The West Wing

They knew how many subscribers watched the UK version of House of Cards on DVD.

They knew how many people watched political dramas like The West Wing, they knew how many liked director David Fincher's films, and they knew how many liked the now controversial but then popular actor Kevin Spacey and his work.

The data indicated, make this show.

They also made another revolutionary decision, release all 13 episodes at once, inventing the quote unquote binge watch model that's now standard across streaming.

And I like it for now because it's all about US politics, behind the scenes.

It's got a bit of the West Wing to it, not least because two of the big characters from the West Wing are in it.

And the relationship is very different, but it is full of backbiting and machinations and the acting is phenomenal.

The dialogue is phenomenal.

So the diplomat herself is clearly engaged in a loving but nonetheless questionable relationship with the vice president.

The president is clearly bonkers, but is in a loving relationship with a man who seems to float about as a, I don't know, governor or something like that.

And then, of course, within the works itself, in the West Wing itself, or rather in the diplomat's offices, two of her staff are in a deeply troubled relationship where they can't even talk.

go out for dinner without it being a big drama I can't Stuart's the man's name I can't remember the young woman's name but I found it really really fascinating I agree with you and troublingly one of my best dearest friends who I work with His wife is the spitting image of the diplomat.

A massive cast, by the way.

You basically take Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, and then you surround them with the cast of The Wire, The West Wing, The Sopranos.

It's just mental how good the cast is.

Yeah, I do remember that being a thing.

another, right? Not only have you got all these brilliant actors, you've got all

the character actors as well.

You've got John Spencer turns up from the West Wing.

Frank's brother.

And it appears that Steve Hilton is going to kind of stay in the arena and stay in this fight.

You know, if you look at it, a lot of politics, especially you look at it online, everybody kind of views it through their West Wing rose-colored glasses of the ideal of how things should be.

And You know, if you look at the Hilton campaign and kind of what they did, it's kind of everything you'd want.

It's what Jed Bartlett would have done, right? And it's, you know, he was out there everywhere, met with people.

Again, I just love the variety of characters and that they were able to treat them so consistently.

And that felt a lot like what Sorkin does, where you can have a show like The West Wing, where you have season after season after season.

And I'm pretty sure Sorkin didn't end up writing everything, but he wrote a lot of them, especially at the beginning.

And... just to have the consistency and the diversity of characters is always just an amazing feat.

The longtime Hollywood star telling his story in his own words.

Netflix dropping a first look at the new documentary about the A-lister and his enduring career from The Outsiders to The West Wing.

And of course, the tumultuous ups and downs in between.

Rob opening up about what it took for him to survive Hollywood.

Now, there were a lot of talks about maybe finding some way to bring ER back.

The executive producer, John Wells, who's done things like The West Wing and others, Noah Wiley, who, of course, was one of the main stars of ER.

There were some discussions.

among them and some other producers, about ideas.

That's like some, again, this 25 year old writing this in an idea of the world is so unrelated to the reality of it.

We loved the West Wing because it was so realistic about the way it portrayed those complex relationships.

The diplomat, Are you done?

Are we done? I'm done.