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October 30, 2003
West Wing jumps shark
Either that or it was an elaborate homage to Three's Company
Scott Feschuk
National Post
Monday, October 27, 2003
This column probably dwells too often on The West Wing (NBC/CTV), but last Wednesday's episode deserves comment. It also deserves its own small display case in the Smithsonian, playing on an eternal loop under the title Glimpse the Precise Moment at Which One of the Great American TV Dramas Announced to Millions of Viewers: "Your Attention Please -- This Show Now Sucks!"
Are you like me? Could you sense it happening? Did you wish you could stop time, travel to Hollywood, break into NBC headquarters, eject and burn the tape that was playing the episode and then, on your way out, stop by Alicia Silverstone's dressing room and try on her underwear? (OK, maybe that was just me: Most normal people would probably just smash the tape rather than go to the trouble of igniting it.)
For those of you fortunate enough to have missed it, here's what transpired: Will, the speechwriter, was having trouble crafting some acceptably grandiose remarks with which President Bartlet could introduce his new, and profoundly unremarkable, vice-president. In a moment of frustration, he and Toby spontaneously dictated the address they wished the president could give -- a speech rich in invective, a speech in which the naming of the new VP was heralded as a triumph of the middling.
Their indignation was credible enough. But savvy viewers couldn't help but notice that Will was actually typing all those nasty words into the same document that contained the real speech and ... hmm ... no, they'd never stoop to that, would they? They wouldn't have us believe that the congenitally fastidious and paranoid Toby would allow Will to type those words into a computer, and then forget to tell him to delete them, would they? They wouldn't pretend that neither Will nor Toby would notice the curiously large tally of snide adjectives when reading the final draft, would they? They wouldn't sully one of the most literate, intelligent network dramas with a crude, musty sitcom device straight out of Three's Company, would they?
See They would. They did. During the ceremony in the rose garden of the White House, the teleprompter arrived at Will and Toby's vivid rant. The President was forced to ad lib. Will and Toby were forced to apologize. And viewers across North America were forced to battle the urge to hunt down executive producer John Wells and bite him on the shins.
I'm not sure what Wells and company have in store for this week's installment. My guess is President Bartlet will order a full-scale nuclear attack on China as part of a wacky, misguided attempt to prove he's gay to Mr. Roper.
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Posted by Jo at 05:00 PM
The West Wing goes south
by Bert Archer
Eye Weekly
The call's already been made. The West Wing has jumped the shark. Scott Feschuk spotted the fin in the Post on Oct. 27, about two weeks after the rest of us had noticed it, but a little more than a week, judging by the date at the top of this page, before any of us had come fully enough to terms with it to say it in print.
The West Wing belonged to a sub-subgenre of the subgenre of shows like Six Feet Under and The Sopranos that might be called Exceptionals, to the same sub-subgenre that shows like Boston Public do and Hill Street Blues and Buffy did. They're auteur shows, shows that rely on the personality and quality control of a single person to reach their respective heights.
So we were all expecting something to happen when we heard Aaron Sorkin was leaving the show at the end of last season. We all knew it had been good, and that it would probably suffer, but the beginning of the current season's shown that we didn't quite know how maverick its style was, and how easily and precipitously it could slide off, even in the hands of one of the creators of one of the Exceptionals' direct antecedents, ER.
Onto the specifics: the kidnapped Zoey Bartlet was found way too quickly, her rescue providing neither denouement, action, pathos or even catharsis. (In fact, she really ought to have been killed, and it's my little theory that Sorkin wanted to kill her off, and management's disagreement with this child-unfriendly move is what precipitated Sorkin's relatively abrupt departure.)
But worse, far worse: the dialogue got loose, lines began to whizz past each other without ever engaging, leaving ugly, sagging spaces between word, meaning and feeling that would not only have been anathema a season earlier, but possibly even itself the subject of some sharp verbal shootout. In fact, the very essence of West Wing dialogue has been compromised to such an extent that it might now be confused with, let's say, ER dialogue.
The most noticeable aspect of the dialogue degradation has been the disappearance of what people who did English degrees call in medias res and what everyone else call starting in the middle of things. Listen to this:
BARTLET: Nancy's in her office. There are some calls I asked her to make.
LEO: I've told the President about the parachute.
FITZWALLACE: Tommy, do they even make parachutes in Israel? They're saying it's an Israeli-made parachute.
TOMMY: They make 'em. They're good ones.
BARTLET: Listen, I know we're here for a serious purpose, for a sober purpose, but I wanted to say I've never been a part of a street gang before, and that's basically what we are -- a pretty well-financed one -- but anyway, I wanted to say it feels good, and I think when we're done with this meeting, I think we should go out and get girls, and I don't know, maybe knock over a fruit stand or something.
That's the opening scene for an episode last season called "College Kids." The first line seems to be the end of some other conversation we're not privy to. The second is a reference to some other off-stage business (which, in this case, is not elucidated by anything else in this scene). President Bartlet's last speech here is not only effectively funny, but reproduces, in a stylized sort of way, a realistic bathos that enters into even the highest-stakes situations. The effect is what McLuhan might have called an extremely cool audience engagement in a beautifully realized sense of important office work at the centre of the universe.
When The West Wing was first cast, the president was meant to be mostly off-camera, his importance and power heightened by his absence, in the same way as Stephen King insists the monster in the closet is always scarier than the one standing in front of you. Martin Sheen was really good, though, and so the plan shifted, but Sorkin never forgot that this was an office drama, and that its attraction was the importance of the business at hand, and the enormous intelligence, knowledgeability, quick wit and articulacy of the office staff. Personal lives, therefore, meant little, and forays into them, like CJ's visit with her father or Toby's ex-wife-and-twins subplot, were the exceptions rather than the rule, serving mostly to heighten the sense of the characters' performance of their jobs.
But now, Toby's twins are front-and-centre, as is the Bartlets' marital difficulties stemming from the kidnapping, and CJ's increasing -- and increasingly incredible -- disillusionment with politics at their highest level.
The West Wing under new management is trying to transform a workplace drama into a slightly soap-operatic emotional one. Both these forms can work well, but it's idiotic to try to change one into another (the only time this sort of thing has ever worked, as far as I can tell, is the mid-run shift of M*A*S*H from slapstick to emotionally resonant and issue-based sitcom). And to do it as ham-handedly as The West Wing folks are can only mean it's a premeditated attempt to turn critical plaudits into Nielsen numbers by toning down the vocab and turning the heart-lights to high-beam. Is that a goose I smell roasting? BERT ARCHER
Posted by Jo at 04:56 PM
October 27, 2003
Stable TV Lineups May Become Obsolete
By DAVID BAUDER
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) -- Television schedules often seem written in disappearing ink, particularly around this time of year, so it's worth asking: Is the whole idea of stable lineups becoming obsolete in a hypercompetitive, multichannel world?
Literary agent Rick Broadhead worked out, took a shower, ate dinner and settled into a chair earlier this month to watch a new episode of his favorite show, "The West Wing."
Yet it wasn't on. Less than 24 hours earlier, NBC executives decided to replace it with a "Law & Order" rerun, reasoning "The West Wing" would be crushed in the ratings by a baseball playoff game.
"I was incredibly disappointed," said Broadhead, a Toronto, Canada, resident. "It was a huge letdown. As a viewer, you look forward to it. You sometimes plan your evenings around certain shows."
"I think the world is completely different from when I grew up knowing that `Happy Days' and `Laverne and Shirley' were on ABC on Tuesday nights," said Jeff Zucker, NBC Entertainment president.
"There are still several appointment shows on every network - probably more on NBC than anywhere else - but beyond that, this idea that you have to set your 22 hours and that's the way it is is as arcane as running the repeats of those shows in the summer," he said.
Already this season, NBC has blown up its struggling Friday night lineup, moved "Third Watch" from Monday to Friday and taken the touted comedy "Coupling" off the air with no inkling of when it will return.
Some of NBC's schedules, particularly for Fridays, are set week to week, leaving so much uncertainty that a Washington Post reporter trying to keep track wryly called it "cubist origami."
Zucker is an aggressive businessman, and he's adopted several strategies designed to wring as many ratings points out of a night as he can. He's "supersized" popular shows, experimented with different time slots and aired programs on different nights for extra exposure.
He's intent on keeping NBC dominant among the 18-to-49-year-old demographic - so far he's succeeded - but the job is becoming more difficult in a season where no network can claim any new hits.
Like Broadhead, one television historian questions whether the price paid for frequent changes is alienating viewers.
"I have a lot of trouble keeping track of shows, and I do this for a living," said Tim Brooks, a Lifetime executive and co-author of "The Complete Directory to Primetime Network and Cable TV Shows."
Over the past few years, broadcasters have been able to charge more for commercials even though fewer people are watching. Ratings are down again this season - particularly among young people - creating the prospect that networks will have to give refunds to advertisers.
"There's a certain amount of panic at the networks that they have to do something to stop this or the whole house of cards is going to fall apart," Brooks said.
ABC generally has kept its lineup of shows intact, while Fox delays the debuts of many of its shows because of postseason baseball - a highly rated prime-time product this year.
CBS believes that maintaining a stable schedule provides a comfort level to viewers, said David Poltrack, the network's chief researcher. (CBS isn't immune to changes; "The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H." was just canceled).
"We think we have gained over the last several years by virtue of the fact that we have the least amount of change in our schedule," he said.
That's particularly important at a time when viewers are overwhelmed by so many choices, he said.
Research shows that a high percentage of viewers return to their favorite shows week after week - the concept of appointment viewing - and that hasn't changed much over the years, Poltrack said. What's broken down is the idea that viewers will stick with one network for a night; the remote control has set them free.
To a certain extent, that argues in favor of NBC's more aggressive approach. Better to grab them if more viewers are beginning their evenings with a look at on-screen guides and making decisions at the spur of the moment.
This time of year - right before the important November ratings "sweeps" - is particularly tough for schedulers. They must weigh, with only a few weeks of evidence, whether new shows should be nurtured or pulled from the lineup for strategic reasons. If a show comes back after a hiatus, viewers might not.
Zucker said his schedule flipping this year is exaggerated, probably because of the last-minute decision to pull original series on big baseball nights.
He's aware people complained, but considers that "nonsensical" and "silly." Since more people will watch the episodes on a non-baseball night, he's serving a greater number of viewers, he said.
Even Broadhead, when pressed, had to agree. "If I were an NBC executive, I might have done the same thing," he said.
But he vehemently objects to the idea that a stable television schedule isn't important.
Contrary to his image as an executive with an itchy trigger finger, Zucker said he's kept shows such as "Good Morning, Miami" and "Third Watch" on the air longer than some people advised to build an audience.
"There are appointment shows and appointment nights that you don't screw with," he said. "But, let's be honest, if people aren't watching a show - i.e., `Boomtown' Friday nights at 10 - then whose greater good am I serving by letting it sit there and not changing the schedule?"
Posted by Jo at 04:39 PM
October 21, 2003
NBC in a prime-time frenzy over fall TV lineup
Cleveland Plain Dealer
10/21/03
You'd think that the turkey would be the breed of bird most prone to panic as we slide deeper into the fall. But with Thanksgiving still more than a month away it's the peacock that seems to be twitching with trepidation.
That would be the NBC peacock. Uncertainty seems to reign at the drooping network, where flurries of changes have kept many viewers confused, bewildered and outraged.
If this isn't panic, it's a mighty good imitation. Last Wednesday a last-minute decision pulled an original episode of "The West Wing." Fans of NBC's acclaimed White House drama tuned in at 9 p.m., only to see a rerun of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." The network also pulled an original episode of "Law & Order" at 10 p.m., airing a repeat in its place.
The 11th-hour move was due to the network's worries about competing against the seventh game of the Cubs-Marlins National League Championship Series, carried by Fox. But a dramatic baseball showdown always was a possibility for that night. Why did it take NBC so long to make a decision?
A case of nerves? The jitters? Panic? Those are good guesses.
Outraged fans of "The West Wing" flooded the switchboards at NBC and its affiliate stations Wednesday night. The network says these episodes will air tomorrow night in their regular time periods. Says?
Well, tune in at your own risk. That's because NBC, once proud as a peacock, has spent much of the fall hopping around like the proverbial decapitated chicken.
Last Wednesday's NBC twitch was no isolated incident.
Sure, CBS, like NBC, pulled original episodes last Thursday, rather than face Fox's coverage of the seventh game of the American League Championship Series between New York and Boston. But the CBS decision wasn't made after a flurry of schedule changes and cancellations.
You got the feeling that CBS boss Leslie Moonves looked at his hand, saw Fox raising the stakes with that Yankees-Red Sox game and thought, "Hmmm, New York and Boston are two of the country's 10 biggest TV markets." Then, with a gambler's grin, he tossed in his cards and laughed, "Too rich for my blood."
NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker, though, has the appearance of a sweating player who has lost too many hands and his poker face. He's in danger of losing much more before the 2003-04 TV season reaches its conclusion in May.
If you listen to Zucker, you'll hear that NBC is No. 1, despite Nielsen data showing CBS has more viewers. No matter, goes the argument, NBC is No. 1 with viewers 18 to 49, the ones most prized by advertisers.
Maybe so, but NBC also is No. 1 in another, less-distinguished category. It has made the most changes to its prime-time schedule this fall.
Entering the season with foul new comedies, NBC has already started benching the disastrous "Coupling," which didn't air last week.
NBC also was lightning-quick to change its Friday lineup, pulling "Boomtown" from the 10-11 p.m. time period and moving newcomer "Miss Match" from 8 to 9. "Third Watch" will move into that 10 p.m. Friday slot starting Oct. 31.
The Peacock's tail feathers are looking plenty ruffled, all right. With most of its hit shows getting older and more expensive, NBC is facing the loss of "Friends" and "Frasier," both in their last seasons. "The West Wing," meanwhile, is trying to find new direction with radical changes in the creative team.
More reason for panic: NBC was down about 14 percent last season in that primary demographic Zucker adores so much.
And now critics are lowering the boom because the network has shown so little support for "Boomtown," which hasn't aired since Oct. 3. Zucker isn't talking about when the crime drama will return; he's talking about "if and when." So last week's "West Wing" fiasco looks all the more alarming when you see it as part of an overall NBC pattern.
And it's taking on the pattern of panic.
Posted by Jo at 08:41 AM
October 19, 2003
TOUCH-SCREEN VIEWING: As the election season gets under way, politics is popping up in prime time
BY GLENN GARVIN
The Miami Herald
If California's recent gubernatorial recall election struck you as alarmingly like an episode of American Idol, brace yourself: A Hollywood producer is pitching a show called American Candidate on which 100 contestants vie to become a ''people's candidate'' for president next year.
''It's a good concept, a very good concept for a show,'' says Pete Liguori, president of Rupert Murdoch's FX cable network, which seriously considered American Candidate before bowing out. ``The only reason we turned it down was money -- it proved to be a pretty costly project once we went over the numbers.''
Expense aside, several broadcast executives say they expect American Candidate to land somewhere on television next year. The show's producer, R.J. Cutler, says it's inevitable: ``Politics and television live at the same intersection. There's no news in that.''
The idea of choosing an American president on a game show might seem like a scene trimmed from the bitter TV satire Network. But as the 2004 presidential campaign approaches, it's getting harder to tell television fantasy from political fact:
• TV sets click on all over Washington, D.C., Sunday nights as the starstruck city tunes in to watch itself on HBO's K Street, an insider drama about sleazy lobbyists in which saber-toothed spinmasters James Carville and Mary Matalin play themselves. ''Holy [bleep], are people watching the thing!'' exclaims CNN Crossfire combatant Tucker Carlson, a confirmed addict.
• NBC's White House policy-opera The West Wing, widely believed to be headed for a Nielsen-ratings recall last season, just won its fourth straight best-drama Emmy -- and its ratings are stronger than ever.
• A malaprop-spouting President Bush has been a character on episodes of two different sitcoms, NBC's Whoopi and ABC's The George Lopez Show, this fall, touching off heated -- and hilarious -- arguments among the characters on both shows. ''Any time you do that sort of humor, it's a bit risky,'' concedes Whoopi producer Larry Wilmore. ``But why not be a little daring? Who knows, you might get slapped on the nose -- or people might love it.''
Nowhere was the flicker between image and reality more confusing than the California recall election, fought out on late-night talk shows right to the bitter end, when the defeated Gray Davis used David Letterman's show to offer a Top 10 list of sarcastic suggestions to victor Arnold Schwarzenegger. (``No. 8: ``Listen to your constituents -- except Michael Jackson.'')
The recall election didn't just seem like a TV show -- it was a TV show: The Game Show Network's Who Wants to Be Governor of California? in which five dozen of the real candidates competed for viewer votes to win a $21,000 campaign contribution. Winner: Porn actress Mary Carey, who promised to tax breast implants.
The idea that his program, however whimsical, might be helping to turn U.S. elections into American Idol doesn't concern Game Show Network president Rich Cronin: ``Watch these debates between the Democratic presidential candidates. Afterward, the pundits talk about who won, who lost, who said something stupid, who showed talent. It's really very much like American Idol.''
Dismissive, too, is Cutler, the veteran documentary-maker (his series on Texas college students, Freshman Diaries, is currently appearing on Showtime) behind American Candidate. Concerns about the malign influence of television on politics, he says, should be focused in a different direction.
''You have these very powerful cable news networks. If one or more of those news channels have a political agenda, is that a good thing? Is that a dangerous thing?'' he argues. ``I worry far less about the subject of politics as entertainment.''
LONG HISTORY
Entertainment TV's interest in politics is nothing new -- the networks have been staging dramas and sitcoms in Washington and other political settings for more than four decades. The results have ranged from the ludicrous (NBC's 1978 Grandpa Goes To Washington) to the downright bizarre (UPN's 1998 The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, in which a black butler counseled a sex-crazed Abraham Lincoln).
''There's this two-way thing between Hollywood and Washington, because both of them know that what they do is a show,'' says Diana McLellan, a veteran Washington gossip columnist and author of The Girls, a history of lesbian society in Hollywood. ``Each of them has this little knot of respect for the other. It is truly pathetic.''
Until The West Wing, the mutual infatuation had never produced successful offspring; TV shows set in Washington have been shunned by both viewers and critics. Most have followed the same pattern, derived from the 1939 James Stewart film Mr. Smith Goes To Washington: A truthful common man goes to Washington and fights the deceitful special interests.
Even The West Wing's crusading liberal president Josiah Bartlett is a linear descendant of Mr. Smith. ''Even taken in the most modest doses, you're likely to get diabetes from The West Wing,'' says Ben Stein, an actor and screenwriter who was also a speechwriter for Presidents Nixon and Ford. ``It's the fluff candy of drama . . . I love [West Wing star] Martin Sheen -- he's my neighbor in Malibu, a fine guy -- but you need massive doses of insulin to watch his show.''
The West Wing's superior writing and acting has overcome its formulaic approach. But many Hollywood producers and writers with a Washington background say that TV has to lay Mr. Smith to rest if political dramas are to succeed.
''I think there has been an attitude on Hollywood's part, in dealing with Washington and politics, that people wanted to see their politicians -- or their government -- in a certain reverential way,'' says Stuart Stevens, a Republican political consultant and co-producer of K Street.
``I don't agree with that. I don't get that. History tells us that people are interested in big powerful forces in their lives: police, law, medicine. At first, the shows are reverential: Dr. Kildare. Then you get St. Elsewhere. Or Perry Mason and, later, L.A. Law . . . Eventually, people get ready to see how things are instead of how they'd like things to be.''
DIVIDED OPINIONS
If he's right, K Street is the St. Elsewhere to The West Wing's Dr. Kildare. There are no upstanding citizen-politicians on K Street -- just a bunch of grubby lobbyists playing out Machiavellian fantasies on one another. The only real ideology in the show is money.
Its cinéma vérité style is bolstered by the use of real-life Washington figures -- from senators like Orrin Hatch and Barbara Boxer to think-tank mavens like Kenneth Adelman -- playing themselves, using mostly unscripted dialogue. The resulting collision of styles and cultures has produced some real Kodak moments.
In a scene where political consultant Paul Begala was supposed to be helping Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean prepare for a debate, Begala warned him not to make personal attacks on one of the other candidates, ''or he'll [bleep] you like a tied dog.'' Gasped a shocked Dean: ``Paul, I don't think you can say that on HBO.''
Slow-moving and sometimes indecipherable in its inside-baseball approach to politics, K Street is the lowest-rated drama in years on HBO's powerhouse Sunday-night lineup. But in official Washington, it's the most important show since that infamous night at the Ford Theater.
The Washington Post runs a regular George Clooney sighting feature reporting the whereabouts of K Street's executive producer, and the high-octane political newsletter The Hotline has Your K Street Summary listing the latest power players to land cameos appearances on the show. Even journalists like Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz and Time columnist Joe Klein have gone panting after roles.
The show's conquest of Capitol Hill appalls some. ''We in Washington are very self-important people, and the people you see in K Street are particularly self-important,'' jeers Kim Hume, the Washington bureau chief of Fox News. ``It's a little cabal of Washington insiders who live for this stuff. From my perspective, it's a ridiculous way to spend your time.''
Others, though, say it's just an understandable fascination with seeing your friends on television. ''I was watching the other night, and a guy I go duck-hunting with was standing behind James and Mary at a restaurant,'' says CNN's Carlson. ``Four people I know were in another scene. . . . It's like looking at your high school yearbook.''
Carlson, who trades jibes with Carville for half an hour every afternoon on CNN's Crossfire, certainly feels no yearning to see himself on TV for an extra 90 seconds. But he remains spellbound by K Street's astonishing detail. For example, he was stunned to hear a lobbyist say in passing that he was going to ask Gary Maloney to investigate someone.
''Gary Maloney is a real person,'' Carlson says. ``He's famous to about nine political reporters as one of the most hardball Republican researchers. Even among political junkies, not one in a thousand have heard of him . . . I'm just amazed at the degree to which they understand the city. It's not all Richard Gephardt and Tom Daschle.''
Even Carlson, however, admits that the blend of reality and fiction in K Street can be disconcerting. He was watching the show with his wife when their pal, lobbyist John Breaux, turned up in one episode playing himself. When the on-screen Breaux began flirting with a woman in a bar, Carlson's wife -- a close friend of Breaux's real-life girlfriend -- shouted: ``What's John doing hitting on that girl? What's wrong with him?''
''I told her, honey, it's only a TV show,'' Carlson says. ``But I'm not sure she's over it.''
Posted by Jo at 09:22 AM
October 16, 2003
On Bartlett and Bush, and Moby for inaugural ball
by Doug Imbrogno
Charleston (WV) Gazette
“The West Wing,” you hear from TV writers and the Neilson ratings, has had its problems with lower numbers the last couple of seasons.
Me, I’m still annoyed with series creator Aaron Sorkin for knocking off President Jed Bartlett’s feisty, font-of-wisdom secretary, Mrs. Van Landingham, two seasons ago in a car crash, just so Jed could talk back to God and smoosh a cigarette in His face inside a cathedral.
She was of one of TV’s few elderly characters not a caricature, displaying the wise (and wise-ass) grandmotherly energy many of us know from our own grandmas and aunts, yet little seen in prime-time, where elders are invariably buffoons or teeth-grating wise-crackers.
Lily Tomlin’s strangely underplayed replacement character has yet to fill Mrs. Van Landingham’s shoes.
I also still hold a grudge against Sorkin for making me care about the romance between press secretary C.J. Cregg and a Secret Service agent played winningly by Mark Harmon — only to gun him down in a plot turn that so peeved me I stalked from the living room. (If you’re going to watch a show, might as well take it personally.)
But Sorkin has left the series, as has Rob Lowe, feeling unloved as the series was originally conceived with his character — the brainiac White House staffer Sam Seaborn — at its center and not President Bartlett.
But, man, it’s nice to still have at least one president around you can respect in the morning.
I can see the disconnect, though, between reality and prime-time. The new, Sorkin-less “West Wing” season began this month and the Bartlett administration is still reeling from its decision to pre-emptively off a single terrorist leader intent on blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge.
The moral implications of using politically sanctioned violence and pre-emptive massive force? Thoughtful discussion and fretting on the moral and international consequences of the powers of the presidency and use of American might?
This is “West Wing’s” fodder and one of the reasons the show is still such a tonic to faithful viewers.
It’s the current real-world presidency where such matters seem fiction.
Maybe that’s why the real world’s president’s own ratings are in free fall.
Posted by Jo at 04:56 PM
UPDATE: Programming Changes by NBC Affect West Wing
KSDK-TV (St. Louis, MO)
(KSDK) -- Changes to NBC programming this week and in the coming week will not effect storylines, according to NBC.
On Wednesday, NBC made a late-minute decision not to air West Wing because of tremendous interest in the baseball playoffs.
On Thursday NBC announced the programming lineup will remain the same for Thursday night, however, all shows will be reruns.
"NBC has a limited amount of new Thursday episodes each year. Our goal is to have as many people view these episodes as possible. With the growing interest in postseason baseball and a pivotal game 7 airing this evening, we felt it was in the best interest to hold the original episodes for a later date, so as many viewers could watch it. Your viewers are not missing anything and the storylines they have been following this season will continue on 10/30."
NBC also announced that next week's episode of West Wing WILL be a new episode.
NewsChannel 5 will do its best to keep you informed about any changes that may occur. We are truly sorry for any inconvenience.
Posted by Jo at 04:30 PM
‘West Wing’ postponement sparks frenzy of phone calls
Reno Gazette-Journal
Hundreds of angry viewers telephoned the Reno NBC-TV affiliate Wednesday night after the broadcast of a new episode of “The West Wing” was postponed.
Kirk Frosdick, night news manager for KRNV-TV News 4, said the network cited competition from the baseball playoffs and the World Series for postponing episodes of the series at 9 p.m. Wednesday and Oct. 22.
He said network officials in New York City notified the station at 5:30 p.m. that a new episode would not be broadcast until Oct. 29 and that viewers could call (212) 664-2333 to comment.
“We gave them that comment number and most of the callers complained it was already full,” he said.
On Wednesday, the seventh game of the National League Championship Series baseball game was won by the Florida Marlins 9-6 over the Chicago Cubs.
The network broadcast an episode of “Law & Order Criminal Intent,” which usually airs at 9 p.m. Sunday, instead of the “West Wing.”
Posted by Jo at 08:52 AM
October 15, 2003
'West Wing' unlikely to soar as before
by Chuck Barney
Contra Costa Times
AS IT TURNS OUT, the rumors of "The West Wing's" demise have been greatly exaggerated.
When word came last spring that Aaron Sorkin, the show's highly respected creative heart and soul, was leaving NBC's political drama, TV critics all over the country, including the one you're reading, began polishing their eulogies. "The West Wing" (9 tonight, Channels 3 and 11), after all, was already mired in a ratings slump, and Sorkin's absence supposedly would only hasten its extinction.
But we're now four weeks into the administration change and "The West Wing" not only is not dead, it is enjoying a bit of a revival. Ratings are up over last season, and the show is routinely beating ABC's "The Bachelor," something it usually failed to accomplish last season.
Just as significantly, the series, now under the guidance of executive producer John Wells ("ER," "Third Watch"), has extricated itself from an awkward storytelling jam that Sorkin created: the kidnapping of President Bartlet's daughter, Zoey (Elisabeth Moss), and the just-keeping-your-seat-warm presidency of John Goodman. Now Zoey is out of danger and Bartlet (Martin Sheen) is back in power, and the show is on track once again.
And so, by the looks of things, NBC has foiled the critics. But looks can be deceiving and this question begs to be raised: Nielsen numbers aside, is "The West Wing" a better show?
Depending on how you look at it, yes and no.
Before proceeding, let's first dispel the myth of Sorkin as flawless auteur. The truth is that while he had a virtuoso's skill for spellbinding dialogue and engaging character interplay, he was prone to excessive preachiness and, on occasion, he seemed to fall in love with his own words at the expense of dramatic structure. Even Shakespeare realized that it was all about the story.
During his years at the helm of "The West Wing," Sorkin occasionally painted himself into corners with ludicrous twists and turns that were out of step with the overall tone of the show. For proof of this, one need only review the final episodes of his "West Wing" stint, during which an improbable series of events -- an assassination, a vice president's resignation, a drugging, a kidnapping and a father's fretting -- all conspired to create a perfect storm on the Beltway and plop Roseanne's TV husband into the Oval Office.
Combine this storytelling overkill with Sorkin's heavily liberal leanings -- at a time when the country was veering in exactly the opposite ideological direction -- and it's rather easy to see how some viewers felt alienated and why ratings for the show plunged 20 percent last season.
Into this mess stepped Wells. While he's no Sorkin when it comes to marvelous wordplay, Wells is a savvy, Grade-A television producer who arguably has a better feel for complex plotting and character development than the man he replaced. Wells wrote the first two "West Wing" scripts this season and one of his initial moves was to resolve the John Goodman story arc that he inherited from Sorkin. (Wells told reporters he "begged" Sorkin to come back and write the initial episodes, but Sorkin respectfully declined.)
Some critics insist that Zoey's rescue and Goodman's ensuing exit came off way too neatly and quickly. The complaint has some merit: Goodman was wonderful and I could have watched him for a while longer. On the other hand, Wells was smart enough to know that story line was not the essence of the show. He needed to swiftly get back to basics and he did so, for the most part, in compelling style.
While Sorkin was highly involved in every "West Wing" script, Wells, like most TV producer/writers, will take a show-by-committee approach. For example, Carol Flint, an Emmy-winning veteran of "ER," penned last week's absorbing teleplay in which Bartlet and his family dealt with the emotional fallout of Zoey's ordeal.
Ironically, this system might prove to give the series more of a cohesive, efficient feel. As talented as the prolific Sorkin was, he also was notorious for flying by the seat of his pants and turning in scripts past deadline.
Only now that the series is moving away from the Zoey incident will we truly be able to begin gauging Wells' influence. He has said that he hopes to incorporate more GOP points of view into the show (Bartlet's Democrats will be wrangling with a Republican-controlled Congress), but beyond that, don't look for a lot of radical changes. "Our hope," he said, "would be that you don't sense that it's very different."
In many ways, "The West Wing" is not very different at all. Obviously, those are still Sorkin's characters up there on the screen and they're still being played by enthralling performers who have the power to lift any material to a higher level.
All that said, discerning viewers certainly realize that Sorkin, when at the top of his game, had the vision and talent to make a good show great. The very best "West Wing" episodes always contained his golden touch -- clever and witty rapid-fire banter, sharp, cliche-free insights into the human condition, and the ability to convey heartfelt drama in seemingly mundane political machinations.
Will we see these elements in high supply during the new John Wells regime? Maybe, but probably not. My guess is that, while "The West Wing" is far from dead as a Nielsen contender, the highly distinctive show that we once knew is now a museum piece soon to be available for viewing only on Bravo and DVD.
Posted by Jo at 05:36 PM
October 10, 2003
'West Wing's' loss is not the viewer's gain
By David Hiltbrand
Philadelphia Inquirer
Have you ever watched the endless credits unspool for shows such as Law & Order and ER? These one-hour dramas have more producers than Springtime for Hitler. It's television by committee. TV series tend to be collaborative efforts.
But not all of them. For four seasons, The West Wing served as the vibrant canvas for the vision of one man: Aaron Sorkin.
That singular arrangement was both good and bad. As he previously proved on Sports Night, Sorkin is the most distinctive and creative writer in the medium, consistently turning out prolix scripts that are crammed with wit and heart.
The downside is that he worked at his own peculiar pace. As a result, the cast and crew of the White House drama often sat around for hours waiting for Sorkin to turn in pages.
In Burbank, time is big money. And idle hands are a deal-breaker. So in May, NBC took back the show from Sorkin in a bloodless coup.
Is the show better off without him?
Decidedly not.
This season has been like walking into Starbucks for your cappuccino fix and having the barrista say, "Our steamer is broken. Can I interest you in a double espresso?" The jolt is still there but frankly, it's not as tasty a treat.
John Wells, one of the show's executive producers, is now The West Wing's commander in chief. He's best known for ER and Third Watch.
Not surprisingly, what he's given us in the first two episodes is a far more conventional series, one that carries over many aspects of the established style, but lacks its crackling voltage.
First and foremost, The West Wing has lost Sorkin's trademark turbocharged overlapping dialogue. There were three shows on TV that used to drive the closed-caption people nuts because of their pell-mell verbal assault: Gilmore Girls, The Simpsons, and The West Wing. Now there are two.
That's not necessarily bad news. Many viewers complained that they couldn't follow what was going on. So the more carefully articulated audio will appeal to them.
The visual style has certainly been altered. The first two episodes were filled with shots of various characters silently reacting to crucial plot developments. There were so many long, lingering close-ups it looked like a soap opera.
There didn't used to be time for such flourishes. The director was desperately trying to cram 75 minutes of Sorkin's dialogue into a 48-minute package.
The network obviously has placed a premium on telling stories that play out over the course of several episodes, such as the cliffhanger abduction of the president's daughter by terrorists. Tonight the first lady's anger emerges, and cracks begin to surface in the Bartlet marriage.
NBC clearly favors teasing the audience to return week after week. Sorkin, like The Sopranos' David Chase, wasn't all that interested in tying up loose ends.
One troubling development is the recent reliance on familiar TV faces. John Goodman (Roseanne) was totally unconvincing as hawkish President Pro Tem Walken. Tonight, the show will introduce Gary Cole (Midnight Caller) as Bartlet's new vice president, "Bingo Bob." Also new is William Devane (Knots Landing) as secretary of state. What's next? Bea Arthur as a filibustering senator?
Say what you will about the old regime, it rarely resorted to such trite choices. The West Wing should save the stunt casting for sweeps month.
There's still a lot to love about the show, such as its great core cast (although the loss of Rob Lowe's Sam Seaborn character was significant).
And it still looks great. The West Wing is one of the few shows on television with a feature-film sheen. Of course, it retains its unique and intriguing setting.
Politics makes for great drama. Where else in prime time are you going to hear a character grouse about the chain of presidential succession: "Truman wanted the speaker [of the House] third in line because he used to drink bourbon with Sam Rayburn."
There is always hope that having new hands at the helm will result in fresher stories. If there was a problem with last season it was that the plots tended to meander.
Subpar storytelling was one of the factors that some cited to explain the precipitous 21 percent drop in Wing's audience last season. All kinds of theories circulated for the show's decline. But going head-to-head with a little ratings grabber known as American Idol played a big part.
So far, fans seem to be willing to give the new administration a chance. According to Nielsen Media Research and NBC, ratings this season are virtually indistinguishable from last year's at this time. And if the revamped West Wing fails to enchant? Well, viewers hold the ultimate veto power.
Posted by Jo at 02:29 PM
October 09, 2003
West Wing now in the hands of a journeyman
Producer John Wells is good, but he's just not Aaron Sorkin
Scott Feschuk
National Post
Rob Lowe now says he departed The West Wing not because he wasn't shown the money but because he wasn't shown the love. "Why didn't [show creator Aaron Sorkin] know how much I loved him, how much I loved that show?" Lowe told TV Guide. "Why didn't he love me like I loved him? It's weird, considering it's another man, but that's as close as I can put it."
The actor's comments are rather startling. Like many of you, I've followed Lowe's career for years and have seen him perform in countless TV and film productions. And the whole time I had absolutely no idea that he's actually a teenage girl. One envisions him belly-down on his bed, scribbling furiously into his hot pink diary: "I HATE Aaron! I HATE him, I HATE him, I! HATE! HIM! Why won't he PAY ATTENTION to me???!" On more optimistic days, he'd be smiling contentedly on the set, repeatedly practising in elegant cursive writing: Mrs. Rob Sorkin Mrs. Rob Sorkin Mrs. Rob Sorkin ...
His love unrequited, Lowe stomped off The West Wing (Wednesdays, NBC/CTV) after almost four seasons and is now the featured attraction in his own show -- a show whose executive producer is deeply in love with Lowe (NBC's The Lyon's Den; executive producer: Rob Lowe). I notice there haven't been too many hugely upbeat reviews of The Lyon's Den, so in an effort to help out and supply NBC with a usable blurb, let me state for the record: The Lyon's Den is, without a doubt, one of the new shows of the television season!
Not long after Lowe took his hot pink ego and went home, Sorkin also exited The West Wing, plainly shoved out the door by Warner Bros., which produces the series and whose executives had by all accounts grown weary of Sorkin so routinely going over budget. The man is a marvel with words; with numbers, apparently not so much.
I just said it but, in tribute to Sorkin's favoured conversational style, it bears repeating: The man is a marvel with words. And although his inventive and often awe-inspiring way with dialogue never deserted him, his plot lines for The West Wing had become banal and, at times, even ludicrous. They exuded creative desperation. Sorkin started with the goal of elevating the quality of political discourse in the United States; at the end, he was interested only in elevating pulse rates, and cheaply at that.
No sensible person, therefore, would envy the position in which his successor, veteran producer John Wells, was placed -- taking over creative control of a series in which, through an improbable series of events involving an assassination, a resignation, a drugging, a kidnapping and far more thumping techno music than most folks in the 35-54 demographic would care to endure, the preceding season had concluded with the presidency of the United States of America being abruptly conferred on Roseanne's TV husband.
I can't guess with any confidence the look on Wells's face when he got the news. One suspects it resembled that of the luckless writer on Dallas who was one day informed: "OK, I'm turning the show over to you. Here's where we're at: Bobby, who died a year ago, just stepped out of the shower. Gotta go!"
Wells wrote the scripts for the two episodes that have aired this season. The first was lean, thrilling and memorable. It is no slight against Sorkin to say that Wells, who has authored several episodes of ER (among many other credits), is a more disciplined writer and better able to function as a plot wrangler. You often got the sense that Sorkin had fallen in love with his own words (no wonder he had no affection left in which to bathe Lowe) and had ignored the plausible or the pedestrian in favour of the poetic; Wells, by way of comparison, is clearly more interested in telling a story than having his characters tell stories. The first episode of the season was all business -- even Martin Sheen's loquacious Jed Bartlet was reduced to clipped sentences and plenty of staring off into the nothingness. Wells had the good sense to make him seem like an ordinary, distraught and maddeningly helpless parent. Sorkin would have had him loudly telling off God in Latin.
Last week's episode, in which Bartlet's daughter Zoey was safely recovered by an FBI assault team, was more disappointing, though perhaps only because Wells so quickly ended what was emerging as one of the most intriguing scenarios in the show's history: the enforced cohabitation of the West Wing of the White House by partisan rivals, a development that reduced Democratic staffers to jealously peeking in on and fretting about Republican strategy sessions taking place just down the hall. Refreshing, too, was Wells's depiction of John Goodman's presidential temp, Glenallen Walken. If nothing else alerted viewers to the departure of Sorkin, it was that a Republican character actually came off as something other than a child-eating acolyte of Satan and/or Bill O'Reilly.
I said "If nothing else ..." back there, but unfortunately there was something else. Sorkin's absence was felt last week in every sentence of the two speeches that were prepared for President Bartlet -- one for use in the event that Zoey was freed; the other for a less cheery outcome. These presidential speeches sounded exactly like presidential speeches, which is to say they sounded nothing like the speeches that Sorkin wrote for his President. Bartlet's words to the nation last week were clichéd and almost trite: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away ... back in her mother's arms ... a second chance that will not slip through our hands."
Wells has said that characters on The West Wing will rarely be speaking the kinds of soliloquies that Sorkin wrote for his characters, and especially for the President. In part, that's a creative decision, he said. But Wells admitted it's also because those words, those soliloquies, are so difficult to write.
The West Wing may well prove to be a better show for Sorkin's departure. It may more reliably entertain and less frequently infuriate. But without its creator, it has surely lost its ability to amaze.
Posted by Jo at 11:35 PM
October 08, 2003
The West Wing resorts to cheap tricks
Alex Strachan
Vancouver Sun
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
CREDIT: Vancouver Sun
Martin Sheen plays President Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing, a show now in trouble.
When regime change meets the law of unintended consequences, unintended consequences have a way of seizing the spotlight -- even when the cause is good. And in The West Wing's case, the cause may not have been that good to begin with.
Aaron Sorkin, The West Wing's creator and head writer, had a hand in every script of every episode of the behind-the-scenes White House drama since its inauguration on Sept. 22, 1999, and when he left the series in May The West Wing lost not just its most personal voice but possibly its heart and soul as well.
Sorkin's ear for walk 'n' talk byplay in the corridors of power, his eye for the small, everyday details of life in the public service and his ability as a dramatist to find the drama in a debate over a line item veto or the machinations involved in getting the right person on to the right committee, are just some of the reasons The West Wing won four consecutive Emmy Awards for outstanding dramatic series.
FBI special agents may have rescued presidential first daughter Zoey Bartlet (Elisabeth Moss) from her kidnappers in last week's episode, but the outcome had all the suspense of a fixed fight.
The West Wing is in trouble, and not just because its ratings dropped 20 per cent last season over the previous year. The West Wing is in trouble because what once gave the show its charm and distinctive tone, the way it made heroic acts out of small deeds has been hijacked by high drama.
The kidnapping of the president's daughter, a cheap audience trick, capped a season in which terrorist threats dominated The West Wing's agenda, from the officially sanctioned assassination of a foreign dignitary suspected of having terrorist ties to the endless conflict over a fictional Persian Gulf state called Qumar.
Witty banter and fancy political footwork have become collateral damage.
Sorkin's successor, John Wells, has appeared in the credits for the past four seasons as one of The West Wing's executive producers. He was instrumental in The West Wing's development in its initial stages, though his primary role has been as president and CEO of the production company that makes the show. His company also produces ER and Third Watch, and it is ER, Wells's primary responsibility, his first love and the show that most bears his stamp, that provides hints of what The West Wing will become.
Sorkin never wrote an episode that focused exclusively on the lives and relationships of its main characters; there are episodes of ER that do nothing but.
Last week's West Wing episode, also written by Wells, introduced a new character, Ryan (Jesse Bradford), a White House intern who seems poised to become a romantic interest for Donna (Janel Moloney). In true TV tradition, the two met and took an instant disliking to each other, which bodes well for future romance.
Sorkin bears no small amount of responsibility for the direction The West Wing took last season, but he was able to compensate with his natural ear for dialogue and the way he could make his characters walk and talk with a spring in their step and a snap in their voice.
Compare the smart, incisive way both Bartlet's personality and his complex relationship with his wife was revealed in a first-season episode, written by Sorkin ("We don't handle my wife. When we try, you know what happens at the other end of this building? I get a little punishment"), to the small talk of this year's season premiere, when Wells padded a scene by having Bartlet ask his wife, "You want me to call down for some coffee?"
By obsessing over the terror threat, The West Wing is merely trying to reflect events in the real world, of course, but the more it does so, the more it reminds us that it is not real. It is no longer a drama about politics; it is a melodrama about terrorism. And if ER is any indication, and I think it is, it is also about to become a soap opera in the bedroom. What was once high-IQ entertainment now is now low-definition television.
Posted by Jo at 08:48 AM
October 07, 2003
MATTHEW PERRY RETURNS TO GUEST-STAR ON NBC'S 'THE WEST WING'
NBC Press Release
BURBANK, Calif. -- October 7, 2003 -- Matthew Perry, who has starred for 10 seasons on NBC’s “Friends” (Thursdays, 8-8:30 p.m. ET), returns to guest-star on NBC’s “The West Wing” (Wednesdays, 9-10 p.m. ET) in his Emmy Award-nominated role as a savvy White House associate counsel.
The episode, “Separation of Powers,” will be broadcast in November. In the storyline continuing from his two episodes last spring, Perry portrays Joe Quincy, an ambitious Republican attorney who settles uneasily into his job in President Bartlet’s (Martin Sheen) Democratic administration. When the United States’ chief justice falls ill and is hospitalized, Quincy is asked by Toby (Richard Schiff) to trade on his previous relationship as the justice’s clerk - and ask him to resign.
Filming on Perry’s “The West Wing” episode will be integrated with his production schedule on “Friends” during October.
Perry, who stars as Chandler Bing on “Friends,” received an Emmy nomination last summer as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his previous work in “The West Wing.” His next feature film is “The Whole Ten Yards,” which is due for release Easter weekend as the sequel to the hit comedy “The Whole Nine Yards,” in which he starred with Bruce Willis and Amanda Peet. In addition, Perry made his stage debut in London during his spring hiatus in the play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago.”
“The West Wing” is from John Wells Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. Aaron Sorkin is the creator. John Wells serves as the executive producer.
Posted by Jo at 04:53 PM
October 05, 2003
Lowe: I Was Slighted on 'West Wing'
Newsday
Rob Lowe says he quit "The West Wing" because he felt slighted by the show's creator, Aaron Sorkin, over the size of his role and the money he was making.
Lowe was irked when his part as a White House staffer was cut back and he continued to take home $70,000 an episode, while co-star Martin Sheen, playing the president, got a raise to $300,000 a show.
"Why didn't (Sorkin) know how much I loved him, how much I loved that show?" the actor told TV Guide for its Oct. 11 issue. "Why didn't he love me like I loved him? It's weird, considering it's another man, but that's as close as I can put it."
Lowe also says the show would not accommodate requests for time off. He recalls a meeting at which producers upbraided him for an attendance record that showed he'd been late a total of 17 hours.
"I was spied on. No other cast member had a meeting like that," Lowe said.
Though his decision to leave was seen as a bad career move, Lowe landed on his feet as star and executive producer of "The Lyon's Den," a new legal drama on NBC.
Posted by Jo at 05:26 PM
October 03, 2003
A few minutes with Janel Moloney
USA Weekend Magazine
The actress, who turns 34 this Friday, has begun her fifth season as "The West Wing"'s caustic and charming Donna Moss. Her insider's view:
First things first. Will things between Donna and her boss, Josh Lyman, finally heat up this season?
I don't know! I do know they go through a difficult spot, but I can't tell you what it is.
What do you hope for?
Any opportunity to make out with Brad Whitford, I would be thrilled. But I think it's more fun to want them to get together than for it to actually happen.
How are things since creator Aaron Sorkin left?
We just all had to find our sea legs a little bit. But it's good. We're working really hard and trying to make the show as good as we can.
What would people be surprised to know about you?
That I take tango. That I have a twin sister. That I'm from the [San Fernando] Valley and not the East Coast. I say that because people always, always think I'm from Connecticut or Vermont or something.
What do you TiVo?
I'm addicted to Charlie Rose. And I'm obsessed with something people may find strange: It's a show on TLC called Trauma: Life in the ER, which shows real emergency-room scenes. I'll TiVo three of those and watch them all in a row. I just can't get enough. I can eat my dinner and watch it.
Posted by Jo at 04:07 PM