Bartlet4America News Archive

Mr. Speaker, my fellow Americans: The state of the series is sound - despite what you may have heard.

People have been piling on The West Wing lately, claiming that the NBC White House drama (9 p.m. Wednesdays) is losing viewers because the quality is slipping. Well, the ratings are down (an alarming 23 percent from a year ago), but it's not because the show has lost its mojo.

The West Wing, winner of three consecutive Emmys as TV's best drama, remains the most intelligent and engaging series in prime time. This ain't no lame duck, folks. But the reasons offered for Wing's stumble are canards. Let's examine them:

People are turned off by the show's liberal slant.

Bushwa. Yes, the program depicts the inner workings of a Democratic presidency. But from the first episode, Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) has been anything but a radical ideologue. This son of New Hampshire is a cranky individualist in the Harry Truman vein.

You could make a case that his advisers - Josh Lyman (Brad Whitford), Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff), and Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) - are left-leaning. But West Wing's creator and principal voice, the prolific Aaron Sorkin, is punctilious about presenting the other side of the argument.

All issues - from farm supports to ecology - are debated ad infinitum. Both sides get their at-bats. And Sorkin's conservative proxies are more articulate than Rush Limbaugh.

As Bartlet runs for a second term, his opponent is presented in a favorable light. Robert Ritchie, the Republican governor of Florida (played by James Brolin), may not be as bristlingly intelligent as the show's Latin-spouting incumbent, but he is cagey and charismatic. When they debate in tonight's episode, you can bet that Ritchie will leave a few lumps on the president's pointy cranium.

The show is running out of steam.

Balderdash. The writing on Wing is unparalleled - witty, bright, passionate and patriotic. Ask the cast members (with the possible exception of Lily Tomlin who plays the silly, pot-smoking, alpaca-farming job candidate Deborah Fiderer), and they'll tell you the scripts are an actor's dream. (On the other hand, there's nothing like an election year to make people sick of politics.)

The plotlines have been overshadowed by actual events.

Stuff and nonsense. Did people stop watching medical shows after the AIDS epidemic erupted? Repeat after me: There is absolutely no correlation between television and reality - unless you're Emeril Lagasse.

This isn't to say Wing is perfect. Presented with a golden opportunity, the show choked - big time. Last year, after the 9/11 attacks, NBC postponed the third-season opener because Sorkin, we were told, was working around the clock on a timely episode about terrorism. More than 25 million people tuned in, the biggest audience the series has ever had.

Unfortunately, Sorkin delivered a pretentious and didactic script (West Wing haters maintain he does that every week), in which the president and his staff delivered stuffy sermons on civil liberties to a group of schoolkids in the White House cafeteria. That crinkling noise you heard was the sound of America's eyes glazing over.

Another mistake is the attempt to put each member of the ensemble cast in the spotlight. Usually, this involves giving the characters some tedious semblance of a home life.

This strategy has reached its nadir with Toby trying to renew his marriage with congresswoman Andy Wyatt (Kathleen York). Trust us, Aaron: Nobody is interested in this curmudgeon's personal life.

The West Wing needs to adopt a Rose Garden strategy: Barricade everyone inside the confines of the White House and stay there.

These cavils aside, the series remains a uniquely compelling program. So why is viewership down? There are several factors:

It's endemic.

Most seasoned NBC series - Frasier and the recently canceled Providence, among them - are losing eyeballs. Only Friends remains frisky.

Competition.

Bartlet and his brainy crew are being filibustered by The Bachelor, Birds of Prey, and The Amazing Race.

Going over people's heads.

It's not for everyone. I love the show, and there are weeks I don't tune because I'm not up to the challenge of Sorkin's logorrhea.

But just because we're too lazy to properly appreciate this jewel doesn't mean the sparkle is gone. You want to knock a show for being off its game? How about The Sopranos? This season the Jersey boys have been staler than two-week-old bruschetta.