needs some air. Will Kingsfield win and get the precious hours back so Golden can finish this months edition of the Law review, or will he lose. That's all the fun in the episode. The performances are wonderful, especially Michael Tucci as Golden. His despair and almost falling into madness are wonderful to watch. I just love it when they lose all access to the computer mainframe, so he walks over to his car, closes the windows and then screams.

There also is a nice subplot between first year law student Soloway, (Steben Peterman) falling in love with a wonk girl, and having both sides trying to pull them apart. A wonderful gem of an episode is just one gem in an excellent series, that should be put on DVD one of these days, as more people should know how great this show is.

Kingsfield vs. the Wonks

[schappe1 · 13 May 2016]

I liked this episode a lot. I recognize that (1) the "Wonks", (computer nerds), are stereotypical and over-played caricatures of computer experts and (2) the presentation of the capabilities of computers, especially at that time, is a huge exaggeration.

But it's a fun episode anyway, with some great situations and lines. Kingsfield dryly saying that Golden's tire needs some air is the best line in the history of the series.

You've got to remember that computers were first entering our daily lives at this time. We'd seen 2001 and other representations of them being a threat and this episode was done with that in mind. Now we all use them and know about them and we focus on the increased capabilities they represent.

Abysmally written and dumb.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 9 October 2014]

A few episodes before this one, the 'wonks' were important to the plot. These so-called wonks were the computer geeks who, in the mid-1980s, were truly unique, as practically no one understood computers at that time. It was NOT the universal tool that it's become today. I thought that including OTHER departments within the university was a nice touch, but I also thought calling them wonks and having all of them be Urkel clones was ridiculous and showed bad writing. Well, here in "War of the Wonks", once more these walking stereotypes are back but the episode is even worse--being very badly written in just about every way--dialog, pacing, plot...you name it.

When this HIGHLY contrived and stupid episode begins, there is suddenly a rivalry between the law school and engineering school (back in the day, most computer science departments were part of engineering) stemming from computer time. This sort of animosity comes from out of nowhere but needs some explaining. Back in 1984 when this show was made, universities did NOT generally use microcomputers like we do today. Instead, mainframes with terminals were the rule and time on the system was difficult to allocate and sometimes depended on sharing and cooperation. Regardless, soon there is a battle between the Law Review and computer wonks about who or what can write better legal briefs-- a law student or some new computer program*. When the Law Review students fail, Kingsfield decides to do battle with the machine in a ridiculous finale.

Other than the fact that the writing was crap and embarrassing, this episode seems to contribute nothing to the series. A dumb episode in just about every way.

*No one ever talked about WHO programmed the computer (it would have to be someone who is a lawyer or extremely versed in the law). Also, when data involving complex problems is input into the computer, it takes only 3-5 seconds of typing in the show. This is ridiculous and would need a much longer and complicated bit of data input. In fact, the entire episode seems to have been written by someone with only a cursory knowledge of computers.