« 'The West Wing' exits with dignity | Main | NBC Betting on Aaron Sorkin's New Drama »
May 15, 2006
‘West Wing’, first really successful show about politics, ends tonight
BY JEFF KORBELIK
Lincoln Journal Star
President Bartlet will go out to an ovation tonight in the series finale of “The West Wing.”
Not surprisingly, the scene in NBC’s award-winning drama was the last one filmed, according to executive producer Christopher Misiano, who directed the episode.
It’s Inauguration Day for Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), and Bartlet, played convincingly as always by Martin Sheen, walks the White House halls one last time.
As he does, staffers from around the building spill out of their offices and put their hands together for him.
“We decided quite consciously what would be the final scene we would film,” Misiano said in a phone interview from his office. “When we looked at the final episode, we thought, ‘Here is an appropriate piece to go out on.’”
The scene was filmed at midnight several weeks ago and culminated four long, emotional hours of shooting.
Misiano remembers at least 150 people standing with him behind the monitor, about 140 more than usual.
As Sheen made his exit, the applause carried over from the actors on set to those watching the scene play out.
It was accompanied by tears.
Lots of tears.
“It was an incredibly emotional moment,” Misiano said.
It’s easy to imagine viewers across the country getting off their couches and giving the fictional president a proper send-off as well.
After seven seasons, 90 Emmy Award nominations (and counting) and 25 Emmy wins (and counting), one of TV’s most provocative and acclaimed dramas is leaving the airwaves.
Why?
Waning viewership did it in. “West Wing’s” ratings have declined dramatically since creator Aaron Sorkin left the show three seasons ago.
Even this year, despite some of its most compelling storylines since Sorkin’s departure — a heated presidential election, the firing of a staffer and the death of vice presidential candidate Leo McGarry, the writers’ way of dealing with the real life death of series regular John Spencer — “West Wing” has become somewhat of an afterthought for viewers.
Heading into May, the final month of the 2005-06 season, the series is averaging just 8 million weekly viewers, ranking it No. 76 in Nielsen Media Research’s season-to-date numbers.
By comparison, ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” which airs the following hour on Sunday nights, is fourth with 22.1 million viewers.
“West Wing’s” numbers today are a far cry from the 2001-02 season when it averaged 17.2 million viewers to finish as the year’s ninth most-watched show.
That was the same year it earned a whopping 22 Emmy nominations and won five, including the third of its four straight best drama statues.
“West Wing’s” biggest accomplishment, however, may have been its first-season survival.
Why?
Unlike medicine or crime, politics just didn’t work on TV, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying.
Television’s modern-day landscape is littered with political dramas (and comedies) that lasted about as long as Harriet Miers’ bid to become a Supreme Court justice.
Remember “Mister Sterling,” the NBC drama starring Josh Brolin as the do-gooder son of a former California governor who was recruited to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy?
Didn’t think so.
Hoping to feed off “West Wing’s” success, “Mister Sterling” was a mid-season replacement in January 2003, but lasted only nine episodes.
Or how about “The Court,” the short-lived (three episodes) Supreme Court drama on ABC starring Sally Field?
Or the Hal Holbrook vehicle “The Senator” or George C. Scott’s sitcom “Mr. President”?
None of them won an endorsement from the viewers.
And now ABC’s “Commander in Chief,” which broke so well out of the gate, doesn’t appear to be long for this world. The network pulled the Geena Davis drama from its primetime schedule for the second time this season and will air the final three episodes in June.
That’s not a good sign, because May is a sweeps month when the networks put up their best stuff in order to lure advertisers.
So why did “West Wing” succeed where so many before it failed?
Misiano, TV scholar Robert Thompson and University of Nebraska-Lincoln political science professor John Hibbing have their hunches, ranging from Sorkin’s genius to Allison Janney’s acting to the fictional Bartlet’s universal appeal.
Thompson, for one, noted the political arena has been ripe for exploitation.
“The subject matter has so much potential for high drama,” said the director of Syracuse University’s Center for the Study of Popular Television who recently interviewed Sorkin for the Washington Post.
“It hasn’t been worn out,” he said. “It was really fresh material. The fact (‘West Wing’) was so brilliantly written and acted added to it.”
Indeed it did.
Sorkin, who penned the Tom Cruise/Jack Nicholson hit “A Few Good Men” and “American President,” created “The West Wing” around the time his first venture into television, the ABC comedy “Sports Night” (1998-2000), was hitting the skids.
Although both shows featured Sorkin’s now famous style — rapid, staccato-like dialogue and intense character development — “Wing” was the one to find an audience.
Why?
Because it was different and yet, in a strange way, familiar.
“It was about Washington politics, but it also was a show about a family — the president, his wife and his kids,” Thompson said. “There was a comedic element as well. There have been more laugh-out-loud funny scenes in one episode than some sitcoms have in an entire season.”
Remember when C.J. (Janney) had to decide which of two turkeys residing in her office would get the annual Thanksgiving Presidential pardon and which would go to the dinner table?
Or how about the time Sam (Rob Lowe) and Josh (Bradley Whitford) started a fire in the Mural Room, unaware that the chimney flue had been welded shut for more than 100 years?
“West Wing” also was ripped-from-the-headlines topical.
Staffers tackled weighty issues — strip mining in Montana, border disputes, Supreme Court nominees, ethanol tax credits, gays in the military, minimum wage increases — and made it interesting.
Misiano called it “wish fulfillment.”
“If you had to wish to for the perfect Washington, you would want one with people who had hearts in the right place going to work for you,” he said.
That’s why political scientist Hibbing believes “West Wing” found an audience. The show attached people to policy and made it interesting.
“We heard the pros and cons of welfare reform, and we would see Toby (Richard Schiff) fight for his angle,” Hibbing said.
And when there was a crisis?
“We got a good sense of the people involved and how they would react under pressure,” he said.
These characters had flaws. President Bartlet wasn’t perfect — he made mistakes such as hiding his multiple sclerosis from the American public.
Leo (Spencer) had a substance abuse problem, and Josh was workaholic unable to commit to personal relationships — it took seven years for him to finally hook up with Donna.
C.J. had a father with Alzheimer’s and a flirtation with a reporter — not a good thing when you’re the press secretary — and Sam fell for a call girl.
To tell these stories required a talented cast, most of whom were virtual no-names before “The West Wing.”
The drama debuted on Sept. 22, 1999, with Lowe as its only touted star. Sheen played more of a supporting role in the early episodes, including a late appearance in the pilot.
Misiano said people’s unfamiliarity with Schiff, Janney and Whitford helped them establish their characters and make an immediate connection. They didn’t carry baggage from another TV role.
“Richard Schiff was Toby Ziegler,” Misiano said.
Later, “Wing” had a knack for putting known TV actors in guest roles uncharacteristic for them, including several from sitcoms: John Goodman (“Roseanne”), Ed O’Neill (“Married With Children”) and Matthew Perry (“Friends”).
“I think it was kismet,” Misiano said of the casting. “You get this chemistry with these people. You just never know if it’s going to happen. It was just one of those things.”
“West Wing” writers and actors were quite good in making the characters appealing. Despite the occasional flaw, Bartlet came off as the ideal president, a decision-maker who was able to navigate the tumultuous partisan waters.
“He was,” Hibbing said, “too good to be true.”
All good things, however, must come to an end.
“The West Wing” survived what Misiano called hiccups — a real-life administration change, 9/11 — but it failed to bounce back from losing Sorkin and fellow executive producer Thomas Schlamme, who are now collaborating on “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” a behind-the-scenes drama of a sketch-comedy TV show that NBC is expected to pick up for next year.
“Aaron had a much-beloved fan base, and it was a hard transition year,” Misiano said. “That first year, we were trying to figure who could write this and what we should be talking about.”
Thompson, too, blamed Sorkin’s loss for “West Wing’s” declining viewership. He was the “soul of the show,” he said. A timeslot switch — from Wednesdays to Sundays — didn’t help either, he added.
In the end, “West Wing” just wore out, although this season’s presidential election between Santos and Arnold Vinnick (Alan Alda) helped restore some of the drama’s luster.
“This isn’t like ‘The Sopranos,’ with 13 episodes and 21 months between seasons,” Thompson said. “They were churning out 22 episodes a year, and it got to the point where they kind of had done all the major themes and major character developments.”
Misiano said they would have enjoyed telling stories of the Santos administration as well as following Bartlet and his staff back into the private sector.
“But this feels like a very natural conclusion to the show,” he said.
There’s no doubt “The West Wing” will be remembered for years to come — thanks largely to syndication — but also for what it did: It was the first show about politics to really succeed.
Sure, it took liberties and sometimes was quite fanciful.
“But you can’t be too dismissive of that,” Hibbing said. “It wasn’t completely realistic, but it did a good job of making politics interesting.”
For that reason alone, Bartlet and his staff deserve their ovation.
Posted by Jo at May 15, 2006 09:36 AM