Recently I noticed some people I follow on Twitter discussing The West Wing; several were looking for one of the seasons on DVD to borrow, if anyone had them available. It reminded me of how much I'd enjoyed the program when it aired and how disappointed I felt with Channel Nine for betraying their viewing audience; pushing episodes to later time slots and then, inexplicably, taking it off the air mid-season 6. ABC then picked up the series and began showing two episodes back to back from the beginning, so it was quite some time before they were ready to screen the 7th and final season.
In spite of my obvious fervour, I found The West Wing difficult to recommend, mostly because people thought it was about US politics. It was set in the White House sure, and the main characters were involved in the day to day practice of government administration, but the show was essentially about people and situations; the politics was used more often for colour than anything else. The minutae of policy-making and other functions was all there, but it was always presented in a way that by the conclusion, made the theme or moral of the story far more profound and engaging than the mechanics of government. It ultimately didn't matter whether the law was passed or not; by the time Toby, CJ, Sam or Leo had discussed the events with President Bartlet, bigger issues of race, international relations, family and community and interaction with government had been addressed. All of this was presented by scripting that never assumed it's audience was stupid or uninformed; I found that even if I didn't understand the concept of a filibuster at the beginning of the episode, I understood enough of the fundamentals by the end to grasp the concept. And best of all, it usually didn't require one character to explain to another character in a hideously condescending way how everything worked so they could move forward with the storyline. The storyline kept rolling baby, and you'd better try to keep up.
Written and created largely by Aaron Sorkin, who had honed his skills with Sports Night and A Few Good Men (and even taken a dry test run with the Rob Reiner directed romantic comedy The American President), The West Wing remains a shining light in intelligent, considered television drama, and while the quality of the writing and overall plotting did diminish in later seasons after Sorkin and directorial partner Thomas Schlamme departed, but it was still of a quality head and shoulders above most weekly drama programming.
The performances on The West Wing were always first rate; even second string character such as Ron Butterworth of the President's Secret Service detail, Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, Oliver Babish as well as office staffers Ginger, Carol, Larry and Ed were fully formed and not just figures in the rush. Of course the main ensemble cast led by Martin Sheen and the late John Spencer provided an emotional grounding few television shows are gifted with. It's always interesting to see the actors from Sorkin's work reappearing; Janel Moloney, Josh Malina and Teri Polo all appeared in Sports Night, while Timothy Busfield and Bradley Whitford followed Sorkin to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
It's important to mention this extremely overlooked program at this point; Studio 60 was not shown on Australian television at all, and only ran for one halting season in the US. Based in the television studio of a late night sketch comedy program, Studio 60 shared the same stylistic intent of Sports Night and The West Wing, and in many ways was an agreeable combination of both. That it only ran for one season is, in my mind, criminally unjust. Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford are outstanding as the fictional Sorkin/Schlamme pairing, echoing the Dan and Casey interplay of Sports Night.
The West Wing very nearly outstayed it's welcome. Produced by John Wells of E.R. fame, the possibility of the show continuing on under a new President had no doubt been strongly considered. It is important for programs such as The West Wing though, to have a strong ending rather than a slow fade. It is a credit to the esteem of the show that so many former cast members returned for the final few episodes, often only in non-speaking cameo roles to lend validity to the world of The West Wing. That John Spencer's untimely death coincided with the end of the series was poignant and moving in a way that reminds us that television dram can be so powerful that we can miss someone whom we never met, but felt as if we knew.
Sorkin imagined a Democratic President at a time when a Democrat occupied The White House. In reality, the USA would be governed for the rest of The West Wing's run by a Republican, President George W. Bush - a fact often employed cleverly in the writing to expand the arguments surrounding partisan politics. The stereotypes of Democrats as bleeding-heart big Government types and Republicans as bigoted, God-fearing gun-lovers were often turned on their heads in order to present both sides of an issue. Often, Republicans offered a fair and balanced argument where the Democratic protagonists were made to look pre-emptory and overly critical. It was perhaps the finest thing about The West Wing's relationship with reality; although the show was written from a mostly Democratic point of view, Sorkin never allowed one side of the room shout down the other…at least not without giving them an opportunity to plead their case.
Perhaps my favourite element of this writing style that Sorkin used often was to make one of his central characters appear foolish or misinformed in order to highlight the other side of the argument with Sam and Josh often bearing the brunt. If we sided with Sam or Josh at the beginning of the episode, perhaps we too would learn something by the time the credits rolled and the familiar flourish of the closing theme told us that it would be at least another week before you could again experience the dizzying "walk and talk". Unless you're having a DVD marathon in which case, roll on the next episode!
