Sunday, January 22, 2006

Good Night, President Bartlett, and Good Luck



     There was no way it could have continued without a constitutional amendment.  Today, NBC announced that it would be ending the presidency of Josiah Barlett with the series finale of its seven-season-running, award-winning drama The West Wing.  Many figured it would eventually come to this- the premise of the show, to showcase the trials of a Democratic president and his devoted senior staff, would only last the TV equivalent of eight years, or the two presidential administrations allowed by law.  Either reflecting reality or a hope to continue the show after it was no longer feasible to have Martin Sheen play the engaging Bartlett, this last season has been devoted to the rat race between White House wanna-bes: Republican Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) and Democrat Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits).
     But alas, there will be no Santos or Vinick presidency in TV land come next September.  It all ends here.
     Truth be told, I haven’t watched The West Wing in about two years.  I tried to hang in there with the start of the fifth season in 2003, after the loss of Rob Lowe and writer/creator Aaron Sorkin walked away in a very public feud with producer John Wells.  But I wasn’t strong enough.  It wasn’t the same show I had fallen in love with in 1999, so I walked away.  I didn’t watch it when it hit a critical rebound in its sixth season.  I didn’t watch it this year when Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) suffered a heart attack (in a tragic irony, to be followed this month by the death of Spencer from a real coronary).  I didn’t watch it when they moved the show to Sunday which, more than anything else, probably sealed its doom.
     I haven’t really watched it in two years- which didn’t stop the lump in my throat when I heard the news.
     I normally wouldn’t get any more emotional about a television show than I would about missing a particular commercial that features a dancing cat.  Fans of The Sopranos may want to welt me for this, but The West Wing was by and far the most revolutionary thing to happen to television in the last decade (possibly even more so than Tivo).  To understand you have to go back to the beginning.  I have the first four seasons of The West Wing on DVD, but season one is my most prized possession.  That one incredible year encompasses everything that is grand and possible about fine drama, all of this only magnified by the incredible risk Sorkin and NBC ran.  The most obvious challenge would be the show’s scope- being centered on the executive branch of the United States government and the Commander in Chief of the armed forces is an awfully large bill for a prime-time drama, even if it was one of the stars of NBC’s fall line-up.  There was also the danger of producing a show on politics designed for mass consumption.  It’s been done before in both TV and movies, usually by tackling milquetoast “non-issues” that wouldn’t be controversial to anyone but a small segment of the population (“Hey- think we’ll get in trouble if our character says he’s against crime?”).
     The West Wing, though, was a political animal, and rather than scare people off, for its first two years it was probably the best thing to ever happen to the democratic system.  In its first season alone it tackled everything from terrorism to flag burning to the death penalty, a full-plate of hot-button issues lesser shows would have saved sparingly for “sweeps” episodes, if they even had the gumption to do them at all.  For a time, it seemed whatever the members of the Bartlett administration wanted to talk about, be it gun control or the census, people wanted to talk about in the real-life sphere of politics.  “We’re gonna raise the level of public debate in this country,” Leo McGarry says in Let Bartlett Be Bartlett, and they did.  The show even spawned jokes that, with the 2000 elections looming, people wished they nominate the fictional Bartlett for the job.  This isn’t surprising.  The character of “Jeb” Bartlett didn’t make The West Wing a one-man show, but he was easily its rock.  In the era of Carl Rove where everything and anything is spin, it was refreshing to see a group of leaders making choices based on a solid moral compass.
     The West Wing was also never ashamed of being a “liberal” show that usually (and convincingly) argued the left-wing point of view.  However, the show never (at least in the years I watched it) devolved into a rant.  Okay, sometimes its attempt to be balanced were ham-handed, such as the introduction of Ainsley Hayes, the young, blonde, and attractive Republican lawyer hired by McGarry in season two and then who mysteriously vanished until it was announced late in season four that someone had to be hired to fill her position.  The West Wing found great success with audiences of a mainstream or liberal political bend, but it hardly alienated conservatives, either.  Some admired the shows repeated themes about the importance of family or national security (especially after September 11, which seemed to set the third season onto a more saber-rattling note).  Others saw past the politics and admired The West Wing for its impeccable writing, sharp sense of humor, fantastic acting, acknowledging that while, yes; it did have an agenda, at least played fair.
     It was never perfect.  First, Sorkin had the annoying tendency to pick up plot threads, carry them for a few episodes, and then forget about them (for example, nothing ever came out of Sam’s relationship with a call girl in the first season).  Season three became a little more hit and miss as it tried to juggle Bartlett running for re-election while being investigated for covering up his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, an escalating crisis with a fictional Middle Eastern dictatorship, and press secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) receiving death threats from a stalker, all of which came to a head in a season finally that cribbed a little too much from The Godfather: Part III.  If Sorkin and his producers had trouble with anything, it was finding correct proportions.  The MS scandal ran way too long, was wrapped up way to snuggly, and the re-election (against a hilariously blatant George W. Bush send up) never generated the juice it should have.  By season four, cracks were appearing.  Rob Lowe, as the daffy Deputy Director of Communications Sam Seaborn, made preparations to leave the show, bitter at what he felt was a diminishing role.  Sorkin and Wells were prepping to part company, and the plotting showed symptoms that someone wasn’t really minding the switch.  Too much was made of Tobey Ziegler (Richard Schiff)’s attempts to woo his ex-wife, while Bartlett’s youngest daughter, who had previously been involved with the President’s personal assistant, Charlie Young (Dule Hill), began dating an arrogant French expatriate in a plot twist that was as creative as last week’s gum.  That season ended with Zoey Barlett being kidnapped by Islamic terrorists, a move whose numbskullery was only eclipsed by how it was resolved in the beginning of season five.
     None of this matters, though.  Warts and all, The West Wing took us through a seven year ride through experimental mainstream television with tightly wound scripts that impressed with both their intelligence and unabashed sense of humor and vibrant characters who easily passed the fourth wall test (meaning: would you want to know these people in real life?).  I still embrace my favorite episodes: Crackpots and These Women, the famous first “block of cheese” episode, In Excelsis Deo, which has become a Christmas tradition for me, and Someone’s Going to Emergency, Someone’s Gong to Jail where the case of an accused spy sharply mirrors Sam difficulties with his father.  I could go on and on.
     It is probably best that NBC is making this move- it is a matter of personal opinion of where the quality of The West Wing rests right now, however it simply wouldn’t be the same without Jeb Bartlett.  Other presidents will come and go, but The West Wing gave us a look at politics that was, at the same time, realistic, optimistic, and inspiring.  We’re sorry to see it go- there was nothing else quite like it.  That’s it, Ms. Landingham, we’re done for today.  Close the door- and turn out the lights on your way out.

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