PODCAST · society
The Worst Wing
by Stu & Dave
An episode-by-episode breakdown of Aaron Sorkin's seminal work from a modern leftist perspective.
Episodes
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S7E15 - Tomorrow Never Dies
It's been a long, slogging trail through this show and so we have The Last Episode for you here (spoiler it's bad). We also spend another 20 minutes or so musing poorly and waxing misunderstood philosophically about the impact of the show on the culture at large, on Aaron Sorkin himself, and on...
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S7E14 - The Last Hurrah for Memory
As we close the show down, senioritis sets in not only amongst the outgoing administration, but among your intrepid hosts who spent most of the recording session crosstalking and stepping on each other's bits!! It's a fine thing to try to address the absolutely Kafkaesque disaster of being an...
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S7E13 - Requiem for a Transition
OK now that the show has wrapped up, congrats to Matt Santos on being the new prez, time to wait what the fuck there's still 5 goddamn episodes left?? IT'S ALL SO STUPID. RIP to Sinead O'Connor, this one hit me hard for whatever reason https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbre5Fs9m8I
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S7E12 - ELECTION DAY
Hi, yeah, first time long time: does Bruno close the deal? This one's for the true sickos among us, full of polls Polls POLLS energy and quite a bit of hornt, as the election unfolds over 90 relatively harmless minutes of campaign staff interactions. Let the careerist jockeying... BEGIN Music…
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S7E11 - Two Weeks Out You Are
I am so ready for this to be over. If only WE were two weeks out, rather than... 7 more episodes so let's call it four more recording sessions that will probably land between now and October for a nice round 5 year experience. Please, listener, spare yourself and do not watch these episodes.…
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S7E10 - Duck The Cold
Come bother me about end-to-end emissions and material processing eCO2 incursions if u wanna get wrecked about nuclear power. So sorry there hasn't been a miraculously ~*mArKEt baSeD sOLuTioN*~ to getting perovskites into every PV cell somehow! We coulda been casting containment buildings for…
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S7E9 - Running Mates & Something ELse idk whatever
Welcome back to more campaign shit that I don't give a fuck about!! With a side helping of "whoa hang on there's still an entire administration in the White House currently?? uh... let's do... World War!" The first episode starts with a direct-to-camera tribute to John Spencer from Martin Sheen....
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S7E8 - Undecided The Wedding
These episodes are a slog and a half so we're back to throwing two together at one go, and conveniently, these tidy up the Ellie Bartlet Wedding arc which is tropeish and irritating! We solve racism with a speech, surprise! A nice soothing authoritative President Dad approach to a(nother) World…
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S7E7 - The Debate (Clean No Backing)
This track leaves out the episode running in the background, in case you have your copy and want to watch along without duplicating the soundtrack! Well, as the West Wing ran out of sauce down the stretch, beset by better television (... marginally better, in the case of Crossing Jordan) on all...
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S7E7 - The Debate (With Episode Backing)
This track includes the episode running in the background of our commentary, if you don't have access to it! Well, as the West Wing ran out of sauce down the stretch, beset by better television (... marginally better, in the case of Crossing Jordan) on all sides and lacking its initial…
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S7E5 - Here Today At The Al Smith Dinner
Pseudo content warning we talk about abortion but keep it pretty clean. This shit sucks so much, the campaign is no longer even a fig leaf for shitty TV, don't watch these episodes god damn. Emma makes an only-slightly-planned guest appearance to lend an appropriate voice to a discussion of these...
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S7E4 - Mr. Frost
If you're innocent you have nothing to hide so don't worry about defending yourself or using whatever meager power still remains to you!! Even if that's a Shitload of Power, because you're one of the highest-ranking public officials in the history of the world! Just be cool man, I thought you…
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S7E3 - Message of the Week
A brief whiff of fresh air as we follow the Vinick campaign around the trail for a while. However, as always there is such little daylight between Democrat and Republican positions on... well damn near everything, the staffs and their approach to issues people care about could just be...
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S7E2 - The Mommy Problem
No not THAT problem you SICKOS Another tedious day-in-the-campaign-life episode focusing on Matt Santos checking demographic boxes and generally cleaving to the most anodyne Political Operative Wisdom possible. Thank goodness their team now has both Janeane Garofalo and Marlee Matlin on it I…
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S7E1 - Da Ticket
We're back baby! We made it... two two-week periods in a row! Fuck yeah. Wish I had anything even approaching as positive a reaction to the material we consider in the first episode of the 7th season of this show. It's bad, folks! I'm so bored, I do not care about how you think campaigning needs…
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S6E20 - 2162 Votes
OMG we're back!! To finish season 6 FINALLY FUCK YOU SHOW. Neither moves nor covid nor laze of brain shall keep us from finishing this accursed project. Music by Rush
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S6E19 - Things Fall Apart
Oooooh big bright lights big arenas wow once every 4-8 years we get to do what the Sporps Mans do every weekend!! Let's... MAKE SOME RUUUUUUULES!! If I could be candid for a minute, we're at the point of the show where I am noticeably running out of things to say so I apologize for being more...
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S6E18 - In God We Trust
Fun guest stars abound! Early-00s "atheist" takes mercifully do NOT in this episode, wherein the writers tackle Churchiness and theocrats demanding fealty to both Heavenly and Earthly power in the most kid (literally) gloves fashion possible. The ongoing explication of Senator Vinick's Good...
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S6E17 - Ninety Miles Away
This episode marks not only the absolute dregs of fan opinion it's probably, I M H O, the one that actually legitimately represents the show jumping the shark. It's got all the hits: exceptionalism, bad costuming, spontaneous language fluency! There's rumors that Fidel is dying, just like there's...
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S6E16 - La Palabra
It's Spanish for "the palabra". Oh boy a whole episode wrestling with representational issues in high-level executive office!! If only we hadn't seen this theory's propositions have their baby brains splattered across the concrete rocks of reality for 8 long goddamn years ultimately leading into...
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S6E15 - One Good Day
Some fun speculation re: how kids would vote, carried in the episode by some excellent child actors giving the Ol' College Try to Toby and Annabeth. Ultimately, they experience the most best possible thing politics nerds (hello Emma) could experience: SENPAI ACKNOWLEDGES THEM. Otherwise there's a...
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S6E14 - Drought Conditions
Wow, you say that the Colorado River no longer reaches the sea AND Lake Mead is dry? Uh, have you tried No they're not? What if you commissioned a focus group or something? Cliff Calley is BACK and you can hear Stu develop his opinion on the character as he speaks it to himself aloud lol. Our...
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S6E13 - Freedonia
Stu says "ultimately" like seventeen times this episode so, I guess be forewarned, it was irritating to edit myself lol. We have a big scrambly mess of an episode wherein the writers seem to be DESPERATELY trying to portray the inner, cynical, overanalyzed mechanics of a bog standard political...
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S6E12 - The Wake Up Call
Any day now, Iran will do a Bad Thing, and it turns out today was that day in West Wing Universe. Note that of course any response by the international community will only result in Iran doing FURTHER BAD THINGS. Always Be Centrifuging John Marbury is back and yuck, gross. I'm very tired so I…
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S6E11 - King Corn
I'm positive there are nice parts of Iowa because I've been to a couple of them. There's a t-shirt / dropship company that makes funny screenprinted items in Des Moines. There's a donut company and at least two very good breweries in Sioux City. There's one pub in Sheldon where a great friend…
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S6E10 - 365 Days
Leo returns to the White House and employs himself in very Serious Old Man Ways such as puttering, attempting to garner attention from younger people with more power than him, and watching VHS tapes. Remember VHS, kids? We take brief breaks from the TV cart that was rolled into 7th grade science...
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S6E9 - NICE - Opposition Research
We're goin on location in New Hampshire, the state that's Important For Some Reason! Josh and Matt Santos HIT THE TRAIL, the campaign trail that is! And mill about bouncing their personalities off of one another as they try to get this, heh, "single digit spoiler" campaign off the ground. There's...
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S6E8 - Faith Based Initiative
Ha ha great descriptor of the administration's COVID protocols in 2022! Occasionally we see an episode of this show that is just SO alien in even its premises that we have to kinda go "Really?" and this is one of them. What if... CJ Cregg... were (wait for it, go with me here) a lesbian? Because...
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S6E7 - Impact Winter
I would simply not diplomatic meeting myself to death. Of course, my name isn't Josiah Edward "Jed" Bartlet, President Of The Universe and ultimate Liberal God-Emperor. Continuing down the China Summit storyline we have some more racism, some more horrible tailoring, and a strange unifying thread...
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S6E6 - In The Room
When are they gonna get to the DIPLOMACY FACTORY?? Super guest star power drives this episode home: we have the introduction of Arnold Vinick, soon-to-be primary challenger. We have Zoey's birthday party entertainment making hamfisted free speech arguments. And I guess also the surgeon general?…
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S6E5 - A Change Is Gonna Come
When reached for comment, white house communications director Toby Ziegler, recently in hot water for his collar-tuggingly awkward press room flops, just sorta racistly rattled off the following statement: "China BAD, Asian food WEIRD, politics DUMB, these BROADS AM I RIGHT, protocol CORRECT"…
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S6E4 - The Dover Test
Is Delaware even a thing? Has anyone... been to Delaware? Who is Senator Chris "C**ns" Coons? Why are there now TWO government grandpas from there? How?? The reference Stu makes out the gate is to the following tweet: https://twitter.com/ManuclearBomb/status/1487483303745708040 Anyway this…
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S6E3 - The Hubbert Peak
It's Josh Versus The Internet Round Two: FIGHT A bit of a scattershot episode today that completely enwrongulates the concept of fossil fuel reliance in a globalized marketplace. Tropes about fart-sniffing liberals in the alternative energy industry abound! CJ is getting used to her job, Charlie…
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S6E2 Liftoff
Greetings from the plaguelands. We're back and it's fuckin time for CJ to get her DUE because she's been working her ass off get it girl hashtag werk hashtag girlboss!! anyway this was a pretty good episode as far as things go because we get the cast shaken up quite a bit with guest/recurring...
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S6E1 - Peace In The Middle East
Welcome to Season 6, wow we're really screamin now. We'll eventually pare it back down to one episode per session but the first THREE eps of this season are a complete arc culminating in, surprise, a peace accord between Isra*l and Pal*stine (let's keep this on the DL), and Leo handing off the...
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S5E16 - Gaza and Finale
We're bringing season five to a close (finally!) with a bang (literally!). A huge mess of orthodox Israel/Palestine takes, with a great guest appearance by Jason Isaacs, hubba hubba woof woof awooooga. Emma, if she listened to our show, would never forgive me for conflating ID4 with Armageddon....
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S5E15 - Talking Exit
We're back to our S5 format: two episodes of... well one episode of utterly puerile naivete regarding the economic orthodoxy that's literally killing your constituency, and one episode of tense as hell cool fuckin thriller-ass bioterrorism interjection. In "Talking Points" we have a lot of shit...
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S5E14 - ACCESSSSSSSSS
the ultimate masturbatory narcissistic episode Of this fucking show. You should 100% not watch this garbage, it's insanely bad. you SHOULD watch and cackle crack-pingedly at this clip from one of the most-watched CURRENT television disasters:...
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S5E13 - The Supremes feat. Emma DT
We made it! After literally almost exactly 3 years (we first published on August 18, 2018) we have arrived at Emma's favorite episode. And true to her promise then, she joined us to chat about the powerful fantasy that this episode promotes. To this episode's credit: It's narratively focused,...
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S5E12 - Full Si Muove
This has all happened before, and it will all happen again. It's time to be a racist! It's time to hem and haw. It's time to cram the show full of the neoliberals' flaws It's time for Jon Podhoretz (again) It's time for DeeDee Myers It's time for awkward CJ putting out the admin's fires. This is...
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S5E11 - Genghis KhAn Khe
A tremendously JPod-tainted international incident threatens the world stage with a NEW nuclear power! Made up buzzwords like "NuDet" (lmao) sell the drama alongside heavy-handed racist stereotypes of the Islamic world. And then... whoopsy doodle, the Vice President deus ex machinas the entire...
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S5E10 Benign News Day
Blazing through this season like a wildfire through British Columbia, we're tackling another two episodes in quick succession. Gabby Union makes a spectacular guest appearance not as an East Compton Clover but as a reporter that Charlie screeches from 60 to 0 with for... utterly banal and stupid...
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S5E9 - Abu el Stormy
Now we're really cranking through this shit: another twofer today because there just isn't really enough to talk about in any particular episode any more. Even though there is a LOT of content? In each one. Assisted suicide sets up a federalism crisis, which is not nearly as funny as the "Civil…
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S5E7-8 - Shutdown
Ooh a cliffhanger! Know what communicates that to the audience? Overwrought horribly campy sound effects! We have a ginned up crisis created out of whole cloth by Republican intransigence (surprise!) that is handled by the administration's gumption and willingness to compromise everything they...
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S5E6 - Disaster Relief
The only Disaster that needs Relieving is the script and acting and filming of this episode! It's bad folks, I dunno there's a tornado, and a Greek/Albanian conflict. Also you've got Locke as the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Don't watch this episode and if you have already well I imagine...
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S5E5 - A Constituency of One
Life imitates art in this episode as we have Tom Skerritt playing an Arlen Specter-alike except switching parties the Bad Way, presaging Specter's move by almost 5 years! A discussion ensues of the relative pros/cons of this party flipflop... and whether it really matters nowadays. Some other...
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S5E4 - Han
Turning some racism dials with the least likely character to indulge in it, the writers bring a bit of Orientalist flair back to the West Wing as they deal with a "crisis" involving a North Korean defector. Josh and Amy somehow absolutely refuse to just Fuck, Donna has cheesehead relatives…
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S5E3 - Jefferson Lives
This is a scattered entry in the show's canon that's sort of transitional, even more so than the wrap-up of the cliffhanger from last season. We are introduced to the nominal New Villain, Jeff Haffley. We are shown rather hamhandedly how Zoe is still traumatized and working through her recovery.…
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S5E2 - Dogs of War
Already noting a precipitous decline in quality, the crew is really putting in work to get the show back to at least a baseline of "Sorkin didn't dump this steamy loaf in our lap out of spite". Wrapping up plotlines left and right, maundering through drawn-out conversations that go nowhere......
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S5E1 - 7A WTF 42069
Launching season five, it's the post-Sorkin years! Off to a blazing start as the Evil Bad Red Team takes the driver's seat of the presidency, profaning our sacred Decorum with things like "being honest" and "having a coherent ideology". I'm gonna be honest if my spouse was contemplating...
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Worst Wing have?
The Worst Wing currently has 136 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Worst Wing about?
An episode-by-episode breakdown of Aaron Sorkin's seminal work from a modern leftist perspective.
How often does The Worst Wing release new episodes?
The Worst Wing publishes regularly with 136 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to The Worst Wing?
You can listen to The Worst Wing on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Worst Wing?
The Worst Wing is created and hosted by Stu & Dave.
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