What an excellent group of actors in that scene. Even the actor playing the translator pulled his weight at the end with the look on his face like "I can't believe that just happened".
Anyone that coincidentally happened to also be married within that 1 hour as the presidents daughter? I found this when googling how many people get married each hour: "Every 16 seconds, there is a marriage in the U.S. That equates to 230 marriages per hour" if that's just the US then worldwide it has to be in the thousands. Even with different time zones.
My Grandpa was born during the 2 day period when answer was demanded after the the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was presented to Serbia during the July crisis at the start of the Great War. They weren’t waiting for him but it was an historic hiatus.
Even though this would probably never happen in RL, there's something very powerful about Bartlet asking for half an hour so he can give his daughter away and the Chinese leader giving him an hour. That connection between fathers that doesn't need a translator.
Agreed. As theatre, TWW got a little soapy and melodramatic in later seasons as it tried to hold on to ratings and reproduce Sorkin's formula without Sorkin. At times that effort was flawed. But here in particular the result is utterly beautiful.
You'd be surprised. Person-to-person sympathy has saved more than one extreme situation. It's when leaders talk to each other as people that they come to real agreements.
People, as it turns out, are people. Everyone wants to see their daughter's smile in a wedding dress, everyone wants to see their children grow and be safe and succeed.
If you peel back the onion on this issue, it's quite good. Bartlett has a legit interest in walking his daughter down the aisle...but he's more than aware that the entire White House will wait while he suffers through the phone call. 50% of the people in the White House reception hall knows the problem. And yet, Bartlett uses that hour to give his staff time to find an idea. I love this show.
It would've been brilliant if he'd called Charlie in, grilled him on.his intentions towards Zoe then said. "Charlie, n the interest of world peace, you have my full support to marry my daughter provided you have the ceremony today!" 😂
isn't it "好，我答应“ which translates to "Ok, I agree." ? Also I'm impressed that they used an actual chinese speaker for this, you can hear that chuntian is biaozhun af
People saying that this would never happen, don't really get world politics. NOBODY of any self importance, wants to be the guy who escalates the situation... outside of our current resident/moron in chief, every other world leader out there, is looking for a way to get what they want, save face and not kill people.... The point of this scene is that Bartlett gave the Chinese a reason to give him an hour, this is what they wanted, they don't want to go to war, Russia doesn't want to go to war, they are looking for a way out, Bartlett gave his advisors another hour so that they can work channels... While Bartlett was doing the wedding thing, his advisors, the Chinese advisors, the Russian advisors were all working to fix this stale mate.
Well then good thing the current presiding commander in chief of the United States has been the first administration in this century not to start any wars
@@Casey_Bass That is such a bs argument considering he broke Obamas record for drone strikes and he never ended any of the wars the US is involved in. Just because he didnt get to invade a country doesnt mean he gets a cookie.
@@yao052 I'd much rather have someone that maintains the status quo than someone who is responsible for situations such as our disastrous and embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan, it wasn't even a withdrawal with the way our presiding administrations handled it
Hehe. Someone who completely shat all over our relationships with our European partners and totally devalued any promises future Presidents can make by reneging on the Iran Nuclear Deal is not someone to be complimented on foreign policy. On the surface, Biden's catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan looks much worse. But, truth be told, that was merely embarrassing. In reality, what Trump did to our diplomatic clout and soft power was actually tangibly damaging to us. Having a respected leader that other world leaders can do business with proudly is important for a country's prospects. The instant Mario Draghi became Italy's PM, Italy's financial well being improved, its securities began trading higher, its stocks rose, the EU began to supply debt, the ECB was giving its support. All this because Draghi was respected, a statesman, considered brilliant and respected by his peers. Trump was a laughingstock and an embarrassment that no one took seriously. Other world leaders had meetings with advisers before meeting him to plan out how not to spark a temper tantrum. It was on Trump's watch that the Eurozone began forging a stronger strategic partnership with China. His decision to wage a tariff war against our allies as well as our strategic rivals was a major economic blunder and set back the cooperation that we need to contain China by several years. When Ukraine was invaded and it looked like Russia would roll into Kiev with little resistance, Trump publicly complimented Putin on how clever he was to take a whole country nearly for free, while the Biden administration and Biden personally were quite essential behind the scenes in coordinating and encouraging Western support for Ukraine. The US intelligence services that were so heavily embarrassed in Afghanistan have been and continue to be instrumental in supporting Ukraine's armed forces, including, as it was leaked, providing vital intelligence towards the sinking of the Moskva. I think we can all realistically agree that, had Trump been president, the Western response to the Russian invasion would have been much more flaccid, and Russia may now even control the country.
1:13 In that moment, Bartlet temporary stopped talking as president and talked as someone even more powerful....a father who wasn't going to let his daughter down.
@@Serai3 Except it doesn't. Reversing anything doesn't negate the copyright, nor does cropping it (like some idiots do). WBTV doesn't really care if you put up clips of most of its old shows. They like that people still have an interest in them still. THey mind if you monetize the clips. That's illegal. They also mind if you put up whole episodes because they make money on streaming services for that, but clips like this only drum up people's sense of urgency to rewatch an entire episode.
What gets me most of this scene is that it is the daughter he had the most trouble with, the one who grew up questioning whether her dad even liked her. So how much did he really love her? He paused WW3 for her.
Ya it wouldn’t. People saying the Chinese would humor or adhere to this notion is just a reach in terms of story telling and a cultural attribute. A half hour is a lifetime in a situation like this. Think of it on this. Your a global power facing down another equal power involving both a political and military intervention to suit your needs within a region. Avoiding the nuclear mutual destruction bit. Why would They compromise that over the fact you need time to complete a marriage ceremony?
go read up on historical politics. Even crazier geopolitical goings on were started and/or diffused by situations exactly like this. Hell, the US and Britain almost got into a 2nd war due to the killing of a pig.
You don't know that. World leaders are people just as much as anyone else. Many an extreme situation has been influenced or averted because of personal sympathy or friendship.
Aaron Sorkin writes pretty dialogue that makes average people on the left feel more intelligent than they actually are. He is very, very good at his job.
And you thought raising intransigent teenagers was tough!! It is, however, amazing at the detailed geopolitical discourse written into the scripts of this show. It is a shame it could not have continued. Writing and acting at this intelligence level is essentially non-existent on network TV, and rare on cable. Instead we get Working Girls or Walking Dead....shows which challenge your intellect. NOT!!!
Getting this caliber of writing and acting costs a lot of money, and the networks have found that they can get the same TV ratings with programming that costs far less to produce. Hence the garbage that passes for prime time TV these days.
actually, when John Spencer died, it seems that the cast decided that they did not want to continue the show without Leo. It seems that the creators of the show changed the ending, and let Santos win. They thought it would be too much for the fan base to have Leo die and also have Santos lose the election...
Someone who is participating in a wedding at or after 5:00PM. Evening tails are most certainly appropriate for that time of day. Did you not read the note Fiderer put on the desk?
@@dcg509 I am too, and I respect that, but for a wedding it's poor form. Morning coats with cravats should be worn by the sort of gentleman Jed Bartlett is seeking to be.
@@ClarinoI lt's good form for a wedding after 5:00 or 6:00. You can't wear morning dress in the evening. Why the wedding is that late is a different question, but for a formal wedding at a late hour, he's right on track.
That moment when two rival world leaders... Suddenly just became two proud fathers who understood each other for a moment... Love this scene
What an excellent group of actors in that scene. Even the actor playing the translator pulled his weight at the end with the look on his face like "I can't believe that just happened".
Oh hey, that's me!
@@LindenGoh I always loved when your character showed up, you gave a subtle performance!
How many girls can say that the two largest armies that have ever existed stopped in their tracks for 1 hour while she got married?
Just like a truce at Xmas during WW1 with the guys on the trenches. Things happen.
zero.
Anyone that coincidentally happened to also be married within that 1 hour as the presidents daughter? I found this when googling how many people get married each hour: "Every 16 seconds, there is a marriage in the U.S. That equates to 230 marriages per hour" if that's just the US then worldwide it has to be in the thousands. Even with different time zones.
My Grandpa was born during the 2 day period when answer was demanded after the the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was presented to Serbia during the July crisis at the start of the Great War. They weren’t waiting for him but it was an historic hiatus.
Hopefully no girls. Maybe one woman. 😊
Helen of Troy may have launched a thousand ships... but Ellie Bartlet's wedding paused a world war.
Yes!
It was a Land grab buddy, same as always.
She was the recruitment poster.
Abu El Banat sometimes goes far beyond language barriers.
Even though this would probably never happen in RL, there's something very powerful about Bartlet asking for half an hour so he can give his daughter away and the Chinese leader giving him an hour. That connection between fathers that doesn't need a translator.
Agreed. As theatre, TWW got a little soapy and melodramatic in later seasons as it tried to hold on to ratings and reproduce Sorkin's formula without Sorkin. At times that effort was flawed. But here in particular the result is utterly beautiful.
You'd be surprised. Person-to-person sympathy has saved more than one extreme situation. It's when leaders talk to each other as people that they come to real agreements.
Abu El Banat
Abu El Banat is a great scene.
People, as it turns out, are people. Everyone wants to see their daughter's smile in a wedding dress, everyone wants to see their children grow and be safe and succeed.
If you peel back the onion on this issue, it's quite good. Bartlett has a legit interest in walking his daughter down the aisle...but he's more than aware that the entire White House will wait while he suffers through the phone call. 50% of the people in the White House reception hall knows the problem. And yet, Bartlett uses that hour to give his staff time to find an idea. I love this show.
Indeed.
"You've got one hour." Man-o-man, talk about pressure !
Ithought someone was going to have a heart attack when Bartlett shouted at the chinese Premier judging by the looks.
It would've been brilliant if he'd called Charlie in, grilled him on.his intentions towards Zoe then said. "Charlie, n the interest of world peace, you have my full support to marry my daughter provided you have the ceremony today!" 😂
The Chinese Premier actually says "Yes. I give you my promise."
isn't it "好，我答应“ which translates to "Ok, I agree." ?
Also I'm impressed that they used an actual chinese speaker for this, you can hear that chuntian is biaozhun af
@@ChemySh "同意" is "agree". "答应" is "promise".
"I can't put down this damn phone until you tell me that you're not going to start WORLD WAR THREE TODAY!" :D
One of my top favorite lines in the entire series. Some good stuff came from the post-Sorkin era.
People saying that this would never happen, don't really get world politics. NOBODY of any self importance, wants to be the guy who escalates the situation... outside of our current resident/moron in chief, every other world leader out there, is looking for a way to get what they want, save face and not kill people.... The point of this scene is that Bartlett gave the Chinese a reason to give him an hour, this is what they wanted, they don't want to go to war, Russia doesn't want to go to war, they are looking for a way out, Bartlett gave his advisors another hour so that they can work channels... While Bartlett was doing the wedding thing, his advisors, the Chinese advisors, the Russian advisors were all working to fix this stale mate.
Well then good thing the current presiding commander in chief of the United States has been the first administration in this century not to start any wars
@@Casey_Bass That is such a bs argument considering he broke Obamas record for drone strikes and he never ended any of the wars the US is involved in. Just because he didnt get to invade a country doesnt mean he gets a cookie.
@@yao052 I'd much rather have someone that maintains the status quo than someone who is responsible for situations such as our disastrous and embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan, it wasn't even a withdrawal with the way our presiding administrations handled it
Hehe. Someone who completely shat all over our relationships with our European partners and totally devalued any promises future Presidents can make by reneging on the Iran Nuclear Deal is not someone to be complimented on foreign policy. On the surface, Biden's catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan looks much worse. But, truth be told, that was merely embarrassing. In reality, what Trump did to our diplomatic clout and soft power was actually tangibly damaging to us.
Having a respected leader that other world leaders can do business with proudly is important for a country's prospects. The instant Mario Draghi became Italy's PM, Italy's financial well being improved, its securities began trading higher, its stocks rose, the EU began to supply debt, the ECB was giving its support. All this because Draghi was respected, a statesman, considered brilliant and respected by his peers. Trump was a laughingstock and an embarrassment that no one took seriously. Other world leaders had meetings with advisers before meeting him to plan out how not to spark a temper tantrum. It was on Trump's watch that the Eurozone began forging a stronger strategic partnership with China. His decision to wage a tariff war against our allies as well as our strategic rivals was a major economic blunder and set back the cooperation that we need to contain China by several years.
When Ukraine was invaded and it looked like Russia would roll into Kiev with little resistance, Trump publicly complimented Putin on how clever he was to take a whole country nearly for free, while the Biden administration and Biden personally were quite essential behind the scenes in coordinating and encouraging Western support for Ukraine. The US intelligence services that were so heavily embarrassed in Afghanistan have been and continue to be instrumental in supporting Ukraine's armed forces, including, as it was leaked, providing vital intelligence towards the sinking of the Moskva. I think we can all realistically agree that, had Trump been president, the Western response to the Russian invasion would have been much more flaccid, and Russia may now even control the country.
Turns out there was more than one moron in chief around.
One of the best tv shows ever!!!!!
A nuclear war was put on hold because she was getting married. Not a lot of people can say that.
I need to re-watch these. I don't remember this one.
s7e9 iirc - its the start of the war story that impacts the presidential election of that season.
1:14 Pity the translator on the other end who has to tell the President of China, "Goddamnit! Will you shut up already?"
1:36 this man will put his own family in front of the country. Respect
1:13 In that moment, Bartlet temporary stopped talking as president and talked as someone even more powerful....a father who wasn't going to let his daughter down.
the *GREATEST* show in the _HISTORY_ of television
Is the translator the same guy that was in Stargate SG1 as the Chinese Ambassador?
yup! Big pay raise lol
the video is flipped; all of Debbie's notes are backwards, and the NBC seal is on the wrong side of the screen.
Mel M very astute ;)
I noticed Bartlet's hair, that's how I figured it out LOL
It must flip back at the end, because he says "you've got one hour" and guy has CJ on one side and Kate on the other, then it switches.
Keeps the clip from being dinged by YT.
@@Serai3 Except it doesn't. Reversing anything doesn't negate the copyright, nor does cropping it (like some idiots do). WBTV doesn't really care if you put up clips of most of its old shows. They like that people still have an interest in them still. THey mind if you monetize the clips. That's illegal. They also mind if you put up whole episodes because they make money on streaming services for that, but clips like this only drum up people's sense of urgency to rewatch an entire episode.
What gets me most of this scene is that it is the daughter he had the most trouble with, the one who grew up questioning whether her dad even liked her.
So how much did he really love her? He paused WW3 for her.
(President Barrtlet) DAMN IT LEON WILL YOU SHUT UP ALREADY!?
It is funny, but I think it's supposed to be Lian. He's Chinese, not Spanish.
This would never work in a real world situation.
actually it is pretty believable :) it is a matter of family and respect and the Chinese are all about that
Wyn Williams Absolutely and completely believeable. The Chinese leader just gave president Bartlet the opportunity to save face.
Ya it wouldn’t. People saying the Chinese would humor or adhere to this notion is just a reach in terms of story telling and a cultural attribute. A half hour is a lifetime in a situation like this.
Think of it on this. Your a global power facing down another equal power involving both a political and military intervention to suit your needs within a region. Avoiding the nuclear mutual destruction bit. Why would They compromise that over the fact you need time to complete a marriage ceremony?
go read up on historical politics. Even crazier geopolitical goings on were started and/or diffused by situations exactly like this. Hell, the US and Britain almost got into a 2nd war due to the killing of a pig.
You don't know that. World leaders are people just as much as anyone else. Many an extreme situation has been influenced or averted because of personal sympathy or friendship.
In terms of accuracy in the context of politics & diplomacy, a little off. But in terms of drama, brilliant.
Aaron Sorkin writes pretty dialogue that makes average people on the left feel more intelligent than they actually are. He is very, very good at his job.
And you thought raising intransigent teenagers was tough!! It is, however, amazing at the detailed geopolitical discourse written into the scripts of this show. It is a shame it could not have continued. Writing and acting at this intelligence level is essentially non-existent on network TV, and rare on cable. Instead we get Working Girls or Walking Dead....shows which challenge your intellect. NOT!!!
Getting this caliber of writing and acting costs a lot of money, and the networks have found that they can get the same TV ratings with programming that costs far less to produce. Hence the garbage that passes for prime time TV these days.
actually, when John Spencer died, it seems that the cast decided that they did not want to continue the show without Leo. It seems that the creators of the show changed the ending, and let Santos win. They thought it would be too much for the fan base to have Leo die and also have Santos lose the election...
Translator is the only dude in the US who's allowed to talk over the president without checking into the CIA hotel
Who wears evening tails to a wedding?
Someone who is participating in a wedding at or after 5:00PM. Evening tails are most certainly appropriate for that time of day. Did you not read the note Fiderer put on the desk?
The President is a fan of white tie. Josh refers to it in “Noel”. “This is how statesman dress”-President Bartlett
@@lancer525 I saw the notes, but that just leads to the question of who gets married at 5pm or later? That's bizarre in itself.
@@dcg509 I am too, and I respect that, but for a wedding it's poor form. Morning coats with cravats should be worn by the sort of gentleman Jed Bartlett is seeking to be.
@@ClarinoI lt's good form for a wedding after 5:00 or 6:00. You can't wear morning dress in the evening. Why the wedding is that late is a different question, but for a formal wedding at a late hour, he's right on track.
HI LINDEN
Hi Ursula! 😆
Perfect time to attack. Get 'em!
Not a tactic he can use very often
Probably never
Well he has 3 daughters..
@@Dewebje 1 was already married by this point. Assuming all went well with the marriages, he'd have exactly one other opportunity to pull that card.
Chinese? Protecting democratic movement?
TWW timeline is far much better than our real world.
not really it's "Democratic" when its the result you want "Tyranny/Oppression" When its not. They will call it tiananmen if its suits their purposes
Hold on... she was married "two years ago, last Spring"??? Wouldn't that be less than one year?
I think it's as of last spring, it was two years, so if it's Summer it's a little over two years ago
Yeah I doubt the Chinese would have accepted "would you shut up for a minute".
Most likley they would have put the phone down.
This show really went down the soap opera route. Somehow the Russians and the Chinese going at it is window dressing to a wedding storyline.
Not really, it's just literally offscreen.