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January 08, 2004
'West Wing' 100th episode
Despite staff changes behind the scenes, the show remains the yardstick by which primetime dramas are measured
By Ray Richmond
Hollywood Reporter
It isn't an exaggeration to say that as it achieves the 100th-episode milestone tonight at 9, NBC's "The West Wing" has done much to change the primetime TV landscape. With its elaborate production, abundant location work and detailed permanent Oval Office on the Warner Bros. lot, the show has ushered in a new era of big-budget drama during its highly decorated 4 1/2 years of life.
Not that many shows enjoy as hefty a budget as "West Wing." The ensemble political hour is made for an estimated $6 million an episode, and NBC has renewed it through the 2004-05 season, with an option for 2005-06. There is little doubt that when all is said and done, the show will be viewed as one of television's true classics, replete with top-notch production values and an impeccable cast.
Say what you want about "West Wing's" ratings dip and purported slip in quality in 2003, not to mention the much-publicized exit last year of creator/executive producer/chief writer/all-around guru Aaron Sorkin and primary director Thomas Schlamme: The turmoil has done little to slow the steam the show has built during its first 99 episodes. And the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has taken notice: "West Wing" has received 72 Primetime Emmy nominations during its four years of eligibility and won 23 statuettes, including four outstanding drama series wins in a row. (The consecutive top-drama trophies tie a record set by NBC's "Hill Street Blues" during the 1980s.) As cable programs continue to make qualitative inroads on what was the exclusive domain of broadcast, "West Wing" has proved one of the precious few exceptions: Its critical acclaim -- at least in sheer statuette terms -- is unmatched.
For its part, the "West Wing" brain trust finds discussion of so-called backlash from TV critics to be greatly overblown.
"When we look at the critical response, we still find much more positive than negative," says co-executive producer Lew Wells, a five-time Emmy winner and brother of executive producer John Wells. "In any event, as creative artists, we simply have to look past those things and not stop and stare at the reviews too much, or you get yourself into trouble."
Adds director/co-executive producer Alex Graves: "The goal of the show remains the same: We're trying first and foremost to entertain people; we're working to be a relevant hour to watch. I don't mean that to sound at all pretentious: We just want to be interesting and intelligent. That's the goal when Aaron was here, and it's the goal now with the new writers. But the show has always been difficult to pull off on a scene-by-scene basis given traditional TV budget and schedule constraints. Not that I'm complaining about our budget, which is very healthy."
Tonight's 100th episode features John Goodman and James Cromwell as former presidents who attend the funeral of another ex-president with current president Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen). The three will share sobering thoughts on what the weight of being chief executive has meant in their lives.
The past two seasons also have found Matthew Perry lending the show a boost in a recurring role as a savvy White House associate counsel. The "Friends" star initially appeared on "West Wing" in the spring and was featured again in a sweeps episode in November. Such appearances are part of an ongoing effort to keep "West Wing" -- which offers viewers a realistic behind-the-scenes peek into the Oval Office through the eyes of an eclectic group of frenzied White House staffers and the first family -- as fresh and lively as when charged onto the air in 1999.
During this fifth season, Annabeth Gish has joined the cast in a recurring role as the president's eldest daughter, with Steven Eckholdt portraying her husband. Gary Cole also has begun a recurring role as vice president during a season that has found the prez invoking the 25th Amendment to step down from office while dealing with his daughter Zoey's (Elisabeth Moss) abduction.
An entirely new team of writers also has come aboard this season, forging new directions and a fresh perspective. But the show isn't too different from what it was at the start: "West Wing" set the bar exceedingly high with a groundbreaking craft-oriented approach that continues to be the standard against which most other TV dramas are
measured. A large part of the show's success surely can be ascribed to its lush, sophisticated look, which Graves emphasizes was established by Schlamme and director of photography Thomas Del Ruth from the get-go.
"They were married to a feature film look that romanticized the White House being depicted," Graves says. "They established a feel that's served us throughout our run. But one of the secrets is that there's no real single style for the show; it's the script that dictates the style. We kind of work backwards once we know what the end of the show is, and that may affect the lighting, the costumes and the amount of camera movement we do and don't use."
Del Ruth, who has won a pair of Emmys (in 2000 and 2001) and has been nominated five times, recalls that the idea for "West Wing's" look came out of a desire to "push the boundaries of what you can do on TV and eliminate convention from the imagery." That included plenty of experimentation.
"What you don't want to do as a cinematographer is overlight the actors to the point where the story is lost, and there's no emotional impact for the audience," Del Ruth says. "So what we did in the photography is provide extreme areas of darkness and high contrast to accentuate the occasional shady nature of what government is. There is a certain amount of 'should not know'; the shadowy areas are designed as a metaphor for hiding the truth."
In addition, the actors' lighting has been designed to "give a sense of kinetic motion to scenes, even when the players are in relatively static positions," Del Ruth says. "So there's always something to catch your eye that's underlined by intensely bright light and accompanied by deep shadow. These are the concepts that have driven us from the beginning; they aren't scene-to-scene textures so much as an overall theme."
Such artistic nuance doesn't come without a steep price tag attached, Del Ruth acknowledges. More than 600 lighting instruments were built into the initial set, he notes. "Normally, you have only about 25% of that, but there was desire from the outset to evoke a kinetic sense of government in motion," Del Ruth says. "This show is all about movement, and by and large, it's been money well-spent."
"West Wing" production designer Ken Hardy, a three-time Emmy nominee for the show, describes his task as working to make government look and feel more exciting than it actually is.
"You're basically taking a boring government institution and turning their space into something rich and powerful," Hardy says. "The mandate was to take what's going on in those drab offices and reflect the power with something that's visually arresting. I mean, the way government typically operates is much less interesting than you want it to be visually; making it exciting has been the great design challenge of the show, and I feel like we've met it."
And how: There are few who would dispute the impeccable detail and functionality of the show's Oval Office set. But it has been about far more than a mere spare-no-expense ethic, Lew Wells believes.
"It's just a sincere desire to re-create the world of the West Wing of the White House in as great detail as we possibly could," Wells says. "We took a lot of artistic leaps of faith: We created something that was more visually interesting than the real thing for filming purposes. For instance, the real West Wing has a lot of hallways and white walls, so we created flow-through spaces and window offices, rather than the more secure and private layout that's the reality."
Graves believes that the key to "West Wing's" success is the talent the show has been able to attract. "It's a combination of a love affair with the subject matter and the fact that just an unbelievable group of people came together to do the show," he says. "One of the secrets is clearly the incredible amount of talent behind the scenes as well as onscreen." Aside from Sheen, the much-honored "West Wing" cast includes Stockard Channing, Allison Janney, Dule Hill, Bradley Whitford, Richard Schiff, Janel Moloney, Joshua Malina and John Spencer, an Emmy-winning (in 2002) veteran actor who plays President Bartlet's loyal chief of staff, Leo McGarry.
But even with all of the budget and effort expended on how "West Wing" looks, Spencer believes, the show would be nothing without the writing.
"It always starts with the words," Spencer says. "A wonderful actor can make mediocre words sound good, but he can't achieve greatness unless the words are there, too. Very early on, we were all blessed by the incredible writing of Aaron Sorkin. That's why the transition period from Aaron to John Wells has been so effortless: Aaron set the table impeccably."
Not that Spencer is minimizing the show's look. The photography turns the show into "22 little features every season," he says. "We're shot on the same film stock that's used for features, and, I mean, we're on an extraordinary set -- it's the first one I've ever worked on that has four actual walls and a ceiling. That's one reason the acting has been able to flourish: We all feel like we're really in the White House." Spencer raves about how the performers regularly walk into a perfectly formed room with perfect props and actual memorabilia on the walls.
"It's the rarest of rarities in TV," Spencer says. "I mean, people just have no idea how hard it is to have a hit on television -- all of the stars have to align just right, and there's more than a little bit of luck involved."
That luck is proving itself again in "West Wing's" syndication life. The show runs four times daily Monday-Thursday and twice on Friday on the NBC-owned Bravo cable network.
"'The West Wing' has been a ratings hit since it premiered last summer," Bravo vp strategic programming Dan Harrison says. "It's proved to be a perfect fit for our upscale audience."
The show's continued success remains a source of pride for cast and crew. "To survive that long in this day and age is a great accomplishment," Graves says. "It's something none of us ever takes for granted."
Published Jan. 07, 2004
Posted by Jo at January 8, 2004 10:53 AM