Wrapping Up Season Two

Season 2 of The West Wing was just one of the finest creative seasons in TV history. From In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, where we saw flashbacks to the Bartlet team coming together in his campaign, to Two Cathedrals, where the flashbacks were to young Jed meeting young Mrs. Landingham, almost every episode was a gem. The recovery of Josh from his shooting (along with everyone else in the West Wing) in The Midterms ... the introduction of Ainsley Hayes in In This White House and And It's Surely To Their Credit ... the first big Thanksgiving episode (Shibboleth) ... Bradley Whitford's Emmy-winning performance in Nöel ... the political conniving of The Leadership Breakfast ... Sam's psychological father issues in Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail ... the revelation of the Bartlet's "deal" in Bartlet's Third State Of The Union and The War At Home ... and of course, the epic arc of Toby figuring out the President's health condition and how that reverberated, from The Stackhouse Filibuster all the way through the end of the season.

The American viewing public was beginning to catch on, as well. The show's first season saw them finish 24th in the Nielsen ratings - its second saw The West Wing climb into a tie for 11th (with the Thursday edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation). Nielsen scored The West Wing with a rating of 11.6 (compared to 9.1 for the first season), and averaging about 17 million viewers per week. By comparison, in today's much more fractured world of television programming, the most-watched programs get about 14 million viewers per week ... so that's a lot of people watching the Bartlet administration every Wednesday night. Just as an aside, the 2000-01 television season also served as a turning point for network programming, with the debut of Survivor being the top-rated TV show of the year and opening the door for a parade of reality-based programming.

2001 EMMY AWARDS

Critics and the industry were still on board, recognizing the quality of the show. The West Wing gained its second Emmy award for Outstanding Drama Series, along with several other wins at the award show held in November, 2001 (delayed almost two months due to the September 11 attacks). Overall the show earned 12 nominations in major categories (only behind The Sopranos) and took home four of those (which was one more Emmy in those major categories than The Sopranos did).

• Outstanding Drama Series

• Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Bradley Whitford, for In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part II and Nöel). It's the second year in a row a performance from the Christmas episode earned a Supporting Actor win, and believe it or not, it wouldn't be the last.

• Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Allison Janney, for In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part I and Galileo)

• Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series (Thomas Schlamme, In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen)

And just as in Season 1, the show earned several nominations but did not gain the win in these categories:

• Martin Sheen was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Two Cathedrals, as was Rob Lowe for Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail, but the award was won yet again by James Gandolfini (The Sopranos).

• Richard Schiff (The Leadership Breakfast and 17 People) and John Spencer (In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Part I and The Leadership Breakfast) were nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, but Whitford took that category.

• Stockard Channing received a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Bartlet's Third State Of The Union and The War At Home, but Janney took the Emmy in that category.

• Oliver Platt got a nod for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his work on The Fall's Gonna Kill You, but Michael Emerson received the award for his appearance on The Practice.

• Laura Innes was nominated for Outstanding Directing for Shibboleth, but Schlamme took his second consecutive directing Emmy.

• Aaron Sorkin was also nominated in the Outstanding Writing category for In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, but lost to Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess for an episode of The Sopranos.

2001 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS

The 2001 Golden Globes were held in January, with nominations announced in December of 2000, so the Hollywood Foreign Press Association now had a good sense of what The West Wing was all about. The series was one of just two TV shows to earn multiple Golden Globes (Sex And The City was the other).

• The series received the Golden Globe for Best Television Series - Drama.

• Martin Sheen was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama Series.

• Rob Lowe was nominated for a second year for Best Actor in a Drama Series, but Sheen received that award.

• Bradley Whitford was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film, but the award was given to Robert Downey, Jr. for Ally McBeal.

• Allison Janney was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film, but Vanessa Redgrave gained the award for If These Walls Could Talk 2.

2001 SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS

These awards were held in March 2001, with nominations out in January. Unlike the previous year (where only a few episodes of Season 1 could even be considered), now the SAG voters had an entire season-plus of episodes to judge. This time around, The West Wing pretty much swept their categories.

• The entire cast received the SAG award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

• Martin Sheen earned the award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series.

• Allison Janney was given the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series.

So there's Season 2. Season 1 was an introduction to the Bartlet administration and staff, an exploration of overcoming cautious stability with bold action. Season 2 began with a traumatic crisis, then delved into the concept of trust among friends and rivals, eventually turning in an epic run of episodes at the close dealing with President Bartlet's coverup of his health and the decisions of what his political future might hold.

Season 3 begins with another two-parter (a standard for The West Wing) and we'll see the Presidential campaign rev up throughout the season, as well as another big moral and ethical crisis for the President to face. Well ... I mean, the season actually starts with a Very Special (and unplanned, and critically divisive!) 9/11 episode, so we'll talk about that first. Then on to the two-parter and another outstanding season of television. Come on and join me for the ride.