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January 17, 2005
Alternative reality also bites
By Katy Burns
Concord Monitor
January 16. 2005 8:00AM
If the West Wing screenwriters are campaigning for re-election, they won't be getting my vote.
S
orry, but Matt Santos is a self-righteous know-it-all, and there's no way he's going to win the New Hampshire primary. Especially when he's not willing to make nice with local politicos, sneers at the rest of us as a bunch of out-of-touch pasty-white Mayflower descendants and wants to federalize education and extend the school year. Also, have I mentioned that he thinks he's too good to campaign at town dumps?
Only in some loopy screenwriter's dream would such a character ever win the hearts and minds of Granite Staters.
And so, of course, it's going to happen. The pompous Santos will not only win the Granite State but will also replace Jed Bartlet in the Oval Office. At least, that is, if the ratings for NBC's The West Wing don't totally tank.
If they don't, it won't be because the show's faithful fans aren't upset. They are, and with reason, because it looks as if their lovely imaginary world is falling apart.
Since September 1999, West Wing has won a place in the hearts of many Americans, particularly those for whom, since January 2001, it has been a nice little Wednesday night slice of alternative reality.
Sure, stunningly inarticulate George W. Bush and his crude, rude allies might be stomping around the real White House, plotting their assaults on the environment and scheming to kick Old Europe in its collective teeth. But a kinder, gentler President Josiah (Jed) Bartlet - a New Hampshireman, no less! - has been eruditely holding down an imaginary fort at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., supporting high culture, protecting clean air and water and defending society's underdogs.
Bartlet, presumably no relation to the real two-Ts Josiah Bartlett (an illustrious former
governor who signed the Declaration of Independence), is a Dartmouth economics professor and Nobel Prize winner who for some reason lives in Manchester on what looks very much like a Virginia horse farm (probably because that is, in fact, where his home scenes were filmed).
He's married to a tell-it-like-it-is doctor, Abbey, who until recently (before botched plastic surgery?) bore a striking resemblance to respected actress Stockard Channing, and he has three daughters. He also has a passel of spunky staffers - Josh, CJ, Leo, Donna, Charlie - as well as one chronically depressed one, Toby. Or at least he had them until, recently, they started decamping.
President Bartlet's West Wing also has - or had, at least in the early years - sophisticated, snappy dialogue about subjects of real interest to policy wonks: stem cell research, access to health care and higher education, global famine and population control, all dissected in rapid-fire repartee by the show's talented actors.
Plus there was enough actual action - redneck racists gunning for daughter Zoey and her black paramour (who just happened to be her father's personal assistant), press secretary CJ's Secret Service lover shot down when he happened into a cheesy convenience store stickup - to keep it from being wholly a talkfest.
Alas, all good things must come to an end, including the Bartlet presidency. It's going away in part because soon Bartlet's imaginary term will end and, maybe in greater part, because its current writers are running out of plots.
So discussions of policy pall. Instead we get not only increasingly over-the-top scenarios - I keep waiting for "Next week: Asteroid to hit L.A.! President says nuke it!"-but also more and more contrived controversy. Is CJ a lesbian? Will Donna and Josh ever admit their secret feelings for each other? Does anyone care?
The script calls for staff members to flee the Bartlet White House. However, they leave not to write books and pull down big bucks as lobbyists and consultants but to subject themselves once again to the snows of New Hampshire (played by the booming burg of Dundas, Ontario, Canada) and the vagaries of its primary voters. C'mon, how real is that?
And as this happens, New Hampshire, which until now has been a grateful but minor player in the series, is assuming a bigger role - and it's a New Hampshire that's quite repellent, filled with egomaniacal but clueless officials and voters who insist on being wooed in their homes, VFW halls and coffee shops.
It's bad enough that green-eyed pols from places like Michigan -Michigan! - are doing their best to snatch away our God-given right to be, as one West Winger put it, the "presidential wine-tasters of America." Now we have to put up with a crew of Hollywood hacks who are apparently hell-bent on portraying us as a bunch of thin-skinned yokels who bridle at the slightest perceived insult. I for one resent it!
Well, they can bring Matt Santos to New Hampshire as often as they want. They can't make me vote for him, though, and I suspect the same will be true of a lot of erstwhile staunch fans of Bartlet and Company. Instead, as Jed Bartlet rides into the Manchester sunset, we'll turn our attentions to the realNew Hampshire primary.
After all, it's what, just 1,100 or so days away? Certainly none too soon to get ready to be wooed in our homes, VFW halls and coffee shops!
Posted by Jo at January 17, 2005 07:54 PM