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May 18, 2006
Term limits: After seven seasons, Jed Bartlet leaves office and 'The West Wing' turns out the lights
BY CONNIE OGLE
Miami Herald
Early in the TV series The West Wing, a young man watches the staff scramble around the Oval Office as the president prepares to deliver an important speech to the American people. The double jolt of snagging a White House job and this new and thrilling proximity to power has left him reeling. ''I've never felt like this before,'' he breathes. ''It doesn't go away,'' replies the not-so hardened staffer next to him.
That sensation -- the one that makes your heart rise and your back stiffen, causes you to stand just a bit taller and vow to do good -- is an emotion The West Wing has inspired through most of its seven-year run. But tonight NBC will air the final episode, titled Tomorrow, even though declining ratings have made sure that day will never come for the series.
President Josiah ''Jed'' Bartlet (Martin Sheen) will step down; President-elect Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) will step up. And millions of dreamers will lose that one hour of the week when they can pretend that the most famous inhabitants of Washington, D.C., are intelligent, thoughtful, industrious, honest, honorable -- and liberal.
WALK AND TALK
The West Wing is labeled a drama, but cynicism would suggest it's more fantasy than reality, reflective more of what we wish we were rather than what we truly are. But that seductive message -- we can and must strive to be better -- has always been an element of what makes the show so addictive. We know a president isn't going to allow a political enemy to take his place temporarily or put a member of the opposing party on the Supreme Court. But it was always pleasant, and maybe even necessary, to believe those things could happen, at least under the entertaining auspices of this fictional administration.
The West Wing first aired in 1999, at a time when politics didn't play a big part on TV shows. It won nine Emmys in its first season, the most ever for a drama series. Won Best Drama Series its first four years, too. Creator Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the screenplay for the film The American President, perfected the rapid-fire walk-and-talk style he toyed with on his short-lived Sports Night, propelling his characters all over the White House with lively wit and noble purpose.
But despite its roots in romantic comedy tradition, the show never shied from serious issues: abortion, religion, education, health care, Middle East relations (often with the oppressive fictional country of Qumar, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Saudi Arabia). The writers took up political -- almost exclusively Democratic -- positions.
The show was the first scripted TV series to indirectly address 9/11. In a matter of weeks, Sorkin wrote and shot Isaac and Ishmael, which aired Oct. 3, 2001, in which he put the White House under lockdown because of a terrorist threat. Unlike the hawkish Jack Bauer on the brawny (and considerably more brainless) 24, the characters don't fight their way out, guns blazing. They sit and discuss -- sometimes emotionally, sometimes logically -- the subject likely to define the rest of our lifetimes. Just like we do.
Sorkin left after Season 4, taking most of the light-hearted dialogue with him. We lost Rob Lowe that year in a salary dispute, too. The good news is that Lowe's (sort-of) replacement was longtime Sorkin collaborator Joshua Malina as congressman-to-be Will Bailey. But Season 5 was, to be kind, not The West Wing to which we were accustomed. And yet the show bounced back in its final two years, resurrecting exciting storylines and the missing humor and introducing terrific cast members as Santos and Republican Arnold Vinick (Emmy nominee Alan Alda) battled it out to be Bartlet's successor.
Still, the regulars -- well-defined, realistically flawed, absolutely irresistible -- are what kept us interested. We rooted for Bartlet, his brains, his hopes, his leadership, his courage in fighting MS. We wished he were real but were happy we had him at all: Sorkin's original idea was to never show the president, a plan that would have consistently flummoxed the writers and prevented us from enjoying the fantasy as much as we did. (We would have also missed Sheen's unforgettable entrance in the pilot episode, as he bursts into a fractious meeting quoting the First Commandment: ''I am the Lord thy God,'' he intones, and you believe it.)
A LONG FRIENDSHIP
We were fascinated with the dynamics of Bartlet's decades-long friendship with chief of staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer, whose death late last year added almost unbearable poignancy to the tense election episodes). We admired C.J. Cregg (the fantastic Allison Janney, in what will unfortunately probably be the role of a lifetime) for her almost seamless transition from press secretary to replacement chief of staff, and we grieved over the firing of communications director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff), whose banishment was painful testament to the peril of following your heart in politics.
We laughed at the antics of Bartlet deputy chief of staff/Santos campaign manager Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) even as we marveled at his relentless dedication and groaned at his seven years -- seven freaking years! -- of blindness in regard to his feelings for his assistant Donna Moss (Janel Moloney, who blossomed as her role expanded from secretary to political operative). Just hand Whitford another Emmy right now: He has continued to ground the series after it split into two separate shows, one on the campaign trail, the other at the White House. Josh's inevitable comeuppances have always been essential to the show's comedy, and Whitford has always been funny. But this year his performance has taken on renewed depth as Josh faced his mentor's death on the biggest day of his political career and is forced, finally, to sort out those complicated feelings that landed him in bed with the woman he loves but is too pig-headed to admit.
It's the unerring ability of its characters to rise above challenges or personal blindness that in the end defines The West Wing. As Bartlet, at his second inauguration, told Will Bailey: ''Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world. You know why?'' ''It's the only thing that ever has,'' replied Will. That exchange echoes the truth about everyone who had anything to do with the smart, mesmerizing, thoroughly wonderful TV world about that ''glorious prison on Pennsylvania Avenue'' that always felt more like a glorious escape.
Posted by Jo at May 18, 2006 04:45 PM