N.S.F. Thurmont

I have a hope that the fifth season was just a period of transition and that John Wells needed a little time to settle into his new job as showrunner. All that gave me hope for the sixth season to finally have its own voice and feel, showing us why Wells was asked to take over. With this premiere episode, they had a chance to really give us something that would knock us dead and prove us all wrong when we said we missed Sorkin. However, that's not what we got; instead we got an episode that featured little intrigue and a lot of plotting.

I don't think I'm wrong when I say that this is the worst premiere we've had for this show so far. Not only does it lack that Sorkin charm that we've grown used to with the other seasons, but it also lacks an overall good story. This episode is one of those stories that you would usually do off-screen and not even spend time on as it just seems like filling in the gaps before we actually begin the season. All the characters are emotional wrecks and there's not really anyone that you can look to as the voice of reason. A lot of the fun of the show has gone away, and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, it would be better if Wells knew how to craft an interesting script to accommodate his darker themes. However, this is not a script that has anything remotely appealing about it, basically digging its own grave deeper as it gets more intricate and less fascinating. There's not a lot of actual acting in this episode and mostly just a lot of yelling at each other, and while it's entertaining yelling, it is just yelling nonetheless. If anything, I do think it crafts an interesting storyline going forward, and that they'll hopefully not shy away from actually exploring this deeper into the season. There's obviously a lot that we need to get to with midterms still hanging around the corner, but this could be an interesting storyline, if we skipped the boring and got the interesting.

"NSF Thurmont" is not only a title that I don't quite understand, but also an episode that carries none of the weight that other premieres did. It features questionable character decisions, a lot of yelling, performances that don't hold up the usual standard, and writing that feels like a modern-day Aaron Sorkin script.