Bartlet4America News Archive: March 2006 Archives

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March 29, 2006

‘West Wing’ must deal with Spencer’s loss

No one can fill actor’s shoes, but someone must fill spot on tic

By Stuart Levine
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11488275/

According to the pundits, Dick Cheney has more power than any vice president in U.S. history. The same might have been said for Leo McGarry, the vice-presidential candidate John Spencer played on NBC's "The West Wing."

McGarry, who served as chief of staff before joining Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) on the show's Democratic ticket, won’t be able to find out if the Dems are able to retain the Oval Office. Spencer died suddenly Dec. 20 of a heart attack just as the show's Election Day was nearing. His death will be addressed on the April 2 episode of the show.

NBC has been coy in revealing how executive producers John Wells and Lawrence O’Donnell will blend fact into fiction. McGarry had suffered a heart attack last season, so it makes sense that’ll be the reason behind his death.

The New York Post reported that his funeral has already been filmed, with the Air Force Honor Guard participating, and that the episode will air April 16. It might be the most emotional night of fictional television of the year.

Ultimate insider, ultimate underdog
McGarry always seemed to work best when everyone was counting him out.

After collapsing in the woods at Camp David and becoming too impaired to continue with his chief of staff duties, he returned to the White House wounded, but far from politically impaled. While everyone was treating him with a “It’s nice to have you back but please stay out of my way,” he devised a vision for the remaining year of the administration in "Wing's" uplifting “365 Days” episode.

Similarly, this season, while preparing for the critical VP debate he seemed old, discombobulated and completely inarticulate while stumbling on policy issues. All an ingenious ruse, it turned out. As soon as McGarry saw the camera’s red light, he slaughtered his Republican opponent with both homespun charm and a clear analysis of where the country should be headed.

Now the question is where should the Santos team be headed? Who’s in the best position to take over the vacated VP spot, and how much of a blow will McGarry’s sudden departure be to the ticket?

Even though the VP is only a heartbeat away from the presidency, surveys show that voters really don’t concern themselves with who’s in the second chair. So it’s possible McGarry’s death won’t be a big deal when voters pull the curtain entering the polling booth.

But if the election is as close as the writers are letting on — after being down most of the race, Santos has pulled ahead ever so slightly in a few of the key battleground states — whoever Santos chooses could swing the vote one way or another.

So who are the logical choices? One interesting pick would be C.J. Cregg, played with gusto by four-time Emmy winner Allison Janney. She’s already been promoted once, from press secretary to chief of staff, but this leap seems a bit of a reach.

Not that she couldn’t handle the job. She's juggling more now on the domestic and international fronts than she ever would as VP. But choosing a woman might make some spineless and redneck voters uneasy and it’s unlikely the Dems want to give undecided voters a reason to go the other way.

Rob Lowe, who was originally cast as presidential confidante Sam Seaborn in its first season, is returning for the final two episodes. When Lowe left the series after the fourth season, his character was planning to run in a congressional race, which might give him enough political experience here to satisfy voters.

That leaves us with the most unorthodox choice, but one that, if the writers set up the framework correctly, could be one of the most exciting as well.

While solidly seated in the Republican base, Alan Alda’s California senator Arnold Vinick is much more politically centered than many in his party. He's been tough for the Democrats to campaign against because on several issues, he and Smits think the same.

What if Santos wins the election and word of Leo’s death doesn’t get out until after the results? If the election is decided by a razor-thin margin, how about asking Vinick to join as VP to unify the country? Unorthodox? Absolutely. Possible? Sure, why not?

Sure, some personal fences would need immediate mending, but it would give a chance to tell America that the candidates are more important than their party affiliations. If government is really for the people, and we want our best citizens to strive for the highest office, perhaps the two-party system doesn’t necessarily need to be adversarial, if candidates can unite on the important issues. Sure, it’s probably pure folly but what better venue than network television will Wells and company have to make their case?

“West Wing,” which will end its proud seven-year run in May, has always shined when reaching for political nirvana. Sam’s affairs with prostitutes, Donna’s longing for Josh’s approval, and marital affairs of future son-in-laws have always been nothing more than attempts to woo viewers who thought the show's politics were too highbrow.

But being highbrow at the cost of ratings and making sure government is available to everyone — no matter the cost — is the legacy of “West Wing.”

Leo McGarry would wholeheartedly agree.

Posted by Jo at 07:13 AM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2006

West Wing wizard

By Debi Enker
The Age

In 1996, Eli Attie worked as a special assistant to president Bill Clinton. From 1997 to 2000, he was communications adviser and chief speechwriter for vice-president Al Gore. For the past five years he's been putting words into the mouth of president Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his fast-talking staff on The West Wing.

The 37-year-old New Yorker describes himself as an accidental screenwriter, a Washington insider with no plans for a show-biz career who found himself working in the fictional equivalent of the White House. But he quickly became aware of the differences between 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and its Burbank studio equivalent.

In real life, he says, "not everybody has the perfect comeback or rejoinder, not everybody has their views on a policy question so perfectly crystallised and formulated as they often do in a West Wing scene. If you stuck a camera in the real west wing of the White House, you'd mostly be watching people checking their emails and talking on the phone. It would not be very exciting television."

What was exciting to Attie, though, was the drama's representation of the people who were drawn to careers in politics: "I was still working at the White House for about a year into the run of the show, and for the first time there was something in popular culture that depicted the people who worked in politics as decent, honourable, hard-working people who wake up in the morning and try to do the right thing. Some people thought it was utopian but I think it's a closer to the heart of what government is like in America.

"Characters on West Wing make mistakes but they're trying to do their best. They're the kind people that you'd want running the government. They might not always get it right, but they're wrestling with the right questions."

Attie started work on the show during its third season, as a political adviser to the series creator, executive producer and chief writer, Aaron Sorkin, "giving him story ideas and helping him work through the political plots". In the kind of progression that aspiring screenwriters might dream about, his role gradually grew, initially to writing scenes, then to entire episodes and finally to a dual credit that identifies him as a writer and producer.

He's now written about a dozen episodes and contributed to many others and, although he's credited as a supervising producer, he's a little dismissive of the title.

"What happens on television shows in America is that as you stick around as a writer and wise up a bit, you end up with a producing title. I'm involved with some other aspects of the show, casting and editing, but at the margins. The title ends up being a fancy title. People always think that you're laying cable, raising millions of dollars, wearing an ascot . . . If I can get words on the page, that's usually the best thing that I can do for everybody."

Attie has worked on West Wing through its two distinct phases: the four-season Sorkin era and the post-Sorkin period, after the creator was replaced by writer and executive producer John Wells (China Beach, ER, Third Watch). Both men, he says, have their qualities: "They're different personalities but they may be the two most talented TV writers and creators working today. John Wells has an enormous gift for storytelling - he intuitively knows how to make stories rich and complex and interesting, and how to solve problems in other people's scripts.

"Aaron is like the Mozart of wonderful dialogue. He has an ear for screenwriting that's really like music. Good writing can only be a product of good thinking. To run a show that's as smart and as creative as West Wing really reflects the person."

However, he notes that the producers have steered the drama through markedly different phases. "Towards the end of Aaron's time, because of what was going on in America and in the world, the show was becoming a little darker, a little grittier. When John Wells took over, that was definitely a direction that we moved in. We got into campaign politics, which the show had mostly avoided, and sought to depict the seamier reality of how you run a campaign and the kinds of compromises that you're faced with, how hard it is sometimes to take the honourable path.

"To some degree, after the first four seasons, we were thinking, 'What can we do now that we haven't already done?' How do you maintain the standard? The idea of running a new presidential campaign, which in a lot of ways reinvigorated the show in the sixth season, was entirely John Wells' idea."

Currently in the US, West Wing is midway through its seventh and final 22-part season. Attie says episode 18 is being shot, 19 is being written, and the finale is being plotted. The final episodes will be emotional for the people who have worked on the show, a sadness accentuated by the recent death of series stalwart John Spencer, who played chief of staff Leo McGarry.

"It's a poignant time for everybody here because it's been such a wonderful run for all of us and it's hard to close the chapter." As he reflects on the series that drew him from the whirl of politics into the hurly burly of TV production, Attie says, "It's a credit to Aaron Sorkin and John Wells that West Wing is a world where speechwriting is a sexy noble job, which is never how it was in the real White House. That's what happens when writers decide on the importance of writing in their fictional world.

"One of the premises of the West Wing, which I think is a wonderful thing and a rare thing, is that intelligence is nobility. That's one of the reasons why there are these passionate debates over sentence construction. It's not a show where people are fighting over the gun; they're usually fighting over the preposition. Maybe some people don't find that to be compelling television, but ideas really matter to these people, and it's why it's such a wonderful world to live in as a writer. Because wouldn't it be nice if the real world was more like that?"

The West Wing screens on Thursdays at 9.30pm on the ABC (9.20pm from March 30).

Posted by Jo at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2006

Lowe Reflects on 'West Wing' Return

Rob Lowe talks about returning for the final days of 'The West Wing'
By Daniel Fienberg
http://www.zap2it.com

Although his new comedy, "Thank You For Smoking," is about the intersection of Hollywood and Washington, Rob Lowe sticks to the Tinseltown side, as a smarmy agent. Lowe is, however, ready for a return to the Beltway.

"I did the bulk of it last week and I think I have one more quick appearance," Lowe says of his scheduled return to NBC's "The West Wing," a cameo set to coincide with the Emmy-winning show's pending series finale.

From 1999-2003, Lowe played Sam Seaborn on the political drama, earning an Emmy nomination in 2001 and picking up a pair of Screen Actors Guild awards as part of the series' decorated ensemble. A speechwriter and deputy communications director at the White House, Sam went off to run in a California special congressional election, allowing Lowe to depart. Neither of his subsequent television gigs -- "The Lyon's Den" and "Dr. Vegas" -- made it through even a half-season.

In addition to those series projects, Lowe had done several telefilms and features. One thing he apparently hasn't been doing is keeping up with his old show.

"I've been off the series for so long I don't really have a sense of what they've been doing, really," Lowe says in response to a question about whether or not this is the right time for "The West Wing" to be calling it quits. "I haven't watched it enough to know how the show really is since my departure."

Now, as "The West Wing" prepares for its last episodes this May, Lowe is one of several long-absent vets -- including Mary-Louise Parker and Marlee Matlin -- slated for returns.

"It was like going back to high school," Lowe says of his "Wing" visit. "You go, 'I thought my locker was bigger than this.'"

Lowe is reticent to offer any specifics on what Sam's been doing since he left or what brings him back to the White House.

"I cannot. It's not a huge thing -- I don't land in a spaceship on the South Lawn -- but it is a sort of fun return."

He admits, though, that being on the "West Wing" set without John Spencer, who died in December, made the experience bittersweet.

"It was very sad," he says. "I kept going to the trailers thinking he was going to come out and go 'Kid, I've missed you so much.'"

"Thank You For Smoking" is now in theaters. "The West Wing" finale will air on May 14, though its unclear which closing episodes will feature Lowe.

Posted by Jo at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2006

‘West Wing’ Star Visits Dayton For Stang Memorial

http://www.whiotv.com/news/7810327/detail.html

DAYTON, Ohio -- Actor Martin Sheen is visiting Dayton Wednesday to honor Sister Dorothy Stang, the Dayton native who was killed last year in Brazil.

Sheen will unveil a portrait of her at Chaminade-Julienne High School. The actor and the nun graduated from Chaminade and Julienne before two schools merged.

Sheen commissioned the painting, which will eventually hang in a Cincinnati convent.

While in Dayton, the "West Wing" star also will go to a prayer service and give a talk about social justice issues to students from area high schools.

Stang was gunned down last year by men allegedly working for ranchers opposed to her work to save the Brazilian rainforest. Two men are now serving prison sentences.

Posted by Jo at 10:40 PM | Comments (0)

March 04, 2006

'West Wing' Shoots In Baltimore

http://www.thewbalchannel.com/entertainment/7661036/detail.html

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore became one of the last backdrops for NBC television drama "The West Wing."

If you saw the presidential motorcade driving down North Charles Street on Friday, you were right -- well, sort of.

WBAL-TV 11 News reporter Melissa Carlson reported the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen held a mock funeral for the television show.

"Today, the scene is about the funeral of the chief of staff, Leo, John Spencer, who died in real life," said Hanna Byron, of the Baltimore City Film Office.

The 58-year old "West Wing" actor died from a heart attack last January. Spencer played the Democratic vice presidential candidate. His running mate, played by actor Jimmy Smits, was among the actors in Baltimore on Friday.

Carlson said the shoot looked like the real thing, replete with the Secret Service and the police presence.

"(Baltimore is) playing for Washington, D.C. They shot the interior of the funeral in Los Angeles, but they're shooting the exteriors here in Baltimore. So, we're really happy that they're doing that here," Byron said.

Actor Rick Cane, a Maryland native, has worked on "The West Wing" for the last five seasons. He said it's great to see his town on TV.

"It's always great to be able to work on these shows and see how it is edited together and see how seamless it is," Cane said. "I've worked on a lot of productions where they pieced it together, a little in D.C., a little in Baltimore," he said.

The show shot in Baltimore is set to air sometime in May.

Posted by Jo at 07:06 PM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2006

Former Cast Members Return to West Wing

http://comingsoon.net/news/tvnews.php?id=13394

Former cast members -- including Rob Lowe -- and frequent guest stars are flocking back to NBC's The West Wing as the political drama nears its finish, reports Variety.

Lowe is set to star in two of the last episodes, while others, including Mary-Louise Parker, Gary Cole, Tim Matheson and Annabeth Gish, will appear in one or more of the final five episodes.

Lowe last played Sam Seaborn in the show's fourth season. Parker will revive her character Amy Gardner, the first lady's chief of staff, last seen in the 2003-04 season.

Also back are Cole as VP Bob Russell and Matheson as Former Vice President John Hoynes. Gish will reprise her role as President Bartlet's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, while Marlee Matlin is back as political consultant Joey Lucas.

Also, CSI: Miami star Emily Procter will revive her role as associate White House counsel Ainsley Hayes, not seen since season three, and Anna Deavere Smith will return as National Security Adviser Nancy McNally.

Timothy Busfield will return as White House press corps member Danny Concanon.

Posted by Jo at 07:39 AM | Comments (0)