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September 24, 2003
Television: righting the ship of state
NEW CAPTAINS TAKE OVER IN 'THE WEST WING'; PRODUCER LEAVES AND 'PRESIDENT' YIELDS REINS
By Charlie McCollum
San Jose Mercury News
In May, John Wells, one of television's top producers and writers, was vacationing in Hawaii with his wife, Marilyn. One night, he took a busman's holiday and watched the season finale of ``The West Wing,'' in which President Josiah Bartlet temporarily gives up his office because his daughter has been kidnapped by terrorists.
``When it finished,'' recalls Wells, ``I remember turning to my wife and saying, `How am I supposed to get out of that?' ''
Just a few weeks before the finale, Wells had agreed to step in and take over the Emmy-winning White House drama after creator Aaron Sorkin and executive producer Thomas Schlamme, the director responsible for the show's distinctive pacing and style, abruptly and unexpectedly announced they were leaving the show.
In taking on ``West Wing,'' which won its fourth straight drama Emmy Sunday night and returns for its fifth season tonight, the 47-year-old Wells was not simply being asked to come in and produce another TV show. He was taking on the daunting task of reversing a tumultuous months-long slide that included the departure of Rob Lowe, criticism that the show had lost its way in terms of its storytelling, disputes over late scripts and budget overruns and a precipitous 21 percent drop in viewership.
More dauntingly, Wells was being asked to find a way to continue a series whose voice and style were more the product of one man -- Sorkin -- than anything else on TV. His rapid-fire dialogue, reminiscent of 1930s screwball comedies, was so vivid that ``The West Wing'' could take on all manner of esoteric political issues and still thoroughly entertain an audience.
``Aaron is, if not the most talented writer writing in television or film or stage, certainly one of two or three most talented ones,'' says Wells. ``I am very proud of my writing. I work at it. But it is a bit of a feeling of trying to come in and live up to the world that someone else, someone who is remarkably talented, has created.''
The producer, who has worked on such critically acclaimed series as ``ER'' and ``China Beach,'' says that stepping in for Sorkin is ``a bit like you're Ethel Merman's understudy in `Gypsy' and at intermission, she comes down with the flu.
``Suddenly you're standing backstage to start the second act and you hear the stage manager announce to the crowd, `In the second act, Miss Merman's part will be sung by John Wells.' ''
In fact, Wells is not coming in cold to ``The West Wing.'' He developed the drama with Sorkin back in 1997, before Sorkin made his mark on TV with ``Sports Night.''
The original idea was that Wells would help Sorkin produce the show and assemble a writing staff. But during ``Sports Night,'' Wells says, Sorkin discovered ``he wasn't very good at overseeing a writing staff'' and wanted to write everything himself.
That carried over to ``The West Wing'' and over four seasons, Sorkin ended up writing close to 90 percent of the dialogue on the show. It often made for great television, but it also put incredible pressure on one man.
For the show's fifth season, Wells has assembled a real writing staff that will share the work and pressure. It has some pretty high-profile talent including Lawrence O'Donnell, who was with ``West Wing'' for two seasons before going off to create ``Mr. Sterling''; John Sacret Young, co-creator of ``China Beach''; Alexa Junge from ``Friends''; and Carol Flint, one of ``ER's'' top writers.
But Wells himself took on the task of writing this season's first two episodes, which resolve the kidnapping of Zoey Bartlet and the constitutional crisis that led to John Goodman's Republican, very conservative House speaker stepping into the Oval Office.
If Wells was or is angered by the corner Sorkin painted the series into at the end of last season, he does a very good job of concealing it. (He notes that he and Sorkin talk once a week or so and had lunch together last week.)
``I kind of refer to it as: Aaron wrote the first two acts of the play and then I have to write the last two acts of the play,'' Wells says with a laugh. ``Begging is not too strong a word. I begged him to write the first two episodes because it's very difficult to pick up a story line. He had really set up the event that then clearly had to be dealt with at the beginning'' of this season.
``He and I had conversations about it although he really felt that I should go off and do what I wanted to do.''
The great fear of ``West Wing'' fans -- and there are still millions of them -- was that the loss of Sorkin's voice would spell the end of the series.
But somewhat surprisingly, it's hard to tell in tonight's episode where Sorkin left off and Wells takes over. Sorkin's comedic touches aren't there, but then again, the story matter is fairly dark. The episode may not feel like great Sorkin but it certainly ranks with good Sorkin.
Wells is aware that some changes do need to be made for ``West Wing'' to re-establish itself as one of TV's most popular shows. He acknowledges the show has struggled for the right tone since the election of President Bush and, more notably, since Sept. 11.
``We need to address that in our audience's mind, something really has changed'' in this country, he says.
``We certainly want to reflect the economic mood of the country with our characters actually dealing with some of the difficulties of managing an economy,'' Wells suggests. ``We're trying through some of the events Aaron set in motion with the kidnapping of the president's daughter with the issue of security, with all of us feeling not nearly as safe and wondering what it is we should get from government.''
And, he adds, ``we want to have conversations about international intervention. Not to make comments or to take potshots at what the Bush administration has been doing but rather quite the opposite: To just discuss how complex the issues are and how there aren't easy choices.''
All of this without, Wells says, ``making the show too ponderous or too earnest, still maintain its comedic roots.
``And,'' he adds, ``make sure we still feel relevant to the audience.''
The West Wing
*** (tonight's season opener)
** 1/2-*** (last season, depending on the episode)
Airing: 9 tonight,
Creator: Aaron Sorkin
Executive producer: John Wells
Cast: Martin Sheen, John Spencer, Stockard Channing, Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Richard Schiff, Dule Hill, Joshua Malina, Janel Moloney
Posted by Jo at September 24, 2003 07:12 PM