The show dropped today on HBO Max only. I've watched it twice and it is fantastic. The show is a filmed teleplay of an episode called Hartsfield's Landing. Hartsfield's Landing is a fictional town based on Dixville Notch in New Hampshire. In real life, Dixville Notch votes seven minutes after midnight on election day and the votes are counted at 12:15 AM or so. There are like 50 people who live there. In the episode, they botch the sequence of events and have Hartsfield Landing voting at midnight in the primaries. I don't think Dixville Notch does that for primaries. And in the show they say that the town has predicted the winner of every presidential election. Well, if they are voting in a primary, they are electing nominees...and there are one for each party. So one of the people that wins Hartsfield's Landing has to lose in the General.
The production has messages between acts. "When we all vote" is an organization that does voter outreach and information. It's chaired by Former First Lady Michelle Obama so you can imagine the lean. The "usual suspects" show up, Bill Clinton, Samuel Jackson, Marlee Matlin, Lin Manuel Miranda... It wasn't meant to be impartial I'm guessing.
In the episode...the Chinese are going to run exercises on an unprecedented scale if Taiwan wanted to announce--just announce--that they will have an election for independence. Taiwan has to put 400,000 troops on high alert just to make the announcement. Meanwhile, the political guys in the West Wing are trying to pressure a few of the voters in Hartsfield's Landing to make sure that Bartlet (the President on the show) wins the vote because if he doesn't, until 8PM that night, the only thing the press will report is that he didn't win. The similarities between what they were doing and what the Chinese were doing is brought into focus....intimidation....even as subtle as it may be in Hartsfield's Landing.
The show itself is something I've never seen before; a filmed teleplay. The actual broadcast back in 2001 (I believe) was much more conventional and flat out better. John Spencer's character of Chief of Staff Leo McGary wasn't well served by having Sterling K. Brown perform the role. McGarry was born 30 years before Brown and radiated a senior official. Brown is a splendid actor but looks much younger than the people he's managing. Not that you can't be an effective younger manager. But Spencer made the role his. They would have benefitted greatly by having an older actor do the job.
If you watched the series, you should spend an hour and watch this one.
www.whenweallvote.org
The production has messages between acts. "When we all vote" is an organization that does voter outreach and information. It's chaired by Former First Lady Michelle Obama so you can imagine the lean. The "usual suspects" show up, Bill Clinton, Samuel Jackson, Marlee Matlin, Lin Manuel Miranda... It wasn't meant to be impartial I'm guessing.
In the episode...the Chinese are going to run exercises on an unprecedented scale if Taiwan wanted to announce--just announce--that they will have an election for independence. Taiwan has to put 400,000 troops on high alert just to make the announcement. Meanwhile, the political guys in the West Wing are trying to pressure a few of the voters in Hartsfield's Landing to make sure that Bartlet (the President on the show) wins the vote because if he doesn't, until 8PM that night, the only thing the press will report is that he didn't win. The similarities between what they were doing and what the Chinese were doing is brought into focus....intimidation....even as subtle as it may be in Hartsfield's Landing.
The show itself is something I've never seen before; a filmed teleplay. The actual broadcast back in 2001 (I believe) was much more conventional and flat out better. John Spencer's character of Chief of Staff Leo McGary wasn't well served by having Sterling K. Brown perform the role. McGarry was born 30 years before Brown and radiated a senior official. Brown is a splendid actor but looks much younger than the people he's managing. Not that you can't be an effective younger manager. But Spencer made the role his. They would have benefitted greatly by having an older actor do the job.
If you watched the series, you should spend an hour and watch this one.
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When We All Vote is a leading national, nonpartisan initiative on a mission to change the culture around voting and to increase participation in each and every election by helping…
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