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May 22, 2002
The Today Show interview with Aaron Sorkin
Katie Couric: Tonight, NBC will air the much-anticipated finale of its award-winning drama The West Wing. Sure to please the show's millions of fans, the show's creator and executive producer, Aaron Sorkin, has a new book coming out called The West Wing Script Book. I recently had an opportunity to sit down with Sorkin, who began his career as a playwright. We started by talking about his second play, A Few Good Men, which opened on Broadway when he was just 28 years old. A little while later, Hollywood director Rob Reiner turned it into an unforgettable film.
[Clip from A Few Good Men]
KC: That was such a powerful movie, and I think it's a very good example of how your writing is dialogue-driven.
AS: Yeah, I really love dialogue, and the most dangerous thing about that is that, you know, I can sit at home and I'll write 100 pages of crackling dialogue and realize on page 101 that I haven't begun telling a story yet and you're obligated to do that.
C: Is the story sort of secondary to the interaction among the characters?
AS: Well, for me, the dialogue is the fun part, and the plot is intrusive. It's necessary, but you have to do it.
[Clip from The American President]
KC: Anybody who watched The American President and now The West Wing, if they're trying to figure out where you stand politically, it's not very tough.
[Clip of Martin Sheen and Dule Hill]
KC: Michael Douglas played a liberal Democratic president. President Bartlet certainly is left of center.
AS: Yeah.
KC: Are you trying to send a political message with your work?
AS: No. It would be tougher than you think, I think, to figure out where I stand politically. You have to remember that these are characters. The characters aren't necessarily speaking for me. I'm not the world's most political person. I have a bachelor's degree in musical theatre, and we did this show with the idea that you didn't have to agree with the characters in order to like the show.
[Clip of Toby and Jed from In Excelsus Deo]
KC: When you came up with the character of Josiah Bartlet, what kind of qualities did you want him to embody specifically?
AS: Mostly my father's, who really has a great love of education and literature, all things old, and believes in a genuine goodness in people, and has a real "Aw, Dad" sense of humor. I really wanted to try to be able to capture that.
KC: You also are very patriotic, and I think that's very apparent on the program. I mean, would you say that's a fair assessment?
AS: Yeah, I love the country. I mean, I think everybody does. And when I grew up--and I was born in 1961--patriots wore hard hats. Anybody with hair like my length, you know, didn't like the country somehow, so I was really excited to write about a different kind of patriotism once I became old enough.
KC: Where do you get some of these story ideas, Aaron?
AS: Mostly, I'm surrounded by people who are a lot smarter than I am, a lot more creative than I am, and they'll say, you know, "Hey, what if we did something with this? Let me do some research for you and show you, you know, how good this could be."
KC: So it doesn't necessarily come to you in the middle of the night--"Aha! I'll give President Bartlet MS!" It really sort of unfolds.
AS: It so seldom comes to me in the middle of the night. I wish it would come to me in the middle of the night.
KC: Some people have said that the writing is a little too eager. You ever said, "Someone accused me of writing as if I'm perpetually on a first date with a girl I really want to have a second date with."
AS: That was my mentor, William Goldman, the writer, who told me that.
KC: Have you been able to harness that desire or inclination?
AS: No, I have not. Neither in my writing nor in my dating have I been able to do that.
[Clip of CJ and Jed from Take This Sabbath Day]
KC: I hear you're a master procrastinator. That sometimes that you'll say, "My god, there's going to be an hour of dead air next week on NBC if I don't get cranking on this thing."
AS: Well, Katie, you call it procrastination; I call it thinking, you know.
KC: You do? But I hear you give people the script sort of in the middle of the show and they both love you and hate you for it cause it's so darn good. On the other hand, they're like, "Hello?"
AS: They hate me, Katie. There's no love there.
KC: No, no, that's not true. You must thrive under pressure. You must like that.
AS: I don't like it, but it's the way it is. And I--really I'm really grateful to the people I work with and the people I work for, who are also the people you work for, that--
KC: They put up with you?
AS: They haven't fired me.
KC: How realistic is your show?
AS: I don't know. I've never worked in the White House. And I don't care that much. I'm much more interested in the television show than the reportage, than the element of it which is documentary. The appearance of reality is terribly important to me. You don't want it to seem like a fairy tale world.
[Clip of Jed from Two Cathedrals]
KC: Now comes "Aaron Sorkin, The Dark Side." Of course, there was a lot of publicity about you last spring when you were arrested for--what?--having a freebase pipe and mushrooms at the airport in Los Angeles. You've reportedly been in and out of rehab, and I know that your marriage ended. These are highly personal things obviously. But when you're someone like Aaron Sorkin and you've enjoyed this much success, these things become public. Unfortunately for you. When you think about this sort of chapter in your life, what's your explanation for it?
AS: Well, I mean, I was off-the-chart stupid. I had drugs with me and was arrested and--you know, and paid a price for it.
KC: You didn't have to serve any time or anything like that, right?
AS: No, I didn't. I think that there was a sense that, because I write a television series, that somehow I got it easier from the law than other people did, and I didn't. There was a price to pay publicly, and it was rough. I don't think it was any more than I deserved probably. And it was a terrible thing to do to my family, to my friends, the people I work with, the people I work for. It's regrettable.
KC: Do you think it was the pressure of what you do?
AS: It wasn't pressure. In fact, at the moment that I did it, it was the moment that I was done with the pressure. I'd just turned in the last script of the last episode of the second season of The West Wing. One of the difficult things--challenges--that an addict has is celebrating without drugs. And so, you know, you say, "Well, you can do this, and it's not going to be like it was before." You're always wrong.
[Clip of Leo from Bartlet For America]
KC: Talk to me just briefly about some of the people on the show. Because as important as the dialogue, I would think, are the people who are charged with delivering it.
[Clips of Martin Sheen, John Spencer, Richard Schiff and Rob Lowe, Alison Janney and Mark Harmon on location]
AS: It's really--it's been a love affair from the beginning. It's a once-in-a-lifetime cast. To us, it seems like we just started a couple of weeks ago; but we've been doing this for three years now, and everybody shows up and swings from the fences every week.
KC: If you had to look into the future, do you think The West Wing will kind of go the way of LA Law and stick around for eight years, or some of these other great dramas that have really captivated the country?
AS: It is hard to say. You know, there's no other discipline in the arts that's meant to last this long. I've been writing the show now for three years, and my time will be over pretty soon. And somebody else will come in and write the show.
KC: Really? You'd be willing to hand over your baby to somebody else?
AS: Yeah. You know, you don't want to stay too long at the fair.
KC: Anything in mind right now that you're thinking about writing?
AS: No, there's, you know, with this job really, you know, The West Wing is just sunrise and sunset, and there's no time to think about anything else.
KC: And, again, The West Wing season finale airs tonight at 9, 8 central time, right here on NBC.
Posted by MorganG at 01:10 PM
May 21, 2002
`The West Wing' Travels East
By FRAZIER MOORE, AP Television Writer
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - "The West Wing" was almost ready to wrap for the season. A welcome break lay ahead before filming for next fall would begin.
But first: one long night spent shooting location exteriors 3,000 miles from the show's Los Angeles home. Just 10 days remained before the third-season finale, airing Wednesday at 9 p.m. EDT on NBC.
As "West Wing" viewers know, President Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) has been planning to attend a Catholic charities fund-raiser at a Broadway theater.
Among the scenes to be filmed on this dank night: Bartlet's motorcade roaring through Times Square; he and his aides entering and leaving the Booth Theater on 45th Street.
Communications director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) and his deputy, Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), work the gaggle of reporters in front of the theater during intermission. Sam is tickled to hear from one of them that Bartlet's Republican challenger, also expected at the fund-raiser, is running late.
"If 90 percent of success is showing up," Sam glibly pronounces, "we're just happy there's someone standing up for the other 10."
Unfortunately, by this time the night has turned rainy, which wasn't in the script.
Here at the Booth, extras in evening wear mingle in the background, acting as if they're dry while they get soaked. Tuxedoed Schiff and Lowe aren't much better off as they shoot the scene over and over: The canopy erected to protect them is leaking.
Now it may seem risky to you to schedule an ambitious location shoot, especially one subject to the vagaries of weather, so close to the intended airdate.
But such a thing is no big deal for "The West Wing," which the night before had played even closer to the edge.
That scene found press secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney), who the last few weeks has received threats from a stalker, being escorted home by her cutie-pie bodyguard (guest star Mark Harmon).
Filmed on a townhouse-lined block of Greenwich Village that doubled for a Georgetown street in the nation's capital, the scene was part of the episode that aired last Wednesday — just three days after it was shot!"Oh, that's typical," says Schiff with a world-weary scoff. "We've shot scenes on a Monday for that Wednesday's show."
Between camera setups, he chats with a reporter and, summoning his deadpan, adds: "Every other show in the world is wrapped for the season. `The Today Show' is wrapped for the season! We're the only ones still knocking 'em out.
"But it's a very creative bunch, and so a lot of us need to take time, including Aaron — first and foremost, Aaron."That's "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin, who is also its inspired, prolific, deadline-taunting writer.
"So the next thing you know," Schiff continues drolly, "we're behind a day or two. You add it all up, and now we're behind a month or two. Our hiatus will be basically a nap. And then we're back. They're gonna wake me up right in the middle of REM."
"The West Wing" began the season with a burst of adrenaline when, in the days after Sept. 11, Sorkin sat down and wrote a dramatic response to the real-life terrorist attacks. That stand-alone episode aired as the season premiere Oct. 3.
Like so many people in the aftermath of 9-11, the "West Wing" principals wrestled with doubts about the series' relevance, and continued acceptance, in a changed world.
The concern is understandable. While President Bartlet is leader of a make-believe United States, the land he governs, and the issues he struggles with, must stay recognizable. And current.
More than for other drama series, even a hiccup in the national ethos has an impact on "The West Wing." The change in real-life presidents during its second season was thought, at least by some observers, to have thrown the show a curve. And maybe it did. But "The West Wing" adjusted.
It keeps on adjusting. Which is part of its brilliance. Which helps explain its sky-high critical standing and also, maybe, its top 10 ratings.
All this is why "The West Wing" got to come to New York for expensive location shooting just days before air, and why Schiff got to stand in cold rain.
"We're lucky," he says, "that people are telling us that what we do is exceptional. Because if we were taking this kind of time and giving ourselves this kind of room to be creative, and putting out (garbage), the network suits would talk to us.
"Someone," he frowns, "would pay us a visit."
Posted by MorganG at 02:49 PM
May 14, 2002
"West Wing" Comes to Broadway: NBC Shoots Prez Drama at Booth Theatre
by Ernio Hernandez Playbill.comNo, I'm Not Rappaport is not being bumped out of the Booth Theatre by a Royal National Company production of The Wars of the Roses.
Passersby of the Broadway venue in the heart of Manhattan's Theatre District may have thought so, though, as the theatre's marquee and posterboards boasted the fictional production.
NBC's political drama "The West Wing" alluded to the upcoming Broadway production in the episode "The Black Vera Wang," which aired May 8. The production — which supposedly combines Shakespeare's Henry plays — will be featured in the season finale, to air May 22, as the setting of the encounter of President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his upcoming Republican presidential race rival Rob Ritchie (guest star James Brolin). The final episode of the season "Posse Comitatus" sees the incumbent President's current situation mirrored by the comparable struggles of the Plantagenet.
The Booth Theatre was decked out with all things theatrical including quotes from fictional reviews for the Aaron Sorkin creation. Among them were New York Times quipping "Magnificent production," the New York Post imploring "Witness The Wars," "Absolutely exquisite" from Curtain Up and "Dramatic and stunning!" from Playbill's own faux reporter Patrina Chin. Detail was taken down to the cast and creative team as a poster listed the headliners Michael Stassi, Sean Riddle and Ellen Totleben under the direction of Itamar Kubovy and producer Dan Bishop.
Playbill® Publisher and President Philip Birsh granted the NBC drama special permission to use the Playbill name and logo to create a mock Playbill for the show. Copies will be donated to Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights Aids and made available through their website.
Mary-Louise Parker (Proof) also guest stars in her recurring role as the feminist activist/love interest of presidential aide Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford). Allison Janney, John Spencer, Rob Lowe, Richard Schiff, Dule Hill and Janel Moloney also star.
The Booth Theatre stands at 222 West 45th Street. It is named for legendary actor Edwin Booth — not the presidential assassin.
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Booth Theatre prepared for The Wars of the Roses. Photos by Andrew Ku |
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The marquee for the fictional play The Wars of the Roses to be seen by the President on NBC's "The West Wing." The Booth Theatre was decked out with all things theatrical including quotes from fictional reviews for the Aaron Sorkin political drama. Among them were New York Times quipping "Magnificent production," the New York Post imploring "Witness The Wars," "Absolutely exquisite" from Curtain Up and "Dramatic and stunning!" from Playbill's own faux reporter Patrina Chin. Detail was taken down to the cast and creative team as a poster listed the headliners Michael Stassi, Sean Riddle and Ellen Totleben under the direction of Itamar Kubovy and producer Dan Bishop. |
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A posterboard for the fictional play The Wars of the Roses to be seen by the President on NBC's "The West Wing." The Booth Theatre was decked out with all things theatrical including quotes from fictional reviews for the Aaron Sorkin political drama. Among them were New York Times quipping "Magnificent production," the New York Post imploring "Witness The Wars," "Absolutely exquisite" from Curtain Up and "Dramatic and stunning!" from Playbill's own faux reporter Patrina Chin. Detail was taken down to the cast and creative team as a poster listed the headliners Michael Stassi, Sean Riddle and Ellen Totleben under the direction of Itamar Kubovy and producer Dan Bishop. |
Posted by MorganG at 12:36 PM
May 13, 2002
Parker, Tomlin Join 'West Wing' Cast
Zap2it.com
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - The already large cast of NBC's "The West Wing" will grow by two more people next season.
Mary-Louise Parker, who had a recurring role on the show this season, and veteran actress Lily Tomlin will join the show's regular cast when the series begins its fourth season in the fall. NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker made the announcement Monday (May 13) at NBC's upfront presentation to advertisers.
Parker plays Amy Gardner, a lobbyist with the fictional Women's Leadership Council and a love interest for White House deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford). Her credits include the movies "Bullets Over Broadway" and "The Portrait of a Lady" as well as the upcoming "Red Dragon."
Zucker gave no clues as to what Tomlin's role would be. The Oscar- and Emmy-nominated actress last appeared in the movie "Orange County" earlier this year.
Posted by MorganG at 12:32 PM
May 12, 2002
'West Wing' Needs Renovation
The best show on TV has hit a worryingly bad patch
By DAVID HINCKLEY
The New York Daily News
In the Nov. 24, 1999, episode of the TV series "The West Wing," White House correspondent Danny Concannon, who is sweet on presidential press secretary C.J. Cregg, asks presidential aide Josh Lyman if there are any special things C.J. likes.
Josh thinks a moment and says, "Goldfish."
And sure enough, Danny soon shows up in C.J.'s office with a goldfish swimming in a baggie.
And we all laugh along with C.J. as she explains what we all knew: The "goldfish" she likes are the cheese snack crackers.
The scene was as predictable as jelly following peanut butter onto a 5-year-old's Wonder Bread. But it was charming, it was perfect for both characters and it provided a nice break amid the whirlwind of interlocking dramas that made "West Wing" the best show on TV.
That was then. With only two shows left in the 2001-02 season, alas, the "West Wing" news is not so good. When it's clicking, it's still the best show on television, and that includes "The Sopranos." Too often this year, it has not clicked.
Too often, creator and writer Aaron Sorkin seems to have run low on good ideas and been unsure how to handle the ones he has had. Too often, it's felt like he's been riffing while he tries to remember the song.
He trapped President Jed Bartlet in a lurching story about whether Congress would censure him for concealing his multiple sclerosis. This produced a few fine scenes, like that of Bartlet's chief of staff Leo McGarry testifying before Congress. It also produced weeks of meandering before Sorkin seemed to wake up one day and say, "I'm sick of this." So he dumped the whole thing, along with at least two subplots — Leo's drinking and Mrs. Bartlet's losing her medical license.
It was the "West Wing" version of the "dream year" on "Dallas." Suddenly we were expected to carry on as if the previous few months never happened.
In fact, there have been several disturbing signs this year that Sorkin has been writing from whim as much as vision.
Take romances. Josh Lyman finally got a girlfriend. Josh's assistant, Donna, got a boyfriend. The President's assistant, Charlie, had been dating the President's daughter. Even workaholic Leo had a date, with his lawyer.
And then each of these squeezes just suddenly seemed to disappear. Is there some singles bar where they're all hanging out, waiting for the phone to ring?
Now, with any ensemble cast, players come and go. In serial television, life is cheap. But romance isn't the only area this year where it has often felt as if Sorkin is darting about, grabbing this and that and hoping it will somehow come together.
"West Wing" always has had snappy dialogue. That's fine. We would expect its cast to speak snappily. But whole passages this year were snappy just to be snappy. They were riffing.
Presidential counsel Sam Seaborn is a serious guy. He spent a whole show obsessing over discontinuing the penny. Josh forgot about a national crisis when he saw a Web site about himself. Aide Toby Zeigler, the most serious guy of all, spent a recent episode acting as if he had inhaled nitrous oxide.
Now, if "West Wing" were otherwise taking care of business, these could be goldfish moments — charming breaks that humanize the participants.
This year, those moments felt like Sorkin admiring his own cleverness, which is uncomfortable, though not nearly as uncomfortable as his two special shows, the first about 9/11 and the second featuring interviews with real-life Presidents and their aides. Those shows were awful, dripping with smug self-congratulation: Look, everyone, we're such a good show that our actors can lecture children on terrorism and real-life former Presidents hang around with us.
A few scenes this year were simply bizarre: Toby grilling the President about his father, the First Lady inviting some gals to come get drunk. There's a difference between pushing the envelope in high creativity and thrashing about in the mistaken belief that clever writing can make any idea into compelling drama.
All this said, "West Wing" remains quality stuff. The character who ducked the turmoil, Leo, remains brilliant, and the show hasn't lost the basic elements that made it good. It had enough high points this year for cautious optimism about 2002-03.
But it would be nice if Sorkin takes a deep breath this summer, avoids drug busts and refocuses on what made the show work when a goldfish joke was an accent, not a centerpiece.
Posted by MorganG at 12:29 PM
May 08, 2002
Livewire: TV Fans Post Love/Hate Feelings Online
By Adam Pasick
Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Opinionated fans of top television shows like "24" and "Six Feet Under" are flocking to online sites to sing the praises and bemoan the shortcomings of their favorite programs.
The feedback, rather than disappearing into cyberspace, often reaches the shows' writers -- and sometimes the writers strike back.
Television Without Pity is one of the largest sites (http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com) where, according to co-editor-in-chief Sarah Bunting, about 500,000 TV junkies per month go to read episode recaps and swap thoughts with other fans.
More than point-by-point regurgitations of the plot, the recaps are like watching television with a clever friend, who pokes fun at the cheesy moments that taint even the best shows.
"Most TV, you watch it and say, 'Ugh! I'll never get that hour of my life back,"' Bunting said. "We mostly cover shows that make you wonder why you can't stop watching them."
"The West Wing," along with "Smallville," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "The Osbornes," are among the most talked-about shows on Television Without Pity.
Despite its popularity, "West Wing" -- which follows the exploits of the fictional President Josiah Bartlet and his White House staff -- has gotten its fair share of knocks on the site.
The digs can start coming even before a show airs as "spoilers" about the plot leak out, and continue in real-time with posters madly typing away at their computers during the actual airing of the episode.
A fracas between "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin and his online fans began when the outspoken TV auteur posted on the "West Wing" discussion boards last summer. His remarks, about a dispute with a staff writer, drew criticism from fans and attention from the media.
Fast-forward to March, when "West Wing" aficionados tuned in to an episode that was officially titled "The U.S. Poet Laureate," but might have been better dubbed "Sorkin's Revenge."
In the episode, one of the show's central characters, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, played by Bradley Whitford, discovers there is a Web site devoted to him, and is drawn into an online debate despite the warnings of his assistant: "What Josh doesn't know is that some of these people (online) haven't taken their medication. Let's see what happens next."
As Josh's discourse deteriorates into a cyber screaming match, he blows up in verbose Sorkinian style. And Lyman's online postings -- like Sorkin's real-life ones last summer -- end up in the newspaper.
Back in the real world, Sorkin declined to comment when his office was contacted this week by Reuters. But Pity co-editor Bunting said the site took its prime-time exposure as a backhanded compliment.
"I think he was a little annoyed with us, and he got it out of his system," she said, referring to the fictional site administrator's depiction as a dictator "sitting in a muu-muu and smoking Parliament Lights."
"If we're on his radar it's a good thing. And it drove up our page views," Bunting said.
At their best, sites like Television Without Pity can create a strange Internet feedback loop. It's not just Sorkin: writers and actors from other shows like "Freaks and Geeks" and "The Amazing Race" have done interviews and participated in the discussion boards.
By creating a virtual space where information can flow directly between creators of shows and the fans who love and sometimes hate them, perhaps there will come a day when fans' favorite shows are not so pitiable.
"It's not like we're giving meaning to the TV-watching process, but a lot of TV is just plain bad," said Bunting. "Before the Internet, people didn't have a way to deal with that sad reality."
And is Sorkin still lurking on the site's discussion boards? With the anonymity of the Internet, it's difficult to know. But on the now-infamous episode of "The West Wing," the White House press secretary threatens Josh Lyman with violence if he ever posts online again.
Posted by MorganG at 12:28 PM
May 06, 2002
`West Wing,' `7th Heaven' Bring News Headlines To Poignant Life
By WALT BELCHER
The Tampa Tribune
By blending fact and fiction, powerful television dramas can call attention to real-life issues and make a bigger impact than newspaper or television news accounts.
Last week on ``The West Wing,'' for example, creator Aaron Sorkin called attention to the recent shocking deaths of Saudi Arabian teenage girls who were killed as the result of a fire that destroyed a school in Mecca.
The press secretary character, C.J. Gregg (Allison Janney), outraged over the deaths, lashed out at ``a country where women aren't allowed to drive a car. They're not allowed to be in the company of a man, other than a close relative. They're required to adhere to a dress code that would make a Maryknoll nun look like Malibu Barbie. ... And the royal family allows the religious police to travel in groups of six carrying nightsticks, and they freely and publicly beat women.''
C.J.'s comments were based on Saudi newspaper and witness reports out about mutaween religious enforcers that reportedly interfered with firefighters and refused to let 14 to 17 girls leave a burning building because the girls weren't wearing the required head scarves and black robes. Some reports said the girls were trampled to death because 800 girls were crammed in a building designed for 250, the main gate was locked and there were no emergency exits.
More viewers may have learned about that ugly incident by watching ``West Wing'' than from the scant coverage it received in the American media.
Tonight at 8, The WB series ``7th Heaven'' will try to put a face on the war against terrorism by incorporating the death of a real Marine into the story line.
Staff Sgt. Dwight J. Morgan, a helicopter mechanic who was killed in a crash in Afghanistan in January, is remembered by the Camdens, the fictional family on this drama series.
Creator Barbara Hampton says she wanted to pay tribute to the more than three dozen people in the armed services who have died in the Enduring Freedom campaign. Their names will scroll on the TV screen at the end of the show.
``Sometimes their deaths don't seem real when you just read a name in a newspaper account,'' Hampton says. ``I randomly chose one to represent them all.''
Morgan was a 24-year-old from Northern California who married his high school sweetheart, Teresa, two weeks after graduation.
On ``The Unknown Soldier'' episode tonight, Ruthie Camden (Mackenzie Rosman) becomes pen pals with a Marine as part of a school project. Fictional letters from Morgan tell of real-life truths, such as his love for Teresa and his 4-year-old son, Alex. The Camden family is drawn into Ruthie's correspondence. They learn that Dwight and Teresa are expecting another child (also true). When Ruthie receives photographs of the Morgans' wedding and family, real photographs from the Morgan family are used.
After Morgan's death, Ruthie's father, the Rev. Eric Camden (Stephen Collins), leads a memorial service. In attendance is the real family of Dwight Morgan. The episode has the official blessing of the Marine Corps.
Posted by MorganG at 12:28 PM
May 03, 2002
Harmon Didn't Hesitate to Join 'West Wing'
by Rick Porter
Zap2it.com, TV News
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - It didn't take Mark Harmon long to accept the season-ending, four-episode guest role he has on "The West Wing."
"I got a scene faxed to me by my agent late on a Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday morning I was working," Harmon says.
The former "St. Elsewhere" and "Chicago Hope" star made his first appearance on NBC's White House drama Wednesday (May 1), playing a Secret Service agent assigned to protect press secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) after she receives a death threat.
Harmon, who's worked with David E. Kelley and Tom Fontana on his past series -- he's also directed a few episodes of Kelley's "Boston Public" -- says the quality of the acting and writing on "The West Wing" is what led him to take the role.
"I appreciate that I'm in very rare air here," says Harmon, who counts himself among the fans of "The West Wing's" creator, Aaron Sorkin. "So often the formula [of a series] gets changed by outside pressures, but they've been able [to create an atmosphere] where it's all about the work. This train called 'The West Wing' is moving fast, and you're expected to keep up."
That was a daunting task in Harmon's first few days on the set, but he says he's now used to the rhythm of the show. "Where the show is right now, we have pages coming down daily," he says. "We just started the season finale, and yet there are still scenes from [the next-to-last episode] that I have left to shoot."
There was immediate tension between Harmon's character, Donovan, and C.J., but the actor is reluctant to say whether it will turn into the romantic variety.
"[The characters] are two very smart people who are used to doing things their own way," he says. As for the chemistry between the two, "Part of that is from the writing, and part of it is just the pleasure of playing opposite Allison. She's a gifted actress, and it's just fun to bat it back and forth."
Posted by MorganG at 12:07 PM
May 02, 2002
FCC Says Cursing God ‘OK’
Turns Back on Supreme Court Opinion
By Martha W. Kleder
Culture & Family Institute
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has rejected yet another broadcast indecency complaint against a television station. The complaint was filed over the September 19, 2001 repeat airing of The West Wing episode where President Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, curses God.
In a scene set in a church, President Bartlet screams “Have I displeased you, you feckless thug?” and “to [H--l] with our punishments! To [H--l] with you!”
Randy Sharp, special projects coordinator for the American Family Association, filed the complaint. He says with this dismissal, the FCC has thumbed its nose at the American people and Congress, whose laws they are charged with enforcing.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear rulings, upholding the Communications Act,” Sharp told C&F Report. “That law bans the utterance of any obscene or profane language.”
According to the FCC’s own online publication Broadcast Programming: Law and Policy on Specific Kinds of Programming, profanity is defined by key court decisions as “words importing an imprecation of divine vengeance or implying divine condemnation, so used as to constitute a public nuisance.”
Charles Kelly, the FCC’s Chief of the Investigations and Hearings Division, responded in an April 18 letter that his hands were tied. While he acknowledged that Section 1464 of Title 18 of the United States Code, prohibits the broadcast of profane language, he added that “we find that the material you describe is not actionably profane.”
Michael Schwartz, CWA’s vice president for government relations, says the complaint against The West Wing episode makes an arguable case.
“I am sure that the majority of this show’s viewers, which is millions of Americans, were severely offended by this language coming into their homes,” he told C&F Report.
“However, I feel the real reason for this violation was not so much an intent by the show’s producers to offend,” he added, “but simply a lack of talent on the part of the show’s writers. They do not have the personal vocabulary, or the time to craft a truly compelling confrontation between a modern-day Job and God without resorting to profanities.”
Still, Sharp says Christians are prone to encourage such abuse by too easily turning the other cheek.
“If is language had been directed at Mohammad or Budda there would have been an uprising over it,” said Sharp. “Our pastors and religious leaders should take a stronger stand against this kind of language.”
“The situation with today’s broadcast media will only continue to get worse until the FCC is forced into taking action,” Sharp added. “Every day it is looking more and more as though that drastic action will have to involve the replacement of Commissioners negligent in their duties and drastic changes to the FCC’s authority and procedures.”
Sharp says needed changes include the FCC having authority to fine the producers of a syndicated program. Currently, the FCC only has jurisdiction over the local broadcasters they license. So, complaints are filed against and the FCC takes action against the locally licensed station, rather than the flagship station from which the broadcast originates, or the network that distributes the show.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is the definition of community standard. Complaints about indecency violations are based on local community standards and filed against local stations. However, the FCC judges those complaints based on a national community standard — a standard they are too quick to admit that they can’t define.
So, while complaints are filed because they violate the community standards of greater Iowa or Tupelo, Mississippi, the FCC rejects those complaints because the material doesn’t offend most residents of New York City or Hollywood.
“One solution to this problem could be to have indecency and obscenity complaints decided by a panel of regular citizens rather than a panel of ‘communications professionals,’” said Sharp. “While those with an eye to a high-paying civilian media job may not when indecency and obscenity crosses the line, everyday moms and dads do.”
The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the opinions of bartlet4amrica.org and its staff.
Posted by MorganG at 11:42 AM
May 01, 2002
Untitled Article
By Juhu Thukral
Bitch
We can always count on Aaron Sorkin to spice up our Wednesday nights with an up-to-the-minute West Wing, but as poised an assured as his characters are, let's not make the mistake of thinking he actually knows what the hell he's talking about.
Last fall, on episode found the First Lady all riled up over an international convention that would outlaw forced prostitution. Mrs. Bartlet wanted the word "forced" removed from the convention. (She apparently took up the cause because she felt guilty about not taking enough of a stand on other women's issues. thank god for prostitution, which allows even the most lackadaisical feminist to start crying the exploitation blues and earn back her political street cred.)
Because she's the big boss' wife, Josh, deputy chief of staff and one of the show's two resident cerebral hotties, is forced to deal with the women's-rights group that's got its collective panties in a twist over the issue. So he heads over to said group's ridiculously fancy offices, a light and airy suite creatively furnished with expensive art. Amy, the head feminist (a nice little role for Mary-Louise Parker), describes all sorts of horrible conditions in which young girls and women are trapped or tricked into engaging in prostitution. "So how isn't that forced?" asks Josh. Ah, there's the rub.
Rather than have his characters engage in a debate that might actually mean something, Sorkin simply has our feminist heroine ignore the question -- she sadly and with furrowed brow replies that only a small percentage of the thousands of known cases of forced prostitution are ever prosecuted. Neither she nor Josh mentions that this pathetic state of affairs has nothing to do with prohibiting all prostitution in the first place. But -- since it looks like he might get a date with Amy -- Josh agrees to "see what we can do" about her little problem.
The issue is never resolved, but the subplot takes an interesting turn when, in conversation with his assistant, Donna, Josh defends a woman's right to sell access to her body when she freely chooses to -- with language that could have been cribbed from a book like Whores and Other Feminists. But Donna argues against decriminalization of non-forced prostitution that could give sex workers the full benefit of labor laws and other worker protections by noting that stigma might prevent prostitutes from coming forward to claim these benefits. Apparently Josh has not studied his sex-worker feminism enough, because he has no reply. So the debate ends there, tacitly confirming the sick, sad state of all prostitutes and eliding once again the distinction between forced and freely chosen prostitution.
So not only does Sorkin completely blow a chance to fully address this issue, he makes a feminist leader look like she can't answer a question directly because she knows she's full of shit and can't justify her position. Plus, he puts the only articulated pro-sex work stance in the mouth of a boy who treated the whole issue as unworthy of his time. With all the other honors he's garnered, I'd like to nominate Sorkin for our Thanks for Getting My Hopes Up and Then Chickening Out, You Wannabe Progressive Award. The coy undercutting of political controversy and the flirty vibe he injected into Josh's dealings with the big important feminist didn't work for me. (And it's worth noting that a later episode had Josh unsuccessfully racking his brain for a feminist issue on which the administration was failing, so he could see Amy without needing to be all vulnerable and ask her out.)
But I'll say one thing for Sorkin: I do love his sense of interior design.
Posted by MorganG at 12:11 PM
The Politics of Design
Behind the Scenes of the Emmy Award-Winning Television Series The West Wing
Text by Michael Frank
Photography by Fred Licht
Architectural Digest
THINK OF IT AS HISTORY through stuff," says Ellen Totleben, the Emmy Award-winning set decorator for The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin's bravura and groundbreaking NBC television series that has made politics sexy, dramatic and surprisingly cool. "It's amazing how much a man reveals himself through his belongings."
Kenneth Hardy, the show's production designer, readily agrees: "Of course you learn about government through our elected officials' actions and decisions, their speeches and their writing, but you can peek behind their public faces and know them from the rooms they live and work in, and how they go about conducting daily life. There can be a whole world of information, let me tell you, in the contents of a desk drawer."
Hardy and Totleben should know: They've had the privilege of pawing through quite a few of them in Washington, at least during the Clinton administration, when The West Wing was originally conceived (with its avowedly liberal slant, the show has no access to the White House these days). Working on three vast soundstages on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California -- the set is said to be the largest in the history of the medium -- Hardy and Totleben have perfected the craft of marrying historically correct architectural or design re-creation with the special needs of TV. These include vividly painting rooms (lights tend to wash out pale colors, which prevail at the actual White House), constructing walls that drop away (for better camera angles) and choosing architectural details that are more elegant than they are in reality, where the exigencies of busy office life have turned sections of even the White House into an unattractive tangle.
But there is a more artful component to Hardy's and Totleben's work, too: the continuing, subtle relationship the pair negotiates between actual people and places and their imaginary counterparts -- the way, in short, they help develop and present character through design. "Part of our mandate is to add visual layers to Aaron's remarkable stories," Totleben points out. "Sometimes we respond to a note in the script, sometimes we have to invent out of thin air, but always we keep an eye out for the nuance, the detail, the revealing note or quirk."
Consider the show's protagonist, President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet, and the most famous room he occupies, the Oval Office. It was designed by Jon Hutman, Hardy's predecessor, who was responsible for about half the sets seen on the show today. Although the Oval Office is perhaps the team's most exact reproduction, the designers made certain beautifying changes, such as molding doors that in the White House are hidden and eliminating the bulletproof glass shields that rather unaesthetically -- but necessarily -- stand between the windows and the president's desk.
Then came the creative part. "The Oval Office is probably one of the most photographed interiors in the country," says Totleben, "but the interesting thing is that when it's photographed, it's often depersonalized and made more `official.' When we visited in the last administration, we saw all kinds of personal objects: Clinton's collection of coins and medallions; his first editions and his bound papers; his pens, his awards, his glass paperweights and his photographs." All this Totleben has approximated and tried to layer in for Bartlet, contributing objects and books that relate to his interest in national parks and conservation. In the Oval Office, as throughout the West Wing set, the artwork consists of images scanned from paintings in the White House collection and afterward given texture. The desk is a replica of the Resolute desk presented to Rutherford Hayes by Queen Victoria (the wood came from HMS Resolute); Franklin Delano Roosevelt later added a front panel to conceal his wheelchair from visitors and the camera alike. No busts of Republican presidents are on display because, as Totleben explains, "Bartlet -- sorry, Martin Sheen -- refuses to be in the same room with them."
This somewhat zany interplay of the actual and the pretend took a further turn when, during the 2000 Democratic Convention, White House staffers visited the set and asked if they could have photographs taken of them sitting behind the Resolute desk. "Apparently this is forbidden in the White House," Totleben says. "They were like tourists, like kids. They went around stroking the curtains, touching the books. `It's amazing,' they said. `You've even got the right stripes on the chairs.' As it happens, the stripes were right because I called the White House, found out who made the fabric and ordered the same pattern."
Notable Washington visitors over the three seasons the show has been on the air have included Chelsea Clinton, Al Gore's and Joe Lieberrnan's families and Betty Currie, but the more revealing visits are certainly those that Hardy and Totleben paid to Washington, where they sponged up dozens of illuminating details about the way the White House is really used and then implemented them on the set. These include the prevalence of interment flags in triangular frames ("Lots of White House people seem to have had family in the military," Hardy observes); televisions that run around the clock and are sometimes stacked two or three in an office; shoes in drawers and garment bags hanging on doors ("No one has time to go home and change before dinner," explains Totleben); red telephones that say "Crash" (to be used in the event of a security breach); microwaves for on-the-run meals; and a "Potus Locator Box," a clock radio-like contraption that constantly discloses the whereabouts of the president (Potus), the first lady (Flotus) and the vice president (Vpotus).
"One of the most important things we saw was, quite frankly, the disorder," Hardy confesses. "The West Wing is choked with desks sticking out of closets, copy machines and cell-phone chargers stuffed into beautiful period fireplaces -- a huge swell of paperwork. People would rather work out of a closet -- literally -- if it keeps them close to the president. Proximity to him is all."
Hardy and Totleben's reinterpreted White House features a chief of staff's office that reflects the nautical interests of its fictional occupant, Leo McGarry, in marine paintings and alludes to his stint in the air force with a prized model plane. There is a Roosevelt Room, where the architecture has been improved over the original -- and made more camera-friendly -- with the addition of columns, glass panels set into doors and a bolder use of color. There is the president's secretary's office, filled, like Betty Currie's, with children's art, some of it made by Totleben's daughter. There is a presidential bedroom that doubles as a presidential study and a lobby that reflects the grandeur of the White House lobby from about seven decades back, before it was subdivided into a much-needed office space.
And there is a Mural Room, which has painted instead of (as in the original) wallpaper murals depicting battles from the Revolutionary War, authentic furniture, and flowers that change with the season. "We use it to receive people before they see the president," Totlehen explains. Hardy adds: "It's an elegant, flexible space, a room to shake hands with an ambassador, to have a delicate meeting about, say, the death of a loved one." For a moment, as the pair talks, gravely and authoritatively, about all the diplomatic encounters that take place in this interior, it seems as though these magicians of make-believe have forgotten that the encounters -- like the rooms themselves -- are entirely invented. Something similar happens to TV viewers across America, every Wednesday at 9:00.
Posted by MorganG at 11:39 AM