February 12, 2001
‘West Wing’ Lovers Are in Limbo
By FRAZIER MOORE
Associated Press
Nowhere is Cupid more useful than on prime-time television.
When a TV plotline calls for love, Cupid's arrow can be counted on to pierce the heart in suitably dramatic style, infecting each victim with romance or lust, rapture or longing — whatever the story requires.
Then his fevered patsies will get it together, pair off and tumble into bed. (One of every 10 TV programs includes a scene with characters engaging in sex, at least according to a recent study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.)
But there are exceptions. Sometimes Cupid slips, his arrow only grazing the heart. Such a wound sets off nagging impulses, all right. But the feeling won't be recognized as love. So how can it be acted upon?
Happy Valentines? Are you kidding? These are TV's lovers in limbo.
Meet mob boss Tony Soprano and Jennifer Melfi, his leggy psychiatrist, who are in the grip of clinical suppression on HBO's “The Sopranos.”
Consider the cosmically connected FBI agents Scully and Mulder, whose hanky-panky during eight seasons on Fox's “The X-Files” has been limited to a chaste kiss (unless, of course, Mulder turns out to be the father of the child Scully is carrying, in which case, all bets are off).
Or just look to “The West Wing” and its clueless twosome, Josh and Donna.
On this hit NBC drama (Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST), Josh Lyman serves as White House deputy chief of staff. Donna Moss is his aide.
What a contrast they strike! Josh is fired-up and cocky, and as rumpled as Donna is sleek. Donna, with her big eyes and down-turned mouth, is Josh's pokerfaced foil and, in her own fractured way, a steadying force.
He is her big brother. She is his mother hen.
One more thing. They are head over heels for each other. But nothing doing. They can no more confront their mutual attraction than stare straight at the sun.
Besides, they've trained their eyes on far more urgent matters. “The West Wing” understands that for many people, love must wait its turn behind other, more pressing demands. For Josh and Donna, the demands of the White House never stop.
So here they are: smart, quick-witted, exhilarated by their work, and busy as heck. And despite the fact that from time to time they date (other people) they are lonely in their crowded lives.
While Josh (Bradley Whitford) was a major presence on the series from the start, his balky entanglement with Donna (played by Janel Moloney, who only this year became a series regular) wasn't part of the original concept.
“But very early on, Aaron saw something in the chemistry between Brad and me,” says Moloney, referring to “West Wing” creator-writer Aaron Sorkin. “In the pilot, there's a scene Aaron wrote one morning and passed on to us to shoot the same day.”
The scene begins as Donna barges into Josh's office.
“I say, 'Put this shirt on.' And he says, 'No.' And I say, 'Josh, you've been wearing the same clothes for 31 hours. Put it on.' And he won't. And then I say, 'All the girls think you look really hot in this shirt.' He puts it on.
“I really think that scene sparked something.”
So does Sorkin, who gives her the credit for making Donna an audience favorite. “Janel turned a recurring character who has a couple of lines every once in a while into what became a weekly set piece: the Josh-Donna Scene.”
A Josh-Donna Scene often finds them shoulder-to-shoulder, coursing through the West Wing offices as their repartee races even faster than they do:
“Are you gonna behave yourself tonight?”
“It's a bachelor party.”
“I'm saying —”
“I can hold my liquor.”
“No, you can't.”
“I can drink with the best of them, Donna!”
“You can't drink with ANY of them, Josh.”
“I'm in politics, OK? I can drink.”
“You have a very sensitive system.”
“I wish you'd stop telling people that. It makes me sound like an idiot.”
Without even fathoming just what it is they share, Josh and Donna prove in scenes like this how intimately they share it.
“It's really fun to play,” says Whitford. “You have these two people who are ga-ga about each other — I mean, just like nuts, way down in their reptilian brain stems. Yet they could not conceivably bring their feelings to the surface.”
Maybe they can't, but “West Wing” fans sure haven't given up hope.
“Even people on the street come up to me and say, 'OK, when are they gonna do it?”' Moloney marvels.
“I'm sure,” says Whitford, “it will bubble over at some point.”
But the role of Cupid falls to Sorkin, who confides that “every time I talk about getting Donna and Josh together, my partner Tommy (Schlamme) shouts, 'No! Wait another year!'
“They are in a tough spot,” Sorkin reasons, “because she works for him. Besides, sexual and romantic tension is, to me, much more fun than taking the tension away by having the sex and romance.”
So — bottom line — viewers shouldn't hold their breath?
“No,” insists Sorkin, “I WANT you to hold your breath. Please DO hold your breath!” Why not? In lieu of heavy breathing, that's what Josh and Donna do.
Posted by Ryo at February 12, 2001 03:13 AM