Okay

So I just started watching the first season of The West Wing on DVD, and I’m loving it. But after inhaling a show with such a consistent writing voice as Sorkin’s (yes, all characters speak in the same cadence and are all insanely smart) you start to notice some things. Mostly, it makes me realize just how fucking aggravating Studio 60 must have been to West Wing viewers when they realized they’re watching the exact same show… but this time its about sketch comedy. One of the great things about Sorkin is that his characters imbue their jobs with life or death importance, but only now can I imagine the aggravation of having to watch these characters — these same actors, in some cases — treat the outcome of a stupid sketch exactly as if it were an impending war between Pakistan and India.

God, I throw (another) pillow at the TV in hindsight for that fucking show.

But anyway. Something I’ve noticed is that Sorkin writes the best amused/dismissive/incredulous “okay” in the business, and uses it like the space bar. It’s everywhere. And with people like Bradley Whitford delivering it, it works. It’s actually often perfect. But I feel like sometimes Sorkin just gets lazy, (or runs out of ‘shrooms), doesn’t know how to end a scene, and just writes…

CHARACTER: (beat) Okay.

Case in point. In episode 1-10, the Sorkinly unsubtly-titled “In Excelsis Deo,” the President’s secretary, Dolores Landingham (the great Kathryn Joosten), finally gets a big speech. She reveals to Charlie that she misses her sons. He asks where they are. And she goes on to tell him, in Sorkiny detail, that they were twin medics killed in Vietnam together. She reveals how they were pinned down by enemy fire on Christmas and it must have been so loud and they must have been so scared and they must have wished they had their mother. And the violins swell and the performance is so subtle and simple and rip-your-heart-out sad and then she’s done. And Charlie’s response: “Okay.”

Dick!