7A WF 83429 - TWW S5E1

 

Original airdate: September 24, 2003

Written by: John Wells (1)

Directed by: Alex Graves (15)

Synopsis

• The search for Zoey continues, and fears grow for her safety when President Walken orders attacks on Qumar. Walken's visible comfort with his growing control over the executive branch causes dismay among President Bartlet's staff. News of President Bartlet's order last year to kill Shareef, possibly leading to Zoey's abduction, shatters relationships in the Bartlet family.

"Find Zoey Bartlet and find her fast, but so help me, if she turns up dead, I'm gonna blow the hell out of something and God only knows what."

We enter a dark period in the history of The West Wing. No, no, I don't mean the series gets terrible or anything - although it definitely doesn't measure up to the excellence of the past four seasons. No, I'm not really talking about the themes - although yeah, there's a lot of sadness and exhaustion and depressing elements going in here.

I mean it's dark: literally dark. Devoid of light. Starved of illumination.

This is a conscious decision by director Alex Graves and director of photography Thomas Del Ruth, as Graves expounds upon in the DVD commentary. He wanted to evoke impressions of early morning/late evening, to bring in more contrast in the lighting of scenes, to make things look different than a typical West Wing episode since Jed Bartlet has removed himself from power and his daughter is missing and the possibility of a military attack could have dire consequences for her safety. It does all that, for sure - but it's really hard to see some of what's going on here.

We jump right in pretty much immediately on the heels of the ending of Season 4 and Twenty Five. As that episode ended with President Bartlet leaving the Oval Office and Speaker Walken taking the oath as acting President, this edition starts with the press conference bringing the news to the world. A dizzying presentation of fuzzy TV screens, the camera angle dashing this way and that, the overlapping voices of reporters frantically describing the extraordinary scene - it's designed to throw us off-balance and make us feel the disorientation of the characters, and it works.

As we continue through the day - and all this is just one day, with Zoey going missing around 11:00 pm on Saturday night and this episode covering the following Sunday - some things settle down a little, other things are stirred up, and no one feels satisfied or comfortable by the time late Sunday night comes around. And the divide between Jed and Abbey, caused by word of Jed's order to kill Abdul Shareef, may be permanent.

Let's go into that first. With John Wells (ER) taking over for Aaron Sorkin as showrunner (and as writer of this episode), there was concern by some viewers that the show would veer away from political maneuvering into more, shall we say, soap-opera-y relationship-oriented storylines. While Wells claimed that wasn't his intention, this element of the Season 5 opener doesn't do much to allay the concern. Jed, stuck in the White House residence staring out the large arched window, seems lost and sinking into depression. Abbey, holding back tears, spends her time consoling friends who call to console her. When the Bartlet children and grandchildren arrive, there's a moment of comfort and an opportunity for a little smile, but mostly it's a reminder that Zoey is still being held captive somewhere, her absence the entire reason for this family gathering.

And then ... after President Walken is informed that Danny Concannon is going public with his story that President Bartlet ordered the assassination of Abdul Shareef, he orders the administration to release the story first, confirming the facts while denying Danny the scoop. The connections perhaps linking the killing of Shareef to Zoey's abduction are evident. Abbey finds out by watching television with her daughters.

Her stoic reaction as she leaves the room leads Elizabeth to recognize that her mother was blindsided by the news, and she goes to her solitarily distracted father to ask, "Dad? Did Mom know?" And that leads us to a tense, uncomfortable familial conflict in the kitchen - and let's be frank, is there anything less West Wing-y than a family drama playing out in their kitchen? Abbey tries to deflect Jed's weak attempts at an apology, or at least an explanation, and it's clear she remains silently furious at her husband.

Jed: "It was a difficult decision!"

Abbey: "Made by you, not us."

Jed: "I did what I thought was necessary,"

Abbey (walking out of the room): "Your decisions, Jed, not ours." 

All of this playing out right in front of Elizabeth and Ellie, uncomfortably put in the middle of their parents' conflict - it's stressful and hard to watch! Elizabeth goes with her mother, while Ellie stays behind for a moment to hug her father.

(I'll just say, while this particular family drama is grounded in a realistic way as to how a mother might react if she knew her husband's decisions had put their children in danger, it's a bit of a different situation when the husband is the freaking President of the United States. Of course your children are going to be in danger, it comes with the job, some consideration for a specific decision he makes in defense of the nation should be a little bit understandable. But we're talking about emotion, not logic, and that makes sense - plus I think there's little doubt that deep down Abbey still holds resentment for Jed going back on his one-term promise he made to her that we saw in Bartlet's Third State Of The Union/The War At Home - if he had not been re-elected to a second term, this Shareef/Qumar situation might never have been a factor for the Bartlet family.)

The Walken decision to pre-empt Danny and the Washington Post hits CJ and her relationship with the press. She had promised to give Danny an exclusive on the five missing Ba'ji sleeper agents, a scoop taken away when Agent Mike Casper announces that fact to the press corps (again, that's gotta be an understandable move considering the President's daughter has been kidnapped). Then, she and Leo convinced Danny to wait three days before publishing his story on the administration ordering the killing of Shareef, and then that news gets released by the administration first. CJ, who already got into a shouting match with Danny after the first press conference, gets left in a terrible position.

President Walken: "Release it before Concannon has a chance to file the story."

CJ: "Sir, we convinced Danny to hold the story several days ago. Undercutting him would be going back on our agreement."

President Walken: "Your agreement. Release it."

So, CJ makes a decision to undercut Walken instead. When she brings Danny into her office to tell him the White House will have no comment on his story, she stops him as he leaves:

CJ: "Post the story now. (emphatically) Right now." 

Walken is no dummy. As he heads into a press conference to deal with questions over the assassination story published online by Danny and the Post, he brings CJ in close to fix his tie ... then pointedly muses as to how Danny could have possibly known to get his story out ahead of the administration release.

Even so, the acting President and the Press Secretary end up coming to a sort of cautious understanding.

President Walken: "You know I'm not the enemy. The things that unite us are far greater than things that divide us. We both believe in democracy, preservation of American values, protection of our citizens in a sometimes hostile world."

CJ: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"

President Walken: "Yeah."

CJ: "That's what's in your statement?"

President Walken: "Something like that." 

Josh remains convinced that this is all a horrible mistake, that the Bartlet administration has shot itself in the foot by giving up power (even temporarily), and that the Republicans stand to make huge political gains with Walken in the Oval Office. I think his attitude reflects that of many of the viewers (this storyline actually caused me to stop watching the series entirely for almost all of Season 5), an attitude that gets reflected with this scene with Leo walking into the Oval asking to see "Mr. President," only to have this great reveal of Walken and not Bartlet as his staff moves out of the camera's way:

Again, this is all the very first day of the handover, just hours after Walken was sworn in in the midst of a massive governmental crisis, but Josh simply can't help himself. It doesn't make it any easier when Walken's staff starts moving furniture out of the West Wing right away.

And when they bring the Republican leadership into the building to talk about naming a new Speaker of the House, it's just about enough to make Josh lose his mind.

Josh: "Is that Duke?"

Donna: "Yeah?"

Josh: "Oh, please don't let it be Duke. He hates me."

Will: "Tomlinson?"

Josh: "He hates me, too."

Ed: "Jim Arkin?"

Josh: "Arkin really hates me."

Donna: "Are you detecting a pattern here?"

Josh's ongoing frustration with the Republican leadership will really inform the first part of Season 5.

The biggest shoe to drop in the episode involves Leo, President Walken, and the U.S. military response to Zoey's kidnapping. Admiral Fitzwallis and other military leaders have drawn a direct connection between Zoey's abduction and the missing Ba'ji agents, which leads them straight to Qumar. Fitzwallis wants an immediate military strike. Nancy McNally, as well as Leo, urge caution, with Leo particularly worried about how military action might spur Zoey's kidnappers to do something unthinkable. 

President Walken is willing to hold off, at least until something else happens. And then it does. A suicide bombing at a movie theatre in Turkey kills dozens, including American sailors from a US Navy ship. The Ba'ji terrorist group claims responsibility, and Walken is forced to respond. Leo's desperate attempt to consider Zoey's safety gets a numbing reply:

Nancy: "So, a bombing and an invasion?"

Fitzwallis: "We'll be in and out in three days."

Leo (with an outburst): "We bomb Qumar and they kill her!"

(The room falls quiet)

President Walken (calmly, not looking at Leo): "They're going to kill her anyway. (pause) When do you want to go, Admiral?" 

These Situation Room scenes confirm the wisdom of President Bartlet's momentous decision to walk away from the Presidency for the time being. Leo, his nerves on edge, his emotions on a hair trigger with exhaustion, is still thinking like a Bartlet friend and family stand-in. His immediate concern is for the safety of Jed's daughter. President Walken knows there are higher, more important responsibilities for the security of the country, and personal considerations have to take a back seat. It's the kind of choice no one should ever expect a father to make, and I think Leo finally gets his head around that, in some way, at least, with this scene. It really does drive the point home that Jed did the only thing he could do for the good of the country by stepping away.

The episode ends with the Bartlet family at a private Mass, praying for Zoey's safety, for guidance, for protection, and for solace. The might of the U.S. military is on the move, with the attack slated for early the next morning. Zoey's whereabouts remain unknown, and Jed and Abbey remain at odds. 

Donna pulls Josh away from his office for a moment, to see the public outpouring of support for Zoey and the Bartlet family along the White House fence.

And we are left to ponder what the new day might bring. Hopefully a little sunlight.

Tales Of Interest!

- The Season 5 opening credits appear to be exactly the same as the last half of Season 4. I don't think there are any changes at all, even the photos/video clips appear to be the same. Stockard Channing appears in the credits, as she's featured in this episode. 

- The events of Commencement and Twenty Five all took place over the day and night of May 7. We know this because of Charlie's note, with the date he and Zoey set to dig up the champagne buried at the arboretum confirming her graduation day was May 7. This episode covers the events of the next day, from early in the morning until the night of May 8 (which is a Sunday here, although the actual May 8 in 2003 was a Thursday).

- Even though we have new writers and showrunners, we still have multiple-time West Wing director Alex Graves behind the camera. That gives us plenty of series trademarks, like seeing characters through video screens, and multiple instances of the camera point-of-view spinning around characters.

- We also get some shuddering, blurred-motion camera shots to indicate stress and uncertainty and shakiness (Graves mentions in the DVD commentary that he learned the technique from seeing it in the film Mad Max), and very, very strong use of bold colors in the lighting.

- Speaking of bold lighting choices, this episode may be one of the darkest-lit in series history. Here's some samples of really, really dark scenes (Graves says in the DVD commentary he wanted the early morning scenes to look like early morning, but I mean ... this is after the sun came up!).

Abbey and Jed on Sunday morning. Note: it's about 6:30 am. Sunrise was around 6:00. It shouldn't be this dark!

A very dark Roosevelt Room

The pressroom, darker than we've ever seen it before.

Leo's office, darker than dark

Jed and Leo, again at the window (this time at night)

Donna's office area - where are all the lights?

- Leo gets off an elevator leading to the residence. We've never seen that before - in fact, the only other time a White House elevator was ever seen in the series was the one that carried Sam and Toby to their secret meetings in the lower levels in 18th and Potomac.

- Also for the first time we see the kitchen in the Presidential residence.

- Elizabeth and Doug arrive with two children, a girl and a boy. We learned in Pilot Elizabeth had a girl named Annie (who was 12 years old in that episode and would be at least 15 now); but also in Game On we saw two young girls go up on stage to greet Jed after his debate with Gov. Ritchie. We are left to assume those girls were grandchildren, but if there is only one granddaughter ... why were there two? And was either one of them actually Annie, as seen here?

Annie

The as-yet-unnamed grandson

Girls joining President Bartlet onstage at the debate - is either one of them Annie? And who is the other?

- There's just a quick glimpse of Gail's fishbowl on CJ's desk; while there's some online debate that it might be a white van (because of Zoey's abduction), to me it just looks like rocks. We also saw the fishbowl completely empty of any decoration in Commencement (which was literally just the previous day, and CJ hasn't really had time to play around with decorating it with the crises going on. Maybe Carol did it ...).

- Stockard Channing received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Drama (for this episode along with No Exit) - the award went to Drea de Matteo for The Sopranos.

Quotes    

Leo: "What are all these people doing here?"

Margaret: "They work here."

Leo: "It's 5:30 in the morning."

Margaret: "I'll make sure they know." 

-----

Josh: "Lincoln and Kennedy had children who died. They didn't take a sabbatical."

Toby: "Who's been calling?"

Josh: "Congressional leadership."

Toby: "Lincoln never got a ransom note from Jefferson Davis. He's putting country before family. I'd carpet bomb Mecca to get my kids back." 

----- 

President Walken: "Get your people in place, Admiral. We don't go today unless we're provoked. Find Zoey Bartlet and find her fast, but so help me, if she turns up dead, I'm gonna blow the hell out of something and God only knows what."  

Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)

• Our favorite news anchor Ivan Allen appears again. Remember, he had just showed up in Twenty Five on a TV news program in the background, with the CND network logo and being called "Keith Nantz". Now we see him on MSNBC - which is weird, since these two telecasts must have aired within an hour or two of each other (we begin this episode the exact same time as Twenty Five ends). This is actually his 13th credited role on The West Wing since A Proportional Response, where we've seen him bouncing between local TV news stations and the CND/MSNBC cable networks.

• Finally we meet the oldest Bartlet daughter, Elizabeth, played by Annabeth Gish (Mystic Pizza, The X-Files, Halt And Catch Fire). Her appearance marks the end of the longest reveal in West Wing history, as she was mentioned (along with her daughter, Annie) in Pilot.

• Elizabeth's husband Doug Westin is played by Steven Eckholdt (Melrose Place, L.A. Law, Friends). While Doug doesn't do much in this episode (except for asking Jed "How are you holding up?") we'll see plenty of him in the future. 

• The Bartlet's middle daughter Ellie returns as well, played by Nina Siemaszko. We met her in Ellie.

• President Walken's chief of staff Steve Atwood is played by well-known character actor Zeljko Îvanek (Oz, Homicide: Life On The Street, Madam Secretary, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).

• Debbie Fiderer is back after missing for a few episodes, last seen playing poker in Evidence Of Things Not Seen; we also have the return of Assistant Secretary of State Bob Slattery (Thomas Kopache, last seen in Red Haven's On Fire).

• Senate Minority Leader Triplehorn, played by Geoff Pierson, appears in the meeting with Democratic congressional leaders. That's the same guy who was upset about Hoynes apparently locking up all the best precinct workers for the 2006 campaign in Swiss Diplomacy.

• All the familiar reporters are seen, well, almost. While we (dimly) see Mark, Steve, and Chris in the early press conference scene, and Danny several times, there's no sign of Katie in this episode.

• I've been keeping track of President Bartlet's glass paperweight collection over the course of the series (seeing it move from one side of his desk to the other, or even disappear once in a while). I guess it's comforting to see that, even though furniture is getting moved out of the building on Walken's first day, those paperweights remain.

Although Walken did waste no time bringing his dog, Bess, into the Oval Office.

• Look, there's Ed and Larry! Haven't seen them since the poker game in Evidence Of Things Not Seen.

• Also, Ed and Larry's discussion of the faltering economy and the word "recession" reminds us of something:

Larry: "If the economy is heading into a recession --"

Josh: "No, no, no! We don't ever use that word around here!"

Larry: "What word, recession?"

Josh: "No!"

Will: "If we say it, it gives it credence."

Larry: "What should we call it?"

Josh: "I don't care. Call it a boat show or a beer garden, or a bagel."

Ed: "So if it is a ... bagel, the Fed thinks it's going to be a mild bagel."

There was a similar attitude about that word in Swiss Diplomacy:

Margaret: "Ways to fight a possible recession."

Leo: "What did we say?"

Margaret: "Don't say 'recession' in this building."

Leo: "You just did it again!"

Margaret: "What am I supposed to call the meeting?"

Leo: "The 'robust economy' meeting."  

• Toby is asked about the twins a couple of times, and there's mention of Andy calling. Remember, the twins were literally born a few hours before this episode takes place. 

• We have seen tension between the First Couple before. In Bartlet's Third State Of The Union/The War At Home, we discovered Jed had promised Abbey to only serve one term as President, as the probability of his MS worsening in a second term was significant (and, as she said, his one-term promise was supposed to make up for him hiding his disease from the voting public). The disquiet between husband and wife continued up to the events of Manchester, when Abbey finally told Jed, "I'm leaning toward voting for you." I have a feeling this time, it's going to be more serious - putting his children in jeopardy by secretly assassinating an official of a country known for terrorism against the United States may very well be unforgivable in Abbey's mind.

• Leo asks Margaret to get him in touch with Angela Blake ("in New York?" she responds). That's someone else that's going to be very significant really soon.

• We hear the names "Mitchell" and "Haffley" as potential GOP candidates for the new Speaker of the House. One of those names is going to be playing a huge role in upcoming episodes (spoiler alert: it's the one Josh calls a fascist).

• By the way, we've seen a lot of other GOP House bigwigs in the past (just to name a few: Randall Thomas, who took the lead at the podium to sandbag the administration after The Leadership Breakfast, and was also the initial leader of the oversight committee looking into President Bartlet's coverup of his MS in Ways And Means; Henry Shallick [Corbin Bernson], deputy majority whip in The Leadership Breakfast and Capital Beat guest in Bartlet's Third State Of The Union; Peter Bruno, who chewed out Sam and Josh over the White House drug investigation in Take Out The Trash Day, and actually ended up chairing the investigative committee questioning Leo in Bartlet For America). In reality, you'd think one of those names might be mentioned in the new Speaker discussion.

• The long-term story threads of Abdul Shareef's assassination (which began in Enemies Foreign And Domestic) and President Bartlet's multiple sclerosis (revealed in He Shall, From Time To Time ...) continue. Also, the fact there's no Vice President in office (after Hoynes' resignation in Life On Mars) continues to be important, with Josh looking for candidates and Walken saying if there's no progress by Tuesday (in two days) he's going to start getting involved in naming a new VP.

• As we saw in Twenty Five, Nancy continues to argue caution about attacking Qumar, including telling President Walken any attack on the nation "would be the first time in our history that we have violated the foreign soil of an ally." Now, I have my doubts about that fact (we've seen military operations in Syria [A Proportional Response], Colombia [The War At Home], and Haiti [Two Cathedrals/Manchester], not to mention sending troops into Equatorial Kundu in The California 47th, although perhaps none of those nations were considered allies? It's a tough argument to make, particularly with Colombia). Also, if you go back to 20 Hours In America, Part Two, when Nancy was first made aware of Qumar's involvement in planned terrorist attacks inside the United States, she flat-out recommended a nuclear strike on the country ("I am, however, beginning to lean towards reducing our nuclear arsenal one at a time, if you know what I mean"). So her stance has evolved, I guess we'd say.

• We get some more good looks of the map of Qumar, a fictional country located in what is actually southern Iran, along the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Our first look at a map of the nation was seen in College Kids.

Here's an actual map of the area in southern Iran, with my hand-drawn rough guesstimate of the borders the show used for Qumar.

 

DC location shots    

• The scene showing the public display of signs/candles/flowers for Zoey was filmed along the sidewalk outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on 17th Street NW, just west of White House. That area has been used in The West Wing many times, as far back as Enemies.

They Do Exist! It's The Real Person, or Thing    

• We see plenty of news network logos, particularly MSNBC and C-SPAN logos. There are also several mentions of CNN, and even an on-screen shot of their logo (which was rarely, if ever seen over the past four seasons). Other real-life media outlets that are referred to include Fox [News] (which as far as I can tell has been mentioned just once before, in Inauguration: Over There) and Al Jazeera. No sign of the fictional CND network we've seen so many times over the past four seasons.

CNN logo

C-SPAN logo

• Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy are specifically named. Josh's referral to both of them losing children while in office is factual: Lincoln's 11-year-old son Willie died in the White House in 1862, while Kennedy's son Patrick was born prematurely in 1963 and died less than two days later.

• We also have mentions of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, President Truman, and his friend and former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn.

• Businesses mentioned include Kinko's (which was bought by FedEx in 2004 and saw the name retired in 2008), Xerox paper, and Bekins moving company.

• Fitzwallis' statement "bombing Tripoli stopped Libya" refers to an actual 1986 attack on the country, in retaliation for a terrorist bombing of a discotheque in West Berlin. His claim has a couple of errors: first, in trying to correct Nancy's argument about attacking allies, Libya (led by Muammar Gaddafi) wasn't really an ally of the United States at the time; also, the attack only had a limited impact on Libya's ongoing terrorist activities.

• Toby compares Walken's staff taking over rooms in the West Wing to the Visigoths, who sacked Rome in the 5th century.

• President Bartlet quotes Shakespeare with the words, "Cry 'Havoc!' And let slip the dogs of war" from the play Julius Caesar. The Dogs Of War is the title of the next episode.

• One of Josh's candidates for Vice President is compared to Norman Thomas, who ran for President six times on the Socialist Party ticket.

• The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 does exist, and it actually was President Truman's idea to move the Speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tem up in the line of succession ahead of Cabinet members.

• Here's a splashy front page of The Washington Post, which of course is an actual newspaper.

• We see a Notre Dame alumni mug in the kitchen. Martin Sheen insisted that President Bartlet be a graduate of Notre Dame.

• The sort of "choosing sides" or at least the Bartlet daughters choosing whom to comfort is interesting in light of what we know about the daughters already. In Ellie we saw both Jed and Ellie feeling like they'd always been unable to connect with each other, with Ellie feeling like she couldn't make her father happy and Jed flustered at why he couldn't fully act like a dad with her. So it's telling that Ellie is the one to stay with Jed and give him a hug after the fight with Abbey, as well as Ellie being the one to walk into the church hand-in-hand with her father.

• Donna's throwaway line "Elvis is in the building" (referring to Haffley) tells us Elvis Presley existed in this timeline.

• Here's an interesting little gem - as the Republicans gather in the Roosevelt Room to discuss naming a new Speaker, we hear this:

Josh: "Do we have any hidden cameras or tape recorders or something in there?"

Will: "Not since the mid '70s."

That certainly seems to be a sly little reference to secret White House recording devices that became public as part of the Watergate scandal in 1973-74. That event has never been mentioned in the series before, and President Nixon - who was forced to resign as a result of that scandal - has only seen his name come up twice in passing, neither time specifically in regards to his being President (there was a reference to Nixon and getting pandas from China in Six Meetings Before Lunch, and a "Nixon-Eisenhower thing" [meaning Vice President Nixon] in 17 People).  

• While we're told sailors from the USS Raleigh were killed in the movie theatre bombing in Turkey, the last of four Navy ships bearing the name Raleigh was decommissioned in 1991.

• Something new the show is doing: in the past I've taken note of the various logos we see on the laptops being used by the characters. We've seen Gateway, Apple, and HP logos in the past. Looks like the producers of the series are no longer interested in providing computer makers free advertising, as both CJ and Toby are using laptops that have a White House seal or something placed over the company logo on the laptop cover.

End credits freeze frame: President Bartlet, considering the dark at the window in the residence.

Previous episode: Twenty Five

Next episode: The Dogs Of War

Wrapping Up Season 4 - The End Of The Sorkin Era

Season 4 of The West Wing proved to be a turning point for the series. While still critically acclaimed - receiving its fourth consecutive Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series - the viewer ratings started a slow decline during the season. Over the last half of the 2002-03 season, in fact, the show averaged fewer than 14 million viewers per episode, a level not seen (well, except for Noël) since Season 1. Indeed, in the next three seasons, only three episodes are going to be able to reach more than 14 million viewers (7A WF 83429 and The Dogs Of War from Season 5, and Liftoff from Season 6).

Season 4 covered some important ground for the series: President Bartlet's re-election; Sam leaving the White House as he made the move to run for office on his own; the Bartlet Doctrine, calling on American military force to be used to protect human rights around the globe; Donna's romance with a Navy officer; and, finally, the kidnapping of Zoey and the President's decision to temporarily give up his office to a political rival.  But, obviously, the biggest and most important event of the season was the departure of show-creator (and author of all but three of the series' scripted episodes) Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin, along with fellow producer and 11-time director Tommy Schlamme, left the show in the spring of 2003. We can't fully discuss this season and the future of The West Wing without some more talk about that, so let's do it!

Sorkin: The Origins

Aaron Sorkin first found notice with his script for the play A Few Good Men, which reached Broadway in 1989 and ran for nearly 500 performances. His deft plot construction and witty, crackling dialogue caught the eye of Hollywood - in fact, he sold the film rights to the play before it even premiered on Broadway. That led him to the silver screen, where he earned screenwriting credits for the film version of A Few Good Men (1992) as well as the films Malice (1993) and The American President (1995).

(Side note: the stage production of A Few Good Men could be seen as the starting point of what might be considered the Mighty Sorkin Players, a collection of actors who go on to appear in additional Sorkin productions in the future. Some of the actors we've seen on The West Wing who first appeared onstage in A Few Good Men on Broadway or on the national tour include Clark Gregg, Joshua Malina, Timothy Busfield, Bradley Whitford, Michael O'Keefe, William J. Duffy, and Noah Emmerich.)

While working on the screenplay for The American President, Sorkin spent long nights at the computer with ESPN's Sportscenter on the television. That led him to the idea of a movie with a behind-the-scenes look at a TV sports show, which eventually became the 1998 ABC TV series Sports Night. While the series was well-received by critics, the audiences didn't follow and the show was canceled after two seasons.

The Beginnings Of The West Wing

After The American President and while working on his Sports Night idea, Sorkin was often hired as a script doctor, tuning up screenplays written by others. During this time, in late 1996, he was taken by surprise when a lunch date with producer John Wells (ER) that Sorkin thought would be a broad overview talk about TV ideas in general turned out to be Wells asking for Sorkin to pitch him an idea for a series. Just the night before, hanging out with some friends, fellow writer Akiva Goldsman had pointed to the poster for The American President and said, "You know, that would make a great TV series." Off the cuff, Sorkin pitched the idea of a show following not the President, but the background staff that ran the political operation. 

Wells thought that could make a good show, although it took three years to get it picked up by a network and under way. Networks were a little reluctant to put a political show on the air on the heels of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal, but NBC decided the time was right to debut the show in 1999. You can actually see some of the seams in Pilot that reveal the script was written a couple of years prior; we also get to see some of the plotlines from The American President get recycled in the show - but even so, the energy and dedication and skilled writing and acting propelled The West Wing into a terrific TV series.

The Way Out

Right from the start, the stress on Sorkin was evident. In Season 1 of the show, he was still writing every episode of Sport Night's second season while still getting teleplay credit for every West Wing episode but one (Enemies). By Season 2 Sports Night had ended, but Sorkin continued carrying the writing load, credited for every single scripted episode through both seasons 2 and 3. 

This mode of working caused some problems. Sorkin had already clashed with ABC network executives over issues with Sports Night; his relationship with NBC execs was similarly tense, particularly when his scripts would arrive later and later as the seasons wore on. By spring, Sorkin's scripts would often not be complete until just before shooting started on that episode, which resulted in budget overruns as casting/locations sometimes wouldn't be known until the last minute. Sorkin also had issues with drug abuse - while he completed rehab for cocaine addiction in 1995, in the spring of 2001 he was arrested at the Burbank Airport for possessing hallucinogenic mushrooms, marijuana, and crack cocaine. That arrest put him into a court-ordered drug diversion program,while he was still working on the third season of The West Wing. As we'll see in a bit, there was also a conflict with a member of the cast that turned out to go not in Sorkin's favor.

The combinations of Sorkin's drug issues and the budgetary pressures felt by NBC due to his control of the show's writing process led to some demands by the network, which asked him to start spreading out the teleplay responsibilities to the rest of the writing room. This led to a couple of Season 4 episodes without Sorkin's name on them (Swiss Diplomacy and The Long Goodbye), but in general, that line of thinking did not sit well with Sorkin and his view of caretaking his own creation.

It turns out there were also some other long-running disputes with NBC that contributed, finally building to a head in the spring of 2003. A fascinating 2017 interview with John Wells (one of the original producers of the show from the start, who then took over as show runner when Sorkin left) sheds some light on a problem with a cast member that I wasn't aware of before.

• As Season 4 got started, Sorkin got frustrated with "a couple of the actors" Wells says, and wanted one actor in particular off the show. That actor was smart enough to get the president of NBC to back his side of the issue, so instead of that actor leaving, Sorkin just stopped writing for his character. Now, it's clear he's talking about Rob Lowe - his issues with his role in the show, his storylines, and his pay levels in comparison with the rest of the cast are well-known, and were the primary reason Lowe left the show in mid-season (I talk about that throughout Season 4, summing things up here). The fact Sorkin wanted him gone and essentially wrote him off the show is new information for me. That was another strike against Sorkin with the network.

• Sometime in the spring of 2003 - it had to be then, as Sorkin has stated he didn't make the decision to leave until after he finished writing Twenty Five, and news of his departure didn't go public until May - NBC executives had a meeting with Sorkin and Wells about the future budgetary/creative direction of the show. The network had some specific things they wanted in place for Season 5, and while Wells doesn't go into detail in his interview, it's clear from context NBC wanted to spend less (fewer expensive location trips, for one) and they wanted Sorkin to share the writing load more. Who knows what other demands NBC might have had, Wells doesn't say, but Sorkin was already on thin ice with his drug issues, late script deliveries adding to the show's expenses, and his conflict with Lowe. Sorkin, thinking this was a negotiation, said no, I'm good with the way things are, thanks. The network executives got up and left. Sorkin looked at Wells and asked, "What just happened?" to which Wells replied, "I think you just quit."

• Yet another tidbit from this interview is the fact that even after Sorkin rejected NBC's demands for changes, he still wasn't completely positive he wanted to leave. This also plays in with Sorkin's DVD commentaries at the end of Season 4, where he insists he had resolutions in mind for the cliffhanger plot threads he left in Commencement and Twenty Five. He eventually came around to face the fact that the network wasn't going to budge with their demands, and he wasn't willing to give in.

And so, Sorkin's time with The West Wing was done. His career since has still thrived - while his 2006 series Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip only lasted one season, he came back with screenwriting credits for Charlie Wilson's War (2007), The Social Network (2010), for which he won an Academy Award, and Moneyball (2011) which earned him another Oscar nomination. He went on from there to create and write The Newsroom for HBO, which ran for three seasons (2012-14). After writing the screenplay for Steve Jobs in 2015, Sorkin began to branch out into directing as well. He wrote and directed Molly's Game (2017) which earned him his third Oscar nomination, then wrote and directed the 2020 film The Trial Of The Chicago 7. In the meantime, Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's classic To Kill A Mockingbird debuted on Broadway in 2018. His latest project, Being The Ricardos (2021), was also both written and directed by Sorkin. (We are still waiting for the live TV production of A Few Good Men, first announced in 2016 but yet to actually appear.)

The West Wing Post-Sorkin

Of course we'll get into the details of how the series develops in the future as these recaps continue. But here's a few things you can expect to see as the show continues in its final three seasons:

• It's darker. Not just thematically darker, with darker edges to stories; actually, luminously darker. It's almost like NBC said, hey, we're cutting the budget, let's start by taking out half the lights. It gets better later in Season 5, but the first part of this next season is sometimes pretty hard to see.

• Along the lines of darker themes and edges, the writing is less nimble and clever. It's hard for writers to live up a talented screenwriter like Sorkin, and while there are some very talented writers who contribute to the next three seasons, you can tell there's a little bit of fun and verve missing. This also leads to some blocky plotting and some real out-of-character moments - in some cases you wonder if these writers actually watched the first four seasons before starting on their scripts (CJ had an affair with Hoynes? There was a newsworthy government standoff with activists in Bartlet's first year that defined CJ's role as press secretary, that we never heard about before? Leo has a secret "in" with Castro's regime? Toby would leak classified military secrets?).

• Say what you will about Sorkin and his process, at least he was consistent with following the calendar as far as the setting of the episodes matching the time of year they aired (election episodes aired in November, holiday episodes around Thanksgiving and Christmas, end-of-season episodes clearly set in the spring). That's going to change ... we're going to get a Fourth of July episode next season, for example. Timelines gets compressed in Seasons 6 and 7, with a year actually missing in there (we'll try to keep track of how many times characters say "We've been here seven years" in Season 6, as a way to forcefully remind viewers a year just got skipped) and Presidential election episodes being aired in April.

• Some characters get rather ceremoniously dumped - Amy Gardner, we were just getting to like you as Abbey's Chief of Staff; Admiral Fitzwallis, thank you for your service - while the new showrunners end up writing in a bevy of new characters. Some of them are welcome (Annabeth Schott, Kate Harper, of course Matt and Helen Santos) some of them less so (Ryan Pierce? Angela Blake?).

Season Four

The Nielsen ratings show The West Wing starting to come down from the peak viewership point of Season 3. While both Seasons 2 and 3 averaged around 17 million viewers per episode, the 2002-03 season dropped to an average of 13.5 million, with a definite drop-off seen in the second half of the season. It dropped from the number 8 show on TV in 2001-02 down to number 21, and the Nielsen rating dropped from 11.4 to 9.0. (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was the highest-rated show of the season, with a rating of 16.4). 

2003 EMMY AWARDS

In another sign that the series was entering the downward side of the climb to success, The West Wing took just two Emmy Awards (out of 10 nominations) for the 2002-03 season. This came after winning four Emmys each of its first three seasons, with 28 nominations in the last two seasons combined. While the show itself took its fourth consecutive award for Outstanding Drama Series, for the first time there were no individual acting Emmy Awards given to the series.

Emmy Awards were won for:

• Outstanding Drama Series

• Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, awarded to Christopher Misiano for Twenty Five.

The other Emmy nominations the show received for Season 4 included:

• Martin Sheen with a fourth straight nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Twenty Five). James Gandolfini took the award for his work in The Sopranos. Gandolfini also took the Emmy over Sheen in both 1999-2000 and 2000-01, and Michael Chiklis of The Shield took the Emmy for 2002-03.

• Allison Janney earned her fourth consecutive Emmy nomination (and second consecutive for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series) for her work in The Long Goodbye. After Janney's two wins for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 1999-2000 and 2000-01, and an Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy in 2001-02, this time the award went to Edie Falco in The Sopranos.

• Both John Spencer (The Red Mass/Twenty Five) and Bradley Whitford (20 Hours In America/Evidence Of Things Not Seen) were nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Both had already won for The West Wing (Whitford in 2000-01, Spencer in 2001-02), but this time the Emmy went to Joe Pantoliano for, you guessed it, The Sopranos.

• Stockard Channing got a nomination, her fourth, for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Privateers and Twenty Five. She had received the Emmy in 2001-02. This season, though, the award went to Tyne Daly for Judging Amy.

• Two West Wing actors were nominated for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, Tim Matheson as Vice President Hoynes (Swiss Diplomacy/Life On Mars), and Matthew Perry as Joe Quincy (Evidence Of Things Not Seen/Life On Mars). That Emmy went to Charles S. Dutton for The Practice.

• Aaron Sorkin received his fifth nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for Twenty Five (he shared a writing Emmy, along with Rick Cleveland, in 2000). That Emmy went to a team of writers on The Sopranos.

2003 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS

The 2003 Golden Globes were virtually a carbon copy of 2002 as far as The West Wing was concerned. Held in January, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was actually honoring performances from the end of Season 3 and the first part of Season 4. The West Wing earned five Golden Globe nominations - tied with Will & Grace for most nominations - but didn't take home any awards.

The nominations:

• The series earned its fourth consecutive nomination for Best Television Series - Drama, which was won this season by The Shield.

• Martin Sheen got his fourth straight nomination for Best Actor in a Drama Series but the trophy went to Michael Chiklis for The Shield.

• Bradley Whitford and John Spencer were both was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film, but the award was given to Donald Sutherland for the HBO film Path To War.

• Allison Janney was nominated again for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film, but the award went to Edie Falco for The Sopranos.

2003 SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS

The SAG awards were held in March 2003, with nominations coming midway through the 2002-2003 season. The show, Martin Sheen, and Allison Janney had all won SAG awards at both the 2001 and 2002 events, but none of them ended up with the trophies this time around.

• The show's cast received another nomination, their third, for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. The trophy went to the cast of Six Feet Under.

• Martin Sheen, who received the award both of the two years before, was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series. Michael Chiklis got the award for The Shield.

• And Allison Janney, who won the trophy in 2001 and 2002 for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series, was nominated again, but saw the award go to Edie Falco for The Sopranos.

We move on to a brave new world of The West Wing, one without its muse and founder, but one with stories yet to tell and scenes yet to see. We'll get a resolution of Zoey's kidnapping and Bartlet's return to the Oval Office; an antagonistic new Speaker of the House working to undermine the administration; Fourth of July fireworks; the death of a former President; a really strange documentary from the future; an opening on the Supreme Court; and a dangerous trip to the Middle East for some of these characters. I'll be honest, Season 5 is a bit tough to work through ... I've only seen these episodes twice in my entire life! ... but it'll be an interesting journey to take together.