The West Wing
February 28, 2005
The best thing to happen to “The West Wing” this past year was not winning the Emmy for Best Dramatic Series. In winning four consecutive years- two of which were deserving, two not so- the series began to grate on my tolerability level as over praised, and over rewarded. The first two Emmy winning seasons were great, no doubt; appointment TV about a liberal president who could to no wrong in the eyes of his audience, and even his chief critics. The next two Emmy winning seasons, however, began to strain credibility as President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) faced a boring reelection plot while continually battling overseas troubles and early symptoms of MS. How seasons three and four won Best Drama over “The Sopranos” and “24” is beyond me, and can only be attributed to the Emmy voters lack or originality, which has thankfully, albeit grudgingly, begin to show cracks in the stuffy veneer this year.
Amidst those middle years, the show lost both its secondary star, Rob Lowe, who has done little, if anything of value since, and its chief brainchild, Aaron Sorkin, who left with bitter resentment towards NBC and the way they felt the show was going, losing more and more viewers as the years went by. So, when “E.R.’s” John Wells took over as show runner in season five, by far the weakest of the shows run, another unwarranted Emmy win would have been overkill, and would have possibly driven me, as well as my fellow unsatisfied ‘Wing’ fans, away from the sinking ship that we loved so much upon first inspection. It didn’t win, finally, losing to a deserving ‘Sopranos’ season, and with the newfound sense of loss, in its sixth season, has regained some of its early inspiration with new and interesting plotlines that could change the future of the series, if indeed, it has a future in this era where anything that goes up against “American Idol’s” three broadcasts a week sees a decidedly negative viewer turnout.
This sudden change back to good, character driven storylines wasn’t an easy transition, and didn’t happen immediately early this season. In the beginning it looked like the same stale formula, sticking us on the backside of an uninteresting cliffhanger involving secretary Donna Moss (Janel Moloney) and her near fatal truck bombing incident in Israel. Hijacking not only the viewer, but her boss, Deputy Chief Advisor Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) for an entire episode, the repercussions of which played out in the next few weeks, this weak story, involving a classic TV cliché, the short-lived, writers-block-induced TV coma, wasn’t the answer ‘Wing’ fans were looking for. In fact, what would have been better would have been the death of Donna, a turn that could have jolted the series with an unexpected amount of emotion to start the season. She didn’t die, and was back to work, in a wheel chair with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, within weeks, and frankly, her character has suffered because of the bad decision to bring her back to life, essentially sidelining her to the Vice President’s campaign, away from Josh, sharing brief flirtations that go nowhere, just like her characters story arch. Donna was always a B-character on an A-list show, and this season’s early melodramatics didn’t help her cause much.
After the hasty Israel resolution, “The West Wing” sunk even further into despair, with a heart attack storyline that was so ill conceived you could hear the wheels struggling to stay in motion. With Chief of Staff Leo McGarry’s (John Spencer) ridiculous heart attack in the middle of the forest at Camp David, Wells and company decided to give recent Emmy winner Allison Janney a promotion, upping Press Secretary C.J. Craig to new Chief of Staff and Chief Advisor to Pres Bartlet. C.J. was always good with a cynical bunch of newspaper reporters, but does talking to the press really qualify you to run the White House? On top of Donna’s speedy recovery, and Leo flailing around, unnoticed, like a fish out of water in the shrubs of Camp David, C.J.’s promotion felt like the final nail in the coffin. But then something near-miraculous happened, the show looked itself in the mirror, saw a tired duck out of ideas, and hired fresh meat, hatched a campaign story refreshing after our own lackluster election, and suddenly found itself with energy and scripts witty, informative, and, in the past six weeks, quite poignant. After nearly three and a half seasons of steady decline, “The West Wing” has finally regained my interest to the point that I now look forward to analyzing a revigorated classic, instead of it’s plastic shell.
Chief amongst the shows revitalization is a new two-headed approach to storytelling, alternation the traditional White House dramatics with episodes on the campaign trail, where V.P. Bob Russell (Gary Cole), former V.P. John Hoynes (Tim Matheson), and newcomer, Senator Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) trudge through the bible belt in their initial attempts at securing the Democratic Presidential nomination. Focusing less on stump speeches (we had enough of those with Kerry and Bush) and more on actual campaign strategy, which often involves heated arguments between Santos and Josh about campaign ethics and direction, the election plotline has been a welcome diversion from the often labored White House melodrama. In one well written and well directed recent episode, the show was split up into three key acts, highlighting a day in the life of three campaign heavies- Josh, Santos, and Republican hopeful Arnold Vanick (Alan Alda), as they ready for an important speech to Iowa farmers on energy conservation and subsidies. The structure was a way for the viewer to get to know Alda and Smits better as politicians instead of their more famous TV personas- Alda as a field doctor, Smits as a NY detective- and to place us behind the scenes of a very early, yet wholly necessary stop along opposing party campaigns to see who would play it safe, and possibly secure more votes, and who would play it ethical, and possibly ruin his campaign. In the hands of pros like Alda and Smits, the outcome was anything but predictable, and in the spirit of good character acting, and writing, either one of these candidates would be a good successor to Jeb Bartlett. Intuition says Wells will stay Democratic and go with Smits, but in this Republican-run country of ours, anything is possible.
From the White House side of this new ‘West Wing’ format, much has been made of Bartlet’s deteriorating health, evinced in an episode earlier this season where a half paralyzed Bartlet faced the entire Chinese delegation from a wheel chair. Whether the chair was the same set chair Donna used for two episodes earlier in the season is a secret only the show prop man knows, but seeing our heroic President in the chair was both overly melodramatic, and dramatically effective, in a look-at-your-hero-now, twist-of-fate kind of way. Martin Sheen has never won an Emmy for his performance as Bartlet, though nearly his entire staff has at least one, and if Bartlett’s dramatics seem like Emmy-bait on paper, on screen Sheen seems more calm than hysterical, playing off the disease as if it were just another congressional setback. If “The West Wing” is going where I think it’s going, into a post-Bartlet, post-Sheen future where illness will likely be a non-factor, than at least the second half of this season has given Sheen a few shining moments to work out of Sorkin’s ill conceived disease with class and enough plausibility to warrant another possible nomination. If last weeks Toby centered episode was the seasons emotional highpoint- in which Toby (Richard Schiff) dealt with his brother’s suicide, and Josh’s return to the White House- than Bartlet’s sickness laid good emotional groundwork, and rightfully healed some wounds left from Leo’s wooded stumble.
With five episodes left, it isn’t likely that either of these major, series-saving plotlines will resolve themselves before the finale. But if they can carry the show into its seventh season with such renewed vigor, than maybe all hope isn’t lost for NBC’s prized political possession.
by Adam Suraf