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February 17, 2004
The harshest critique: "West Wing" is just a TV show
By Gail Pennington
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
02/17/2004
The cast of NBC's "The West Wing."
These are dark days for "The West Wing," in just about every sense of the word.
Our heroes are chronically cranky; rarely does anyone crack a smile, let alone a joke; and somebody seems to have turned out the lights.
It's possible to argue both pro and con for the Emmy-winning NBC drama in its first season since creator Aaron Sorkin was forced out. TV critics did a lot of that while mingling last month in Los Angeles, with some asserting that the show's transition into the hands of executive producer John Wells had been seamless. Others contended that the product had actually improved post-Sorkin. Not so preachy, they said. Easier to follow.
On the other side are those who loved "The West Wing" best in earlier seasons and find it almost a parody of its old self this year. Count me in the group feeling a real sense of loss that something once sublime is now simply a TV show.
Yes, it always was, but what poured from Sorkin's pen was often closer to poetry. An unabashed idealist who could make us laugh and cry, sometimes simultaneously, in every episode, Sorkin also was a sorcerer, capable of turning government minutiae into improbably involving stories.
This season, although plots have offered plenty of high-stakes action, including last week's detonation of a mysterious nuclear device, the fictional White House has not been a pleasant place to visit.
Characters who once felt like family now squabble and snipe at one another. Banter is rare; quips are clunky. Instead of the brisk ballet choreographed by Tommy Schlamme, who set the show's style but departed with Sorkin, cameras thrash around frantically and often pointlessly. And while Schlamme used lighting in painterly fashion, scenes now are just too dark.
NBC, hearing critics' grumblings about the show, brought Wells and every available cast member to Hollywood last month to talk about how they thought the new season was going.
With NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker in the back of the room, most said something that boiled down to, "Fine, thanks."
"It feels very much continued from where we've been," said Janel Moloney, who plays aide Donna Moss. "I feel like the integrity and the voice is strikingly close."
The cast felt "a tremendous sense of relief" on realizing that the show would go on, said Bradley Whitford, who plays Donna's boss, Josh Lyman.
"I can only speak for myself, but it was a hugely emotional and difficult thing to see Aaron and Tommy go away," he said. "It was bewildering and disorienting . . . and I think all of us really wondered, does the idea hold? (That it does is really) a testament to Tommy and Aaron's vision, which was very strong and audacious."
Asked whether his character, chief of staff Leo McGarry, was behaving like himself this season, coming down so hard on staffers, John Spencer said he'd been told recently, "Leo's gotten so mean."
"Mean and nice and all that is in the eye of the beholder," Spencer said.
The Leo of today "is closer to the Leo of the first half of the first season, when Tommy and Aaron said (he) was like if Casey Stengel was the chief of staff of the White House," he said. "Yeah, it's a big responsibility, and he's gruff."
Coming closest to acknowledging that the show had changed was Richard Schiff, who plays communications director Toby Ziegler - and he pointed to Sorkin himself as the root of the change.
"Aaron Sorkin is a wonderful writer with a certain style, a kind of romantic lyricism," Schiff said. "He created a very romantic world with 'The West Wing.' And time is running out on that kind of romantic honeymoon . . . in very much the same way that the real White House runs out on their honeymoon."
Sorkin himself set up the end of the "West Wing" honeymoon with the story line involving the kidnapping of the president's daughter Zoey, Schiff said.
"The White House, as fictionally we know it, was in a hundred million little pieces . . . and you have to move on from there and evolve," Schiff said.
As a result of that evolution, "The West Wing" "is no longer a romantic entity," Schiff said, calling it more of "a reality-driven drama now.
"This is why Leo isn't as attractive a character as he might have been last year, and why Josh and Toby get into these fights and so on," he said.
The honeymoon is over for "The West Wing" in the Nielsen ratings as well, and reality has set in. Once a Top 10 staple, the show ranks 31st for the season to date, and last week it finished second in its 8 p.m. Wednesday time slot, trailing CBS' "King of Queens" by more than a half-million viewers.
And what about Sorkin?
"We have lunch once a month, and he gets all the scripts, as does Tommy," Wells said. "And they both watch all the cuts, and we hear from them. They're both involved."
Staying involved "is harder for Aaron just because it was such an emotional sort of individual activity," Wells said. "But he talks generally about the show and was very helpful," including sitting down with the writing staff and talking shop.
Those who have seen him lately insist that these are not dark days for Sorkin, who previously wrote the play and movie "A Few Good Men" and the ABC comedy "Sports Night." In fact, he recently finished a script for a movie, Whitford said.
In addition, Sorkin wrote an extended foreword and chose the content for the newly released book "The West Wing Seasons 3 and 4: The Shooting Scripts" (Newmarket Press, $29.95 hardcover or $19.95 paperback).
It's a good read, and a great way to relive the days when "The West Wing" wasn't just a TV show.
Posted by Jo at 07:27 AM
February 12, 2004
'The West Wing' gets a political makeover
by Neal Justin
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
LOS ANGELES -- Jed Bartlet's White House was once the most romantic spot on Earth.
We're not talking about make-out sessions in the Oval Office. We mean the kind of place where everyone talks like Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, where heroes make Shakespearean statements and no one giggles, where international crises can be solved in 53 minutes, where most of the movers and shakers are young, single and look nothing like Karl Rove.
Well, the honeymoon is over.
When creator Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the bulk of the episodes, and co-executive producer Thomas Schlamme, one of TV's classiest directors, left at the end of last season, they took the show's lyrical, sometimes whimsical spirit with them.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, according to cast members and executive producer John Wells, who is now the drama's "show-runner."
Sorkin's last episode was his way of saying goodbye to Camelot: President Bartlet's daughter was kidnapped in retaliation for an assassination ordered by the White House.
"That story helped us get a little bit more in line emotionally with where the country is," Wells said, referring to the repercussions of Sept. 11. "There was a huge shift in the middle of this show's run, from a place where we were, to a different place."
In the past, West Wing staffers would fight, but quickly make up over quips and cognac. These days, grudges linger, and White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) hasn't cracked a smile all season.
I recently watched the first five episodes from 1999 again, and was reminded how funny they were.
The pilot episode introduces Press Secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) in a gym trying to hit on someone -- when she slips off the running machine with a flopping dive that would make Chevy Chase proud. The rat-a-tat interplay between Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and his assistant, Donna Moss (Janel Moloney), has a screwball sizzle.
And I forgot just how dry a wit Rob Lowe was, particularly when he was in over his head. As Sam Seaborn, the much-put-upon assistant communications director, he delivers a hilarious, uninformative description of the White House to grade-school kids ("If I'm not mistaken, it's made mostly of cement.")
The creators even make fun of themselves. One long tracking shot, a Schlamme staple, follows Josh and Sam through the hallways when the two suddenly stop and realize that they have no idea where they're going.
"Let's never speak of this to anyone," Josh says.
And then there are the noble, chest-pounding moments that only a comedy could get away with. Martin Sheen's first appearance as the president doesn't happen until the final minutes of the pilot, when he kicks out a group of radical evangelists. It might be the most melodramatic entrance since Norma Desmond descended her staircase.
In one particularly sappy but sweet scene, Josh struggles with personal demons as "Ave Maria" soars on the CD player and C.J. sips wine on his couch. In the next room, the president cooks chili for his staff while his daughter flirts with his assistant.
It's hard to imagine a scene like that today. Cast members admit that they worried about the show's future without Sorkin's optimistic touch.
"Being on a one-hour drama is like being in an acting cult, and it was like David Koresh had left," Whitford said.
But Richard Schiff, who plays communications director Toby Ziegler, said the new, more sullen White House is a welcome one for him as an actor.
"We're no longer a romantic entity," he said. "It's more of a naturalism-and reality-driven drama now."
That might be stretching it a bit. In last week's episode, Toby single-handedly tackled the Social Security crisis, triggering insomnia, a double-cross of his friends, screaming and a resignation letter.
In the end, Toby and the other West Wingers settle for being invisible heroes, while their political allies take the credit. Now that's a romantic notion.
Posted by Jo at 11:14 PM
FROM SESAME STREET TO PENNSYLVANIA AVE: BIG BIRD AND FRIENDS RUFFLE FEATHERS ON 'THE WEST WING'
NBC Press Release
Special Episode Set To Air on NBC, Wednesday, March 3rd
BURBANK, Calif. -– February 12, 2004 –- Members of the Sesame Street Muppets will make their first-ever guest appearance together on a primetime series when they visit The White House on NBC's "The West Wing." The episode will air Wednesday, March 3, 2004, 9:00 –10:00 p.m. ET.
Big Bird, Elmo, Zoe and Rosita make their debut when President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) enlists C.J. (Allison Janney) to help improve the First Lady's image. Abbey (Stockard Channing) embraces C.J.'s suggestion to work with the Muppets and show the public that she's a First Lady who is also a working doctor. The White House staff and their children are abuzz when Abbey films a public service announcement in which she gives the beloved Elmo a check-up.
Sesame Street, produced by the non-profit educational organization Sesame Workshop, will celebrate its 35th anniversary this year.
Sesame Workshop (www.sesameworkshop.org) is a nonprofit educational organization making a meaningful difference in children's lives around the world. Founded in 1968, the Workshop changed television forever with the legendary Sesame Street, a series that continues to address the needs of today's children by emphasizing the important lesson of respect and understanding. Today, the Workshop continues to innovate on behalf of children in 120 countries, using its proprietary research methodology to ensure its programs and products are engaging and enriching.
"The West Wing" is a John Wells Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television Production Inc. John Wells serves as the executive producer. Aaron Sorkin is the creator.
Posted by Jo at 09:23 PM
February 11, 2004
Bingo Night
Paul Droesch
TVGuide.com
Pity is not a word you'd normally associate with John Wells — the impresario of ER (and Third Watch), he's one of television's most powerful and imposing figures. Still, it's hard not to feel a little sorry for any horse thrust into the brilliant, if quirky, Aaron Sorkin's West Wing in midstream.
So is it sink or swim?
Swim, definitely, but Wells is using different strokes — a solid, unspectacular crawl as opposed to Sorkin's flashy butterfly.
OK, things did begin with a flash in September — more Emmys (and more than were expected). But that was before the season even started. And Wells had to begin his administration by dealing with Sorkin's parting shot: the overblown (if compelling) Zoey Bartlet kidnapping,
Since then, though, Wells has steered his ship of state (sorry, there's that metaphor again) through waters that are, if not calmer, at least less personally explosive for the characters involved. True, Josh (Bradley Whitford) has been screwing up left and right (mostly left), Charlie (Dulé Hill) had a girlfriend for half an episode last month, and the complex, conflicted (and very dramatic) marriage of Jed and Abbey Bartlet (Martin Sheen, Stockard Channing) has been rocky of late. But it hasn't seen that much airtime when you get right down to it, and Josh's problems have all been job-related. No, the focus more and more has been on political issues, and wonkish ones at that. A major story arc last fall was built around a Federal-budget impasse, and last week, Toby (Richard Schiff) set out to "save" Social Security. We haven't heard about his twins in months.
The centerpiece of Toby's Social Security strategy involved making nice-nice with a conservative senator, and that hasn't been at all surprising this season. Perhaps it's the cumulative effect of three years of the real Bush White House, but conservatives have been downright good guys on The West Wing this season. Exhibit A.: the intellectually formidable temporary president Glenallen Walken (a wonderfully subdued John Goodman), who has become, if anything, a friend of Bartlet. Look for more of him.
And that senator Toby courted (played by Josef Sommer)? He was even given one of the show's best lines ("The left hand doesn't know what the far-left hand is doing," he sneered to Toby). This brings up the writing — Sorkin's fabled strong point and the facet fans had feared would slip into a just-more-TV-dialogue kind of mediocrity.
It hasn't and here's where the crawl-vs.-butterfly analogy comes in. The dialogue doesn't zip in the "Front Page" way that Sorkin's did, but writers (there are a number of them now) do get their licks in (there's a terrific line about "stardust" tonight) and, more important, the plots have been as involving as ever.
Tonight's issue-oriented story, about a nuclear crisis (Who tested a device in the Indian Ocean? Evidence points to the Iranians), is decidedly un-wonkish. In fact, it's a bit overheated in spots. But then, we're in February sweeps now. There's a guest star, too — Jay Mohr, beginning a three-week stint as a right-wing cable talker who's out to get C.J.'s goat by dubbing her "Chicken of the Week" — but he's peripheral.
Not so peripheral tonight is new Vice President "Bingo Bob" Russell (Gary Cole), who's not known as much of a liberal, either. He's not known as much of anything, actually, and that's why the Republican-dominated Congress foisted him on Bartlet. He's a less-intense and quite welcome addition to the mix. And he stands in stark contrast to his predecessor, the disgraced John Hoynes (Tim Matheson), who'll turn up in two weeks in a corker of an episode written by MSNBC personality Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. (Too bad O'Donnell didn't write such scripts for the late, unlamented Mister Sterling, which he created.)
So things could be worse at NBC's 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In fact, they were worse last year at this time, when critics were roasting Sorkin and ratings fell below those of The Bachelor. Now, Wells is beating The Bachelorette easily. Another recent time-slot competitor, American Idol, has been another story, of course, but The West Wing remains one of NBC's most solid performers, and President Bartlet can look forward to serving out the remainder of his second term without fear of cancellation. Nuclear holocaust, maybe, but not cancellation. — Paul Droesch
Posted by Jo at 04:03 PM
February 10, 2004
'West Wing' actor to talk about Hollywood, Judaism
Josh Malina, best known for roles in Sorkin projects, to share views on the preservation of Israeli state
The Daily Northwestern
The actor who plays the vice president's speechwriter on "The West Wing" will have a chance to air his own views at Northwestern on Wednesday.
Josh Malina, who plays Will Bailey on the NBC drama, spoke with The Daily in a telephone interview Friday from Los Angeles, where he is currently shooting the fifth season of "The West Wing" after joining the cast last year.
Malina developed his theatrical aspirations early in life.
Growing up in New Rochelle, N.Y., near New York City, Malina frequented the diverse range of shows on Broadway -- his father even produced a few.
"I was so hooked from such an early age," he said. "I knew I was going to pursue (acting)."
Malina also saw several plays at a nearby high school in Scarsdale, N.Y., some of which featured a young, then-unknown actor named Aaron Sorkin.
It was the first of many times the two men's paths would cross.
Malina moved home to New York City in 1988 after graduating from Yale University with a degree in theater studies and met Sorkin again at his mother's urging.
"It's classic Jewish mother reasoning," Malina said. "'He's Jewish, you're Jewish, you should call him.'"
It turned out to be a worthwhile call for Malina.
Just a year after graduating from college, the young actor appeared in the Broadway production of Sorkin's play "A Few Good Men."
He has appeared in almost every Sorkin project since, including all of Sorkin's work in television and film.
"He's been very good to me," Malina said of Sorkin.
Hillel Cultural Life is sponsoring the actor's upcoming talk at NU.
Malina's background as a successful, observant Jew and a strong supporter of the state of Israel made him an appealing choice when Hillel was searching for its annual Winter Quarter speaker, said Weinberg sophomore Rachel Sacks.
His experience in the entertainment industry allows him to address an even wider range of issues and appeal to a wider audience, Sacks said.
"Hopefully, his speech will appeal to a lot of different people and people will get what they want out of it," said Sacks, who serves on Hillel's board of directors.
Malina said he has always considered his Jewish heritage very important.
"My Jewish identity is really sort of the core identifier that I recognize," he said.
Malina said he first began to express his religious and political views in public after he attended a Los Angeles rally supporting Israel in 2001.
Many entertainers choose not to be so open about their political beliefs.
Despite the number of prominent Jews in Hollywood, Malina said he was disturbed by how few high-profile celebrities attended the rally or were willing to defend the state of Israel publicly.
"Somehow Israel has become politically untouchable," he said.
Malina later expressed his concern with this issue in an interview with the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. After the interview appeared, invitations from various Jewish groups began pouring in to his office.
Malina's schedule has prevented him from accepting many of the offers.
Although he has attended and helped organize a number of rallies and events, especially in the greater Los Angeles area, he has only recently begun accepting speaking invitations farther away.
He addressed the Greater Miami Jewish Federation in December and is scheduled to make speeches in Baltimore and New York in June.
"I sort of felt a responsibility, to a certain extent, to back up what I'd said," Malina said.
The actor is tailoring his NU address to reflect the broad audience he is expected to draw.
"I'm going to talk about my Jewish background, my career and how the two have started to intersect," he said.
Malina's appearance will include a question-and-answer session, and his speech will be followed by a reception at the Fiedler Hillel Center, 629 Foster St.
Posted by Jo at 03:41 PM
February 04, 2004
Tapping out a thank-you
by David Hinckley
New York Daily News
Many years before he became President Bartlett's aide Charlie on "The West Wing," Dulé Hill was watching TV and saw Gregory Hines dance.
"He did this step," says Hill. "If you saw it, you'd recognize it. He was kind of gliding across the stage. Like, one foot forward, one foot back."
Hill wasn't even a teenager yet. But he'd been dancing since he was 3. Jazz, tap, ballet. He knew steps. He tried this one. He couldn't nail it.
Some months later he was introduced to Hines, at the Joyce Theater.
"I told him I loved the step, but I couldn't figure it out," says Hill. "He showed it to me. I still couldn't get it. And he said, 'Don't worry. It'll come to you.'
"So one night I'm walking out to my parents' car - and I get the step. Like, that was it. He was right. It came to me."
Gregory Hines had that effect. "Passing it on" counts heavily in the arts, as it does in life, and Hines was generous with his time, talent and encouragement.
Friday at Town Hall, a Brooklyn tap-dance troupe called the Young Teenagers will salute Hines and a half-dozen other dancers who passed it on: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Bill (Bojangles) Robinson, Ann Miller, the Nicholas Brothers.
The Sidney Bechet Society Band, Carrie Smith and Byron Stripling will perform, and the emcee will be one of the last survivors from tap's golden age, Harold (Stumpy) Cromer.
Hill won't be there. But he says the spirit of Gregory Hines is never far away.
"Most dancers of my generation would say Gregory was one of their most important influences," says Hill, who is 29.
"He was the bridge from the Nicholas Brothers, John Bubbles, Buster Brown, Tip Tap and Toe and that generation. He was the tap-dancer everyone still knew when a lot of people said tap was dead.
"But I learned just as much from him as a person. When I moved to L.A. to do 'West Wing,' I didn't have family. Gregory was there. It's like he spread a fragrance on the Earth."
Gregory Hines, who died Aug. 9, was 6 when he debuted at the Apollo with his brother Maurice. The Hines Kids would be the next Nicholas Brothers, promoters said. Gregory laughed.
"I'd seen the Nicholas Brothers," he'd say. "I knew if there was one thing we were not, it was the Nicholas Brothers."
No matter. He tapped. He starred in movies, he produced movies, he had a sitcom, he cut records.
He was an all-around entertainer, like Sammy Davis Jr., and Hill says he also passed along that sense of possibility.
"I thought of myself as a dancer," says Hill. "If it weren't for Gregory, I probably wouldn't have stepped into acting."
So does he miss Hines? Obvious question. "Sure I do," says Hill. "But he's doing fine where he is. He's dancing."
Originally published on February 3, 2004
Posted by Jo at 07:30 PM
`West Wing' Remains Stellar
The Transition To A New Administration Hasn’t Harmed ‘West Wing’
By ROGER CATLIN
After its milestone 100th episode last month, in the middle of its most unusual season, "The West Wing" continues to be one of the most literate dramas on network TV, but with a very different tone than before.
The stories seem more conventional, the philosophical and ethical discussions muted. Most noticeably, the breakneck pace of the witty dialogue has been reined in and slowed down.
Sometimes there's even silence.
Scenes occasionally end with the usually chatty, opinionated characters just looking at one another as if thinking, "If Aaron Sorkin were still here, we'd have another witty line or two."
But "West Wing" creator Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme, principal director of the award-winning series, both left last spring at the end of its fourth Emmy-winning season.
"Tommy and I wanted to take the show to its 100th episode," Sorkin writes in the new "The West Wing Seasons 3 & 4, The Shooting Scripts" (Newmarket). "But for various reasons of no interest, it was not to be."
Taking over was John Wells, a writer and show-runner on "The West Wing" who also runs both "ER" and "Third Watch." The strong ensemble cast of "West Wing," which underwent its own jolt last year when Rob Lowe left and Joshua Malina joined, remained strong through the change, which the actors say wasn't as pronounced as it may seem.
"A lot of us talk sometimes about the new things that we have to deal with as actors," says Janel Moloney, who portrays Donna Moss. "We think they're new, and then we'll say, `No, no. Actually, we've done something like this three years ago.'
"I remember a stunning moment that Aaron Sorkin actually wrote, in which everything was stopped, and President Bartlet reached down and tied his shoe. And there was a good 35 seconds that there was nothing going on. There are a lot of silences.
"I don't feel like it's been a spectacular change," Moloney says of the Sorkin-Schlamme departure. "I feel like the integrity and the voice is strikingly close to where we had been, much quicker than I ever expected."
Bradley Whitford, who portrays Josh Lyman, deputy chief of staff, says there's no doubt it was "a hugely emotional and difficult thing to see Aaron and Tommy go away. It was bewildering and disorienting. I always say being on a one-hour drama is like being in an acting cult, and it's like David Koresh left.
"All of us really wondered: Does the idea hold? And I think I speak for the cast that there was a tremendous sense of relief very early on this year that the idea does hold, the characters hold, and the quality of the scripts was going to be high, and that these were going to continue to be interesting stories to act out. And that's a testament to the talent of the writing staff, and it's a testament to Tommy and Aaron's vision, which I think was very strong and audacious."
Just as he might in character as White House communications director Toby Ziegler, Richard Schiff interrupts, "I actually think it's kind of even better than that. I think Aaron Sorkin is a wonderful writer with a certain style of romantic lyricism. He created a very romantic world with `The West Wing.'
And time is running out on that kind of romantic honeymoon," Schiff says, "in the fictional White House in very much the same way that the real White House runs out on their honeymoon, usually a whole lot sooner. And Aaron presented on a silver platter, I think, for the next generation of writers and for us as characters, the shattering of that romanticism."
It shattered at the end of last season, when the president's daughter was kidnapped, Schiff says. "The reality of the White House as fictionally we know it was in a hundred million little pieces," he says. "And you have to move on from there and evolve from there."
That's why the character of White House chief of staff Leo McGarry seems so gruff and uncompromising this season and why Toby and Josh seem to be always fighting, Schiff says.
"The big surprise is that Aaron stayed as long as he did," says John Spencer, who won an Emmy last year for his work as McGarry. Spencer recalls when a Washington insider told him, "`In the real West Wing, we lose people every four or five months.' And it kind of put things in perspective for me."
He credits Wells for making "the transition as seamless as it was." For his part, Wells says he still lunches with Sorkin once a week and shares all of the scripts with the creator and with Schlamme. "They both watch all the cuts, and we hear from them," Wells says. "They're both involved. It's just harder for Aaron just because it was such an emotional sort of individual activity."
Posted by Jo at 07:38 AM