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January 11, 2004
With Sorkin's departure, 'West Wing' has lost its spark
By Terri Hahn
The Grand Island Independent
Where is Aaron Sorkin when you need him?
I don't know where he is, but it's becoming more evident every week that "The West Wing" needs him now more than ever.
The show's creator/writer/executive producer was shown the door last spring after four seasons, reportedly because studio heads were frustrated with Sorkin's inability to meet deadlines. After Sorkin's dismissal, fans feared the show would lose the elements that made it special.
They were right.
I've been a fan of "West Wing" (8 p.m. Wednesday, NBC) since it first debuted in September 1999. I don't think I've missed more than a couple of episodes in four and a half seasons. I liked the characters, the plot lines and the dialogue. The show had a good mix of comedy and drama and knew when to use each. Serious subjects were treated with respect, but there was a lot of room for humor (the Thanksgiving episode in Season 2 where C.J. Craig, the press secretary, had to choose which of two turkeys would get the President's annual Thanksgiving pardon, is memorable). Each character had his/her good and bad traits. They weren't perfect, but they seemed like real people in real jobs with real problems.
Of course, not every episode was perfect. There were miscues and missteps. President Bartlet's speeches got a little preachy sometimes. But those moments were so infrequent and there was so much good stuff in each episode, that fans could forgive those transgressions.
Then comes Season 5.
Now Sorkin (along with Thomas Schlamme) is gone and John Wells (a co-producer over at "ER") is sitting in the executive producer/ writer chair. The changes were evident right from the start:
The witty banter is gone. Dialogue seems forced and wooden.
The characters seem to have forgotten who they are and how they got there.
The plot lines seem contrived.
The First Lady, fabulously played by Stockard Channing, has been banished to the family farm in New Hampshire.
And Wells seems to forget from time to time whether he is on the set of "West Wing" or "ER."
Did a recent scene of Josh Lyman bursting through a set of double doors in the West Wing remind anyone else of the scene in the opening credits of "ER" where Dr. Romano bursts through a set of double doors in the Emergency Room? In the scene with Josh, I half expected to see a gurney flying through the hallways right behind him. The fact that Laura Inness, who plays Dr. Kerry Weaver on "ER," is also directing episodes of "West Wing," makes it even more confusing.
But I've stuck with the show all season, wanting to give the new staff a chance to get settled in. I didn't want to give up on the show just yet.
But Wednesday night may have been the last straw. The episode dealing with the death of a former president left me wondering just how far this show can sink before someone puts it out of its misery. I've thought about where the show would go when Bartlet's second term is up. Now I'm wondering if it will even get that far.
The show focused on Bartlet and former presidents traveling aboard Air Force One to the funeral, an uprising in Saudi Arabia, a rift between North Carolina and Connecticut over a stolen copy of the Bill of Rights after the Civil War, tension between Leo and his daughter, C.J. asking questions about mind control experiments at the Pentagon, and something about Abraham Lincoln. Whatever the message was, it went right over my head.
The show opened with Former President Lassiter writing a letter to Bartlet that was delivered to the President after Lassiter died. What did he write? Who knows? We only saw and heard bits and pieces of it.
Speechwriter Toby Ziegler was assigned to write the eulogy for Lassiter, a man he had never met. He spent the entire trip on Air Force Once agonizing over what to write and even helped himself to a drink from the president's liquor cabinet to help him along. What he finally came up with, we'll never know, because we never heard it.
The show's references to Lincoln were vague and obscure and I never did get the point. The letter from Lassiter made some reference along the lines of "Visit Lincoln and listen." The show ended with Bartlet at the Lincoln Memorial, just standing there, listening, I guess. To what, I don't know.
This is what is frustrating about the show this year. I used to come to the end of an episode sorry that it was over, feeling that I had been on a 60-minute wild wide. Usually I had learned something about politics, history or government.
At the end of Wednesday's episode, I felt nothing. Watching Bartlet at the Memorial, I kept waiting for something, anything. Even a "To be continued ..." line to keep me interested in next week's show would have been welcome. It was not to be.
Posted by Jo at January 11, 2004 09:58 AM