TV Review: The West Wing
January 29, 2006
I feel a kind of shame that I ever badmouthed “The West Wing”, now in its seventh and final season, simply because it was showered with Emmy awards other, better shows deserved more. Certainly, it wasn’t their fault the Emmy voters were stuck in a rut for two years when the show was on a creative decline (seasons one and two were worthy of Best Drama), but being a cynical jerk, I always found an easy escape for my hatred of the Academy by heaping scorn on the White House drama, when really it only deserved a slight knocked here and there. Now the show has been cancelled, one of its best actors has died (Emmy winner John Spencer, invaluable as former Chief of Staff Leo McGarry), and on Sunday nights it’s routinely trounced in the ratings by an ABC reality series about a dude with a bullhorn building expensive houses for the less fortunate, and oddly enough, with all that against it, it’s having the best season it’s had in four years, building ever increasing momentum towards an election storyline conclusion that has reinvigorated the stagnant series for nearly two full seasons.
That I could criticize the show when it was running out of steam, when President Bartlet’s daughter was kidnapped at a rave, causing a chain of events that lead to John Goodman taking control of the Presidency (plausibility factor: three percent), or when secretary Donna Moss was blown up by a landmine in the Middle East, left practically dead, but miraculously was walking again three weeks later, is perfectly justifiable (I’ll leave out Leo’s mid-forest heart attack to forgo overkill, and out of respect for the late actor), but now that it’s good (maybe even great) again, leaves me saddened by its cancellation, and by how stupid I was for mistakenly redirecting my anger over the sickening Emmy praise onto the show, which was, for a time, before “The Sopranos”, “24”, “Deadwood”, “Lost”, and “The Wire”, the classiest and smartest drama on TV. It was often preachy, thanks in no small part to original creator Aaron Sorkin’s political leanings and penchant for overly stated and flowery prose, but the cast, as well as the fearless Steadi-Cam filmmaking, jetting in and out of White House offices, tracking long, complex conversations with the urgency of a medical drama, could always mask the overheated topics with poise and accuracy, balancing the pressures of high stress important professions (President and his staff, I’d say that’s some weighty stuff), with grounded characterizations and genuine emotions. Halfway through season seven, it isn’t time yet for a full appreciation, but a general overview of the season so far will present for you a show that is running smoothly, and confidently, toward its final resting place in TV heaven.
Taking a similar storytelling approach to last season’s back-from-the-dead episode run, John Wells and company once again split their time between two fronts, the final year of President Bartlet’s administration, and the battle to take his place, focusing on the duel campaigns of democrat Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), and republican Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda). Last season the campaigns seemed to be walking on quick sand, slowly inching through caucuses and primary elections, setting up this season’s main focus, the stretch run to the election, and it’s humming along nicely, stopping for a much hyped live debate that came off with flying colors, with ultimate sights set on a May sweeps election that’ll cap off the story arch, and firmly place one of the two as Bartlet’s successor, one we’ll only have to imagine, since the network won’t allow us another season to explore. On the one hand, this is a good place to end the series, since the first year essentially was an examination of the first year of a novice President, and what a year it was, but on the other hand, having invested nearly two years on the campaign trail with Santos and Vinick, wouldn’t it be nice, as a kind of spin off, to see either character in action, behind that big mahogany desk, fending off one crisis after another like the American President rightfully should, like Jed Bartlet’s been doing for eight fictional years now. With actors as fine as Smits and Alda (I know only one can win, thus only one could star), a built-in compelling lead character is already a given, and with a topic as story-driven as the Presidency of the greatest nation on the planet, certainly new scripts could be forged catering to either President’s newly formed agendas. But none of it is meant to be, thanks to the lack of fan interest, so we’ll have to appreciate Smits and Alda for the remainder of the season, secretly vote in our minds for our personal favorite, and only speculate on how their first year in office would play out. You could use historical models, Santos as Clinton, or even JFK, Vinick as Reagan, or even George H.W. Bush, to speculate the next four years, if you wish, but me, I’ll just savor the victory, and remember what a spirited fictional campaign it’s been the past two years, and how the simple addition of two very opposite character, and two world class actors, could revitalize a once great political drama into, using the now dated NBC slogan, must see TV.
One of the reasons “The West Wing” fell off the map a few years back was because the Bartlet storylines were running thin, with ridiculous plotlines concerning African wars, Vice Presidential sex scandals, and the President’s melodramatic M.S. disease getting in the way of plausible, policy-driven plotlines the show thrived on its first two seasons. Come to think of it, the producers did fall back on an old school political cliché, an assassination attempt, at the end of season one, but even that was forgiven in the light of later atrocities, like watching Bartlet wheel himself around the Chinese Imperial Palace, practically paralyzed, last season during a weak sweeps stunt that never quite jelled. I understood the symbolism of seeing the most powerful man in the world succumb to his own body, but the Rooseveltian melodrama wasn’t needed, and thankfully this season it’s pretty much been sidelined in lieu of more realistic White House drama, like the good old days. This year Bartlet is winding down his eight-year term and thinking about his legacy, trying desperately to end on a good run, get his bills passed, and thwart a potential disaster between feuding China and Kazakhstan, a political hot potato if there ever was one. Martin Sheen’s greatest triumph as Bartlet is his ability to project a marked likeability beneath the powerful, sometimes furious Presidential demeanor, making it all the more understandable that this former Notre Dame grad, and Connecticut governor could so effectively broker deals between warring factions. The President’s foreign policy has always been a strong aspect to the show, but “The West Wing” is at its best when Bartlet is effectively governing his home land, portraying upon a fictional President what we often miss in our real life version, credibility, and its more important cousin, respectability.
Whether democrat or republican, you’d have to agree with the assumption that Bartlet, a savvy speaker and intelligent negotiator, would be more popular in today’s climate than the guy we have in there now, but that’s wishful thinking that does nobody any good in regards to fictional TV and the non-impact it has on reality. This season, reality and fiction blended perfectly a few weeks ago in a powerful episode that rivaled anything the show has ever done, as Bartlet put himself in charge of a rapidly deteriorating situation at a California nuclear power plant (think Three Mile Island), a situation that called for quick thinking, and potentially life threatening actions, where he had to send two technicians to their deaths to fix a busted pipe to spare the lives, and air quality, of millions. The crisis was averted, and the tense episode, which featured what may be the turning point in the election, Vinick’s pro-nuke stance, ended in a semi triumph, but not for Bartlet, who, at the end of the day, still had to make that agonizing phone call explaining to the parents why he sent their son to his death, a glorified sacrifice, for the good of the nation. When it comes down to it, the secret of the show is that, in such emotionally intense moments, there’s no one else you’d rather want to see making that call, taking the blame, representing the country, than Josiah Bartlet, the greatest television President of all time. I don’t know how the show will end, how they’ll deal with Spencer’s untimely death, whether series original Rob Lowe will return for Bartlet’s final days in office, or whether the large audience that originally watched the show on a weekly basis will return for the finale, but what I do know is that “The West Wing” can wonder off into oblivion proudly, for its final season has been a peach, and its legacy seems to be fully intact.
by Adam Suraf