First, let’s talk about how hard it is to find a copy of “The West Wing” if you don’t want to pay for it. And I’m cheap. Unapologetically so. I mean, you could buy it, but it’s probably not a great idea to invest in a box set of something you might not like. So I ended up depending on old-school means — the library — to obtain the first season. But get this — in all of this county’s library system (made up of some 16 libraries), there is one copy of the first season. Not only that, but that thing is on such a tight lock that you can’t just request it online. I had to go to the library and give them my firstborn just to borrow this set. Of course you can’t renew it. It’s overdue now and I might never see my son again.
But is it worth it is the real question, am I right? If I can get my son back, then yes. It’s a show I’ve been meaning to watch. I probably meant to watch it back in the day when it was on, but I was just out of college when it debuted in 1999, and, well, back in the old days, you couldn’t exactly binge-watch shows.
This is a really good show and I am genuinely surprised that despite that theme song (if you could enter an audio definition in the dictionary for ‘over the top’, this theme song wins, hands down) this is a solid basic-network television show, especially for the late 90s. Who knew?
Right off the bat with the first episode — the first scene — I was blown away. Not by the writing or acting exactly, but that apparently that the POTUS thing was popularized by this show? WHAAAAA? I love this show already.
I guess I hoped this show was going to be my Calgon to the fresh hell that is currently the White House, and it is. I mean, remember when Rob Lowe was hot? (Chad Lowe, anyone? Two dollars for anyone who can tell me who Chad Lowe is.) A lot of great things about this show. So far, it appears we have an Aaron Sorkin show that doesn’t portray women as utterly incapable — not all of them. (Come on, Donna. You had one job. Find out if the Indonesian chief of staff speaks English. Seriously, I might need a separate post about Donna because I have a thought about her purpose on this show and I hope I’m wrong about it, but we’ll see.) So that’s nice.
I’m in disbelief that the same guy who wrote this show also wrote “Newsroom,” because I have a visceral dislike for that show. Meaning that usually I can decline to comment if I don’t agree with someone on a topic, but when someone — especially a journalist — says that they even like “Newsroom,” my chill is gone. I can’t. OK, yes, the first scene was excellent, but the rest of the show wasn’t and every female character seemed to need a wheelchair for her brain to get through life. What an insult. Also, it was self-righteous and overkill and the actors were bad except for Jeff Daniels. Even the good female actors were undone by men writing for women, and writing them to be merely the foil for the hero — the man. The brains behind the operation. Olivia Munn was the only woman who had any semblance of her stuff being together and she averaged 30 seconds an episode! HIRE MORE FEMALE WRITERS. GOOD GOD. HOW HARD IS THIS.
Wow. I thought I’d gotten over that. Let’s get back on track.
Calgon, yes. Anyway, then we got to episode 3 and this scene:
MCGARRY: “So (Bertrand) Coles (apparently some idiot politician) gets on the radio yesterday, and he says people in his district love America, and you better not come down there, because you might not get out alive.” (laughing)
BARTLET: (also laughing) “Bert’s calling me out?”
MCGARRY: “Apparently. The people in Bert’s district are so patriotic that if the President of the United States himself were to show up … they’d kill him.”
They laugh.
THEY LAUGH.
Because people disagree all the time, right? Yeah, sure, that guy’s a giant douchebag, but whatever. No biggie, right? Maybe in 1999 it wasn’t.
Now, we’ve got a president who holds “Love Me!” rallies and people who don’t love him are enemies. But whatever. Let us move on.
Let’s talk about the writing. This show, so far, is beautifully written. When I watch this show, I am often reminded of the old writer’s rule that whenever possible you should show a reader what’s happening, not tell them. So far, the best example of this is the episode, “State Dinner,” especially in the last two minutes. The president is hosting the Indonesian president for a tense state dinner, all while a Branch Davidian-like situation spins out of control, an impending Teamster strike, and a hurricane threatening the south. To prepare for a coastal hit, the White House orders a Navy carrier unit out into the ocean to protect it, but the hurricane turns back out to the ocean — right towards the unit. The White House has inadvertently guided 12,000 men to almost certain disaster.
It’s an amazing, understated scene. I can’t find it on YouTube, so good luck finding this at your local library. Sorry. Too many spoilers on YouTube to look for very long. (I didn’t need to know Jimmy Smits had any part of this yet.)
Another great one was the “In Excelsior Deo” episode. Now Sorkin really treads on the edge of emotional overkill sometimes, and sometimes, he just falls over. And I, the viewer, am like, “Bye! Not going over this cliff!” But the closing segment of this episode was just beautiful. We got town drunk Leo McGarrity waiting for the blackmail shoe to drop (pills. Cute. In 2017, you’re like, “Pills? We all got pills. Oh, but crack? Now we’re talking!”), a homeless veteran’s funeral made possible by picking out the right Goodwill coat and a very White House Christmas choir. I … OK, just watch it:
Right?!
The cast: Pretty impressive. Some of them are people I’ve never seen before. One of them is Richard Schiff, who plays Toby, the chief communications guy. I realized what I like about Toby. He looks like he’s always hiding something and he knows he’s about to get busted. With this in mind, what does it say about me that this is the guy I really like? You know there’s some good acting going on when Toby’s yelling at Bartlet and you’re thinking, “Dude! You can’t talk to the president like that! You’re gonna get fired!”
I don’t know what it is about Rob Lowe’s portrayal of Sam that makes me think he’s just sort of not there. I think this is his MO, though. Every role I’ve ever seen Rob Lowe play is this exactly. Even when he played Nick in “The Stand,” which I loved, but still. This is a theory, but I think he’s one of these actors who just plays himself in every role. So, it’s not Nick, it’s Rob being Nick. You know? I’m about halfway through the first season and so far, it doesn’t seem like our communications guy Sam is getting much in the way of story. No, I don’t count the amateur “Pretty Woman” sideshow a solid story line.
Moira Kelly is excessively pushy and I’m not sure yet why her character has to be so much more brash than all her counterparts, but she’s not overboard yet. She’s towing the line, though. Full disclosure: Some of my feelings about her might be based on the fact that I have never really forgiven Kelly for taking part in “The Cutting Edge.”
Bradley Whitford wears pussy hats now, so I’m good with him. Seriously, his portrayal of Josh is interesting. If I knew a real person like Josh Lyman, I’d hate him. But in this scenario, he’s like the political hooker with a heart of gold. You can’t help it. There’s a heart in there somewhere. Right? I’m gonna need some explanation about this sister dying in the fire, though. Don’t be a killer, Josh.
The fact that the president, Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, is bringing up the rear — he is the last main character introduced in the first episode — is probably a mechanism meant to show that the presidency is not one man, but a village. Honestly, I think Sheen carries this in a pretty understated but authoritative way, but the problem is that given the current real-for-true-life president currently in office, almost anyone could pretend to be a better president than the real president. Sad!
So I’m settling in to “West Wing” and counting on it to get me through whatever is left of this current administration. But the other interesting aspect to me right now is how this show is informing me about the role a communications person plays in an operation, especially considering that I’m embarking on that journey right now. Here’s hoping I never have to remember the name of the shoe that someone is wearing to an event. (CJ’s gonna get burned by the “thirtysomething” guy, isn’t she. Don’t tell me. But dammit.)