Comments | ww_renaissance: Life on Mars

sunclouds33 in ww_renaissance

Life on Mars

Apr 24, 2011 20:38

I lurked at TWOP when I was watching Season 4 as it aired. One of the memorable things that I read on those forums was this day-after-reaction to this episode from a poster. I paraphrase: The episode started as a screwball comedy and evolved to a "Whodunit" mystery and finished as a Shakespearean drama. Yup, that's ( Life on Mars )

Comments 8

melwil April 25 2011, 11:34:51 UTC

It really is a great moment for lj icons :)

jean_c_pepper April 25 2011, 15:28:38 UTC

I love that!

sunclouds33 April 25 2011, 15:51:45 UTC

LOL!

jean_c_pepper April 25 2011, 15:26:27 UTC

This is an interesting episode because I am not sure how I feel about Hoynes as a womanizer. I don't feel that it is done well. I agree with you on the CJ plot being weird. If Hoynes were that much of a womanizer it would have surfaced before then. I do think you have a point about Leo, however, because I can totally see Leo as a womanizer during his drinking and drugging days.Also, men that powerful, have a different moral compass. I can't even see Leo SEEING the cheating as being that bad. He's pissed about the classified info and from the WH. And why wasn't Hoynes criminally persecuted for leaking classified information?

I do like Joe's character and I like the way he figures it out. And, as you point out- the two mistakes make him look less than perfect for figuring it out.

sunclouds33 April 25 2011, 15:58:49 UTC

This is an interesting episode because I am not sure how I feel about Hoynes as a womanizer. I don't feel that it is done well.I like this ep and I can buy Hoynes as a guy who got drunk with the power of being VP and is bored in his marriage and decided to stray with socialite Helen Baldwin. However, the later efforts to label him a habitual cheater suck. I agree that it would have surfaced before. Plus, IMO, a habitual womanizer wouldn't be so silly as to leak classified information to show off. I suppose it's plausible but I think of that as more of a likely action for someone inexperienced in having affairs and sleeping with younger woman who got carried away ( ... )

jean_c_pepper April 25 2011, 16:25:01 UTC

I don't see Jed or Toby cheating. I agree- Toby would be the last person to cheat. I don't see Josh cheating(once he marries Donna) and I don't see Sam cheating. Curiously, I think that Will would be capable of it ( ... )

chameleon_irony April 25 2011, 18:22:22 UTC

Fascinating comparison between Hoynes and Snape. The similarity never occurred to me, probably because their endings are so different. Snape's character is redeemed in the end; by the end of the books we know for sure that he was a good guy, but in Hoynes's case the opposite happens: he acts decent in Stirred, for example, but later, thanks to this episode and his interview with Greg Brock in Full Disclosure, most people come away with the perception of him as a nasty, backstabbing opportunist with few to no redeeming qualities. Unless you count his looking saddened by Leo's death in Requiem as a subtle redeeming moment...

if Sorkin intended on her having that history with Hoynes, he would have written some tell into her response to Hoynes's philandering here.Well, there's CJ's expression in the scene in Hoynes's office in this ep - imo, she looks like she wants to cry, and sounds like it too. It doesn't prove anything except that maybe she feels sorry for him, which in itself is surprising given the antagonism between them every ( ... )

sunclouds33 April 26 2011, 02:33:07 UTC

Fascinating comparison between Hoynes and Snape. The similarity never occurred to me, probably because their endings are so different. Snape's character is redeemed in the end; by the end of the books we know for sure that he was a good guy, but in Hoynes's case the opposite happens: he acts decent in Stirred, for example, but later, thanks to this episode and his interview with Greg Brock in Full Disclosure, most people come away with the perception of him as a nasty, backstabbing opportunist with few to no redeeming qualities. Unless you count his looking saddened by Leo's death in Requiem as a subtle redeeming moment...

Thanks.

Well, there's CJ's expression in the scene in Hoynes's office in this ep - imo, she looks like she wants to cry, and sounds like it too. It doesn't prove anything except that maybe she feels sorry for him, which in itself is surprising given the antagonism between them every time they interacted in previous episodes except in Stirred.
I think it's a very sobering thing for CJ to watch a giant political ( ... )