BRIC-A-BRAC: Hail to the Chief

I stopped watching The West Wing sometime near the end of the fourth season. I think it was about the time Rob Lowe left the show. I didn't watch The West Wing for Rob Lowe, of course. But his departure sent a very clear signal to me that the show I loved was about the change irrevocably. That the show would be ending this season didn't surprise me. It seemed inevitable.

At its peak -- which I will define as the beginning of Season Two through the departure of Sam Seaborn -- The West Wing was without a doubt my favorite show on television. It's hard to explain the reasons why without sounding pretentious. For a show that aspires to be intelligent, any praise you offer sounds like high-falutin' navel-gazing. And it's not enough to just say, "It's good." Because it's so much better than good. So I'm just going to go for broke and be obnoxious and stuck up. The West Wing was noble. It took a medium not known for being able to stand tall, and it enobled it. It made you proud to watch television.

Most of the credit has to go to Aaron Sorkin. He spent four years churning out neearly every episode of The West Wing, dedicated to the principle that people arguing about civics was interesting, compelling drama, and that these arguments could be conducted with civility and decency. He played with every pitfall a presidential administration might encounter, he put his characters in untenable situations, and he saddled them with dialogue that can only be called politicobabble. And for an hour each week, you actually got a sense for how government works. TV had tried to put shows in the White House before. (Anybody remember Mr. President? George C. Scott? Anyone?) But they never understood: the drama wasn't in the Oval Office. The drama was in getting the issues into the Oval Office. Sorkin got it.

And that cast. My friend Ted and I had a running joke for years: "Name five Martin Sheen movies." He was everywhere, he had those damn kids in our face all the time, and yet...what was he in? (It's still a valid challenge. Give it a try. No cheating. Here, I'll spot you Gettysburg.) The West Wing was a whole cast of people like that, actors who you knew were good, who you'd seen all the time (Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, Bradley Whitford), and who were just waiting for the right juicy parts to sink their teeth into. They got them on this show. These were actors enjoying their jobs, and that translated into characters who loved their jobs. Think about your favorite TV dramas, and I'll bet you that they featured characters who may have been enduring the greatest traumas imaginable, but secretly, they were loving life. Think about it. Fox Mulder loved fighting aliens and hunting for his sister. Jean-Luc Picard relished confronting the Borg once again. The people on Lost revel in their predicament. Well, that was The West Wing in a nutshell. The Republicans are blocking our bills, terrorists are threatening San Francisco, poll numbers are plummeting...and the Bartlet administration says, "Bring it on." It's Butch and Sundance on the cliff.

And the thing about Lowe and Sheen, the big names in the cast? Maybe there were salary disputees and arguments over billing and not enough Emmys to go around. But on screen, they meshed with that ensemble. It was an organic blend of characters, people who seemed to genuinely like each other. As an improviser, I've been on a number of ensembles. Someteimes they click, sometimes they don't but you work throught it because you're professional, and sometimes they just plain don't work at all. I cherish those groups where everything clicked. That group on The West Wing from 2000-2003 clicked. Pretty lucky, that.

And then Sorkin got caught with the magic mushrooms, and it all started going to hell. He finished out a season and left, the executive producer took over, and things started getting melodramatic. The new people didn't get it. They thought the drama was putting people in situations. They thought the political stuff was seasoning. Clair and I tuned in to an episode in Season Five, and it was just awful. Painful to watch. (The press secretary's now the chief of staff? Really?) I was pressed for time, anyway. I stopped watching.

But you never forget old friends, and when John Spencer passed away last December, I thought about the show again. Things had changed quite a bit. More characters were gone, new characters I wasn't interested in were on board. And there was an intriguing presidential election going on. (A more interesting one than the one Sorkin had engineered for Bartlet's re-election, as it happened.) Spencer's death complicated matters , since his character, Leo McGarry, was a vice-presidential candidate. The word was that the show had improved dramatically, with issues and debate part of the mix again, and writers like Debora Cahn capturing some of the old Sorkin flair.

So I tuned in again.

It's still a little off. With the election here, the emphasis is mostly on the new people, with old favorites pushed to the side. That put a little too much emphasis on the character of Josh Lyman, who was always a little too whiny for his own good. But the frenetic march to Election Day, with plotlines hinging on electoral votes and instructions to lawyers, had a lot of the feel of the show I used to like. It was familiar. And the cruel necessity of incorporating the death of a major character has been handled logically and authentically. The show is definitely going out on an up.

I'm going to spoil the ending of last night's episode: Democrat Matt Santos, as played by Jimmy Smits, wins the election in a squeaker, despite the sudden death of his running mate, McGarry. Supposedly, his opponent, Republican Arnold Vinick (a nicely smarmy-yet-principled Alan Alda) was going to win the election, but Spencer's death forced a change in plans. To have McGarry die and lose the election seemed too cruel. Fair enough. But the result was a single shot that said so much about the greatness of this show. A defeated Vinick, alone in his hotel room, watches on TV as Santos congratulates him on a good race. And Alda, in a masterful piece of expression, smiles through his pain, and you see all the hopes and dreams of his presidency flicker across his eyes in a heartbeat. Politics is cruel, and Alda said more about that cost in an instant than could have been conveyed in a two-hour monologue. It made me love The West Wing one more time.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be president. As I grew up, I discovered how unyielding politicians could be, and I resisted the urge to sell my soul for a vote. But to watch The West Wing, I remember why I thought politics was neat. I feel the urge again. Government seems noble once again.

I will spend my life looking for the chance to make that kind of impact.