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April 06, 2005
Tonight's 'West Wing' season finale won't be grand ending
by Tom Dorsey
Louisville Courier Journal
Season finales will start popping up regularly in the next few weeks as the networks get ready for the end of the season in May.
"The West Wing" winds up tonight at 9 on NBC. The drama aired fewer reruns than other shows this season and has run out of original episodes. Networks also bench their poorer performers for the May sweeps, even though this show has been renewed for next fall.
The people who work in television's "West Wing" are just happy the audience and the network are returning them to their TV White House. Just three seasons ago the political drama was ninth in the ratings. It's 44 in the most recent weekly standings.
That's a bit of a rebound from some of the lows the show slipped to when there was a lot of talk about the series being shut down. The recent ratings uptick and a lot of buzz helped save it.
Martin Sheen's impending exit from "The West Wing" as President Bartlet is the other reason observers thought it was curtains for the political drama. But the producers and writers breathed new life into the story this year by introducing a quartet of well-known actors running to replace Sheen as chief executive.
Jimmy Smits, in particular, gave the show a shot in the arm. One poll showed the overwhelming majority of viewers thought his election as president would offer the best chance of keeping the series on the air.
Smits, however, never confuses playing an elected official with actually being one. Asked how his character would have handled the Terri Schiavo case, he told the Denver Post it was a private matter and he didn't have a position on the issue.
The addition of Alan Alda to "The West Wing" was also a stroke of genius. Interestingly enough, the good guy of "M*A*S*H" has emerged as a controversial, if not quite villainous, presidential nominee.
Gary Cole also gave the plot some added weight, as did Tim Matheson. The foursome, together with Sheen and a strong supporting staff of performers, have resurrected a series that was running on life support with scripts about Bartlet's illness.
Nobody is saying what will happen in tonight's season so-long, but there probably won't be any grand ending because all the major players will be back in the fall. Look at tonight as the end of a new beginning.
Posted by Jo at April 6, 2005 03:20 PM