First of all, I sort of like it. I like the interactions of the characters and some of the humor. I find the more dated things amusing, such as the pagers and lack of cell phones, and general unfamiliarity with the internet. Early in one episode, a White House staffer asks his underlings for a copy of the Constitution and they flail about for a bit wondering how to get one, with the staffer exasperatingly recommending "try Amazon dot com". In the first episode, a well-educated resident of Washington DC sees the acronym POTUS and does not know the reference.

The main problem I have is with the writing, which is supposed to be the absolute strength of the show, from its reputation. Six episodes in, and I am already seeing the strings. I've started noticing how they lean on repetition for humor, with multiple people using the exact same phrase to refer to an issue as they join an extended conversation.

The president also suffers the common TV affliction of being a brilliant and considerate and compassionate man, only his actions and ideas are written by cretinous, self-absorbed TV writers, so the character is not objectively any of those things, or at least veers out of character on a regular basis. In one very early episode, because his daughter is in town for something, the President "invites" the staff over for chili after work, and with then all standing around chatting in the residential part of the White House, he beams benevolently at the group and comments to his right-hand guy/best friend how much he loves seeing the staff hanging out together after work. But they are NOT hanging out together "after work", they are AT work and have had their work day extended by the orders of their boss! (it is particular egregious coming close on the heels of a new hire being told to expect 20 hour days, and immediately after an episode where a staffer's long hours caused his divorce) I don't care how optional the President thinks his invitation was, when the President of the United States 'asks' to stay late, even for something silly, you do it. And he certainly didn't phrase it as an option; though his tone was joking and light, his specific words were imperative, and their denotation was of an order. For a man who is not shy about demanding the respect due his office from policy dissenters or political opponents to forget about the awe and respect in which people are supposed to hold whenever it is convenient, is not at all like the good guy and wise leader the show is plainly interested in portraying.

Another habit of the President is dropping historical trivia and lessons in conversations with his staff, and he is also prone to correcting nit-picky errors. That's fine, but that means the writers have to very very careful not to make the same sort of mistakes with him. One such comes when a staffer, in an argument with the President, makes a clear allusion to the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and the President responds "Do I look like McCarthy?" Had ANYONE else made that same comment in his hearing, the guy they are showing would have immediately corrected them pointing out that SENATOR McCarthy had nothing to do with the HOUSE Unamerican Activities Committee. Furthermore, the President is portrayed as exactly the kind of nerd who would know the names of the members, or at least the leaders, of HUAC, rather than fall into the trap of popular confusion.

Another irritating thing is the political points the show tries to make, when they are plainly addressing the audience. Setting aside the ideological differences of opinion one might have with them (and I can do that; people who can't ignore leftwing politics can't watch TV), there is the point that people don't talk like that. Two liberal policy wonks should not need to cite facts and stats and arguments in their entirety in a private conversation with one another, which seems to be the most frequent forum for such messages. When a scandal breaks off camera, the audience is introduced to it by a dialogue similar to the following:
A: "Why is Jones mad?"
B: "He's mad about the Thing."
A: "The Thing was for the Guy."
B: "He doesn't think the Guy needs it."
C: (Walking in) "What's going on?"
A: "Jones is mad."
C: "About the Thing?"
A: "Apparently."
C: "Does he know the Thing is for the Guy?"
B: "The Guy doesn't need the Thing."
C: "It doesn't matter. There's the Issue, which is why we have the Thing."
D: (Walking in)"What about the Issue?"
B: "Jones is mad about the Thing for the Issue"
D: "The Thing was for the Guy."
C: "He doesn't think the Guy needs it."
D: "What about the Issue? That's why we have the Thing."

And then, finally, they grudgingly reveal to the audience what the problem is they are going to talk about. They have no problem using their vague, personal shorthand references that rightfully assume these people would all know what they are talking about, but then other times, two guys in a private conversation will have absurdly specific recitations of arguments and stats that they should both know, and should assume the other party knows. They do their little Who's on First routine to jerk the audience around, but then randomly abandon it to preach or editorialize.

There also appear to be some fundamental misapprehensions about the nature of duty and power, which is hardly surprising from the show-creator who demonstrated his ignorance of, or contempt for, the military in writing "A Few Good Men." In one episode, after a military officer he knows personally and likes a lot is killed by the actions of a foreign government, the same President who had personally confided to the late officer his discomfort with violence and the military personnel responsible for carrying it out (skipping all the personal prejudices & issues one needs to unpack from that statement), is suddenly irate at what he perceives to be the weak response being recommended by his military advisers, and its lack of substantive consequences. He demands something more serious, and they put together a plan to destroy a major airport, pointing out the civilian casualties and disruptions it will cause in the local society. He steps out of the room to fume to his chief of staff about the benefits of Roman citizenship in the ancient world, how throughout the Mediterranean region, all a man had to do was identify himself as a Roman citizen to be safe from harm, and wondering why he can't give American citizens that same assurance. You would think someone as historically informed as they are constantly showing the President to be, would know that it is PRECISELY because the Romans would not have the slightest qualms about bombing the ever-living fuck out of that airport! For good or for ill, Roman citizens were safe because Rome tore down rival cities, salted the ground on which they stood, and sold their populations into slavery. American citizens are not safe, precisely because the President balks at disrupting the importation of water and medical supplies to the people of a country. It is just that simple. The President might be (is) right to do so, and the Romans wrong, but the cause and effect are very very simple. It's like whining that a thief is rich when you have refused to steal yourself. No shit. Who ever promised a reward for virtue, and who, past the age of puberty expects one? How do you get to be President of the United States without being aware of this, much less the concept of compromises? And that's without even getting into the fact that his overreaction is due entirely to having personal knowledge of one of the people killed (another example of the ham-fisted writing was how heavily they foreshadowed his death by having him showing multiple people a picture of his beautiful wife and new baby right before he got on his fatal flight). Lots of people are murdered, leaving loved ones and babies. Up until this guy died, the President disapproved of actions taken to avenge these people, who are just as worthy of revenge as the President's favorite military doctor, with the exception that most of those people did not accept a commission in the armed forces of the USA, with the accompanying implicit threat of death.

In another episode, the deputy chief of staff is given his emergency card for use getting him to safety in the event of the nuclear attack. Initially his sanctimonious egalitarian sensibilities are offended by his (incredibly stupid & ignorant, yet somehow competent)secretary not getting similar treatment. When he tries to talk to his friend about the problem, asking how the friend copes with his own secretary not having the same safety protocols, it becomes apparent that the friend is ALSO not afforded the same degree of security. Eventually, he learns that of the staffers who appear in the opening credits, he is the only one who has a getaway plan in a national emergency. When his white male guilt brings him to confide in the only woman of that group (and for a show about liberals, that is an amazingly predominantly white male cast), she points out to him that the people he is worried about are speechwriters and press secretaries, who are hardly the definition of essential (which brings up another point about the show's focus: of the people featured in the opening credits, two of the six staffers are actually important, and the other four are all about public relations and media). At the end of the episode, he turns in his card to the president & chief of staff, asserting that he wants to share the hardships with his friends as well as the fun times.

Except, that security plan is not a privilege! The whiny little shit is the deputy chief of staff for the President of the United States! He was given the security position without asking for it, because the leader of the country needs people to keep his shit organized for him, so he can make decisions unencumbered by trivia that anyone can handle! It is his duty and his service, and what he is doing is desertion as surely as a soldier who leaves his post. He wasn't hired as deputy chief of staff so he could brag on his resume, have a bully pulpit for his political agenda and ideology, or a position to snark at political figures he dislikes, he was hired to help the president. But he doesn't want to do it when the president will need him most, because of his feels. Actually, that seems to be a common theme with the characters on this show, where they cause problems for the president instead of helping him, and when rebuked for their behavior, offer rebuttals that amount to, "Yes, I know what my job is, but it's haaard!"

I am hoping this is just first season growing pains and that it gets better. The show has a sufficiently impressive reputation, I figure I owe it at least a full season, and Aaron Sorkin is really good at the human moments, even if he has trouble recognizing the limits of when that stuff is appropriate.