The Wake Up Call - TWW S6E14

 

Original airdate: February 9, 2005

Written by: Josh Singer (4)

Directed by: Laura Innes (5)

Synopsis

• Tempers flare as CJ makes the decision to delay waking the President for an international crisis. Toby debates a constitutional scholar over the philosophy of a new government for Belarus. Miss World causes a distraction in the West Wing.
  

"All you have to ask yourself at the end of the day is would it have made a difference if he'd been awake?" 

It's not hard to understand that when you've been working closely with the same group of people for eight years, in a high-pressure high-stress environment, through crises and health scares and triumphs and tragedies, that you're going to start treating your work colleagues as your "family." You care about them, as people, not as co-workers ... you want them to do well, to be safe, to stay healthy and happy. Trouble is, sometimes treating your colleagues that way - or, in this case, your boss - may not be the best thing for the business. Particularly when your "business" is running the executive and foreign policy branch of the government of the United States.

 

That's what we're presented with here, as CJ finds herself trapped between doing what's best for the health of her friend Jed and doing what's necessary for the security of the country and its President, Josiah Bartlet. It doesn't help that President Bartlet's wife is also a doctor, and that Abbey is starting to go outside the chain of command and lean on people to get her husband rest in the middle of an international crisis.

 

What is the right thing to do? How does one decide how to make difficult calls like when to wake a President who suffers from multiple sclerosis, and who stayed up until midnight the night before talking about the basic framework of government philosophies? And, actually, who is responsible for a President's health ... is he on the hook for taking care of himself, or does he pass on that responsibility to others? It's a tough one, and it makes for an engrossing episode.

 

After the aforementioned long night of chatting about government, CJ is awakened by news of a British airliner lost over the Caspian Sea, with six Americans aboard. Obviously any overseas disaster with loss of American life is a priority for the US government, but CJ makes the decision to let the President sleep ... after all, he can't change the outcome at this point, anyway. As things develop, though, there's concern the Iranian military might have been involved in the crash, once we find the airliner had strayed off course into airspace sometimes used by American spy planes; and when Kate delivers satellite photos showing two Iranian fighter jets en route to intercept the British aircraft, CJ has to get the President involved.

(Make note, though, that even with this delay CJ ends up waking the President only an hour and a half after she first heard of the disaster.) 

 

(Also, this story of a civilian airliner being shot down by the military is eerily similar to a mirror-image of Iran Air 655, which was shot down by the US Navy destroyer Vincennes in 1988 with the loss of 290 lives ... an event expressly referred to by "Chet" during his meeting with CJ. I am also reminded of the 2020 crash of the Ukranian flight PS752, killing 176, which was mistakenly shot down by Iraqi air defense forces after taking off from Baghdad in the midst of high international tensions following an American missile attack that killed a key Iraqi military commander.)

President Bartlet is miffed about not being brought into the stream of events earlier, and when the British Prime Minister goes on TV to attack the Iranians for shooting down the jet, he's even more ticked off. He thinks he could have talked Prime Minister Graty down off the ledge, if he'd had the chance to speak with her before she spouted off on television. He shoots darts at CJ throughout the episode, causing her to second-guess her decision ... and when Abbey joins in, surprising CJ in her office and demanding to know why her husband only got five hours of sleep, CJ feels even more maligned.

Stakes grow higher when the British ambassador, Lord John Marbury, presents his government's position that if the Iranians don't apologize for the shootdown, they will have no choice but to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. President Bartlet, continuing to put his faith in the fledgling Iranian reform movement and knowing any outside military attack will set reform measures back and invigorate hardliners, is desperate to find a path to stop the British from making such a move.

Thank goodness for Leo. His wise counsel is balm for the souls of both CJ and the President, first assuring CJ that there is never a perfect wake-up call decision.

CJ: "I called Abbey last night. I thought we should wake him, but he'd been up til almost midnight --"

Leo: "I always thought the wake-up call was one of the hardest decisions to make. The President's always going to want the call ... but really, all you have to ask yourself at the end of the day is would it have made a difference if he'd been awake?"

And then Leo defuses the President's anger with a similar take:

President: "If an American dies and there's even the slightest suspicion of international intrigue she's supposed to wake me."

Leo: "Since when? If I'd used that rule you'd be dead by now from sleep deprivation."

President: "Damn it, Leo, five minutes ago you were telling me to leave it all out on the field, now you're telling me to stay off it?"

Leo: "I'm telling you to let her do her job so you can do yours."

Abbey remains prickly, though, and understandably - she has an entirely different viewpoint, with Jed being her husband, father to their children and grandfather to their grandchildren. She's thinking long-term about his health and well-being, and less about the foreign policy demands of the administration. But CJ finally steps up to have a serious conversation with the First Lady, making a clear delineation between her responsibility to the country and the Bartlet family's responsibility for the President's health.

CJ: "It's not a medical decision, it's a question as to whether the leader of this country needs to be informed about something that puts the country's citizens in jeopardy. What he does with that information, how he manages his disease, those are his decisions."

Abbey: "He was up until midnight. He's not managing his disease."

CJ: "You're going to have to take that up with him, ma'am."

The potential British attack on Iranian nuclear sites is defused when CJ comes up with a clever plan: intercepts of radio traffic from the Iranian Air Force show they were confused, and thought the airliner was an American spy plane. Telling the Ayatollah the United States would release that information publicly at the United Nations would shame Iran, painting their air force as incompetents with shaky trigger fingers, something that the Ayatollah wouldn't want to be made public - and therefore elicting a public apology from Iran.

But the conflict between Jed and Abbey won't be defused so cleverly. The episode ends with the two having a quarrel in the Oval Office, arguing over how Jed refuses to take doctors' advice seriously and try to manage his multiple sclerosis, and with CJ closing her door to the Oval in a vain attempt to shut out the noise of the two fighting.

Toby's storyline involves his working with esteemed professor Lawrence Lessig, a constitutional scholar who has been enlisted to help the republic of Belarus write a new constitution (and whose chance meeting with President Bartlet directly led to Jed's staying up late and talking government philosophy until the wee hours). Toby and Lessig find themselves at loggerheads: Toby doesn't want to encourage the Belarussians to incorporate a too-strong executive, like the United States, as their tradition of strongman dictators could take advantage of that type of government (a situation that the United States itself finds itself struggling with right here in 2023, as a matter of fact). Toby keeps trying to steer the discussion towards a parliamentary system, but gets no support from Lessig.

Finally, the professor enlightens Toby as to his purpose: not to write a constitution in a few days, but to instill the principles of sound government into these Belarussian leaders, so they can create the solid foundations any kind of written constitution needs to be based on.

Toby: "These guys have to walk out of this building on Friday with a set of laws to take back home to Minsk."

Lessig: "Not a set of laws, a sense of the rule of law."

Toby: "You're not planning on writing a constitution this week?"

Lessig: "Are you familiar with Meyer v. State of Nebraska?"

Toby: "Nebraska passed a law making it illegal to teach anything other than English during World War I, Meyer wanted to teach German, Supreme Court said that the law was unconstitutional."

Lessig: "Good. Now ... where in the Constitution does it say you've got a right to teach German in school?"

Toby: "You're saying the document is irrelevant?"

Lessig: "No ... I'm saying the document is just the beginning."

A neat little storyline, with Toby learning something and fine performances by guest character actors Christopher Lloyd and Elya Baskin. Speaking of neat little storylines, it turns out every Valentine's Week Leo liked to have the reigning Miss World stop by, to, uh, promote her particular passions for world improvement (and, for Leo, to perk up the looks of the place for a day). CJ is not interested in such a meeting, given the ongoing international crisis, but once she sees Toby up to his neck in constitutional studies, she foists the meeting off on him.

Which leads to a parade of gawkers coming by Toby's office to see the beauty queen, from Ed:

To Larry:

And even Margaret:

(Margaret can appreciate attractiveness among all genders of the human race, if you remember her leaning through a doorway approvingly watching Judge Roberto Mendoza walk down the hallway in The Short List.)

 

 

Annabeth is able to turn Miss World's distracting beauty into an asset when the reporter Gordon is demanding the "tick tock," the minute-by-minute description of the White House's activities that would show President Bartlet was still asleep and not involved in the early morning talks with the British Prime Minister over the plane crash. She brings Gordon together with Miss World, and they spend a good deal of the day talking about genome research.

And all the storylines draw together at the end of the day, as CJ tells Annabeth to give out the tick-tock and come clean on the fact that the President isn't necessarily involved in every single event during a day's 24 hours, Toby realizes building a new government for a nation takes more than writing out all the rules, and Jed and Abbey bicker just steps away from CJ's desk.

Some Valentine's Day, huh? Still, a good examination of the balance between taking care of a beloved co-worker's health (and who should be truly responsible for that, anyway) and doing what's necessary for the workings of the administration.

 

Tales Of Interest!

- There are references to it being Valentine's Day, so this is mid-February 2006 ... close to the time of year (but in 2005) when the episode aired.

- I don't know why the show producers decided to put a title on the screen saying "12:15 A.M." and then immediately have CJ look at a clock that reads 12:24. Why not just have the title say "12:24 A.M." and have everything match up? We are not led to believe that nine minutes pass between CJ collapsing on her bed and her looking at the clock.

- Kate tells CJ at 3:45 am that the United Brittania flight went off radar "about an hour ago." The tapes of the Iranian military transmissions are described by Secretary Hutchinson as happening at 0230 and 0233 Greenwich Mean Time. While the US military would say "Zulu time" or "Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)" instead of GMT, they're all the same thing, so that's not the issue. The issue is that 0230 Z/GMT/UTC would be 2130 Eastern Standard Time, or 9:30 pm ... not 2:45 am.

This also all pokes holes in Kate's remark about a "dark and stormy night" causing the Iranian pilots to be unable to identify the civilian airliner. If the shootdown happened at 2:45 am DC time, as we are first led to believe, that would be 10:15 am Tehran time: mid-morning. If the shootdown happened at 0230Z, as the radio transmissions tell us, that would be 5:00 am Tehran time: that would still be dark in February, I'll grant you, but that also means Kate didn't call CJ to relay the news until five hours later.

- Another little blunder by the showrunners, as they keep forgetting about their timeline. Miss Bhutan is supposed to be the reigning Miss World, crowned the previous December of 2005; this is February of a presidential election year, which has been established as being 2006 (in 17 People Toby explicitly comments on the 2002 presidential election). Why would her sash declare her as Miss World 2004 instead of 2005? (Yes, this episode aired in 2005, which would show the reigning Miss World from 2004, but we've skipped a year and we are now definitely in 2006).

 

By the way, the actual Miss World 2004 was Miss Peru, Maria Julia Mantilla.

- Gail appears to be celebrating Valentine's Day with some shiny red hearts in her fishbowl.

- I don't think we've ever seen an actual fire in the Oval Office fireplace before.

- Why'd They Come Up With The Wake Up Call?

The thought process on deciding when to wake up the President - making a judgment call between his resting to help deal with his MS or alerting him to breaking events - is the overriding theme of the episode.

Quotes    

CJ: "I hear we like him."

President: "What's not to like? Guy spent the last fifteen years studying the mating rituals of drosophila melanogaster."

CJ: "He likes ... fruit flies."

President: "And my daughter, hopefully not in that order."

-----

Toby (introducing Lessig to CJ): "He's a constitutional writer, he's helping the folks from Belarus write their constitution."

CJ: "I would have thought they would've written one of those by now."

Lessig: "They have - it's three lines pledging allegiance to the Supreme Soviet."

CJ: "Hence, the rewrite."

Lessig: "Hence."

----- 

Zubatov: "Commander does not declare war?"

Toby: "Theoretically Congress needs to ..."

Zubatov: "Theoretically. So ... your habit is to ignore document?"

Toby: "No. (pause) Well, occasionally. (chuckle)"

-----

CJ: "Leo has been moved down the hall."

Lord John: "Oh, yes, I heard, demoted on account of a heart attack, yes, cutthroat even for American politics."

-----

Lord John (seeing Leo enter the room): "Gerald!"

Leo (under his breath): "Sweet Lord in heaven."

Lord John: "It's been too long!"

Leo: "Oh, I don't think it has."

-----

CJ (explaining to Leo): "Well, the President's in the residence, the Iranians are in the Mural, the French are at the gate, and (looking to Lord John) then there's Maude."

Leo: "I really can't believe that we still let him in the building."

Kate: "Tell me about it."

-----

President: "Diplomacy, John. The job of statesmen."

Lord John: "And I thought it was drinking and dancing."

(This reminds us of the President's comment to Lord John in The Drop In, when he said, "They say a statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years. I'd like us to be statesmen while we're still alive.") 

-----

Jed: "Is that what you're wearing to the opera?"

Abbey: "You have a 7:00 am call in the morning. I canceled the opera."

Jed: "The whole opera?"

Abbey: "No - just the part where we give the usher the tickets ..."

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

• The wonderful Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future, Taxi, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) appears as "constitutional midwife" Professor Lawrence Lessig.

• Alexander Zubatov, head of the Belarussian delegation, is played by familiar character actor Elya Baskin (True Blue, Homeland, Thirteen Days, Spider-Man 2 and 3).

• Fan favorite Lord John Marbury returns, for his final appearance on The West Wing, played by Roger Rees (Cheers, Frida, Warehouse 13).

• Nancy (Renée Estevez, Martin Sheen's daughter) shows up, apparently now farmed out of her Oval Office position to answer phones in the communications bullpen.

• This is the first mention of Ellie's boyfriend, a botanist she's dating in Baltimore. We will hear more about him in the future.
  

• Professor Lessig mentions having breakfast with Justice Lang, who would be Chief Justice Evelyn Baker Lang, played by Glenn Close in The Supremes.
  

• We see the White House reporters Gordon and Steve during Toby's briefing, and Gordon gets sidetracked by Miss World later on.

• CJ tells Leo about the meeting she and Abbey had with the doctors after the President returned from China, a meeting designed to give him more rest opportunities. We saw that meeting in Faith Based Initiative.
  

• A brief nod to the concurrent campaign storylines going on, as we see Senator Vinick on TV making a statement about Iran. President Bartlet also tells Leo "Hoynes, Vinick, Walken" are all attacking the administration over the handling of the aircraft shootdown, with Walken being Glenallen Walken, the Speaker of the House who took over the presidency in Twenty Five and is now apparently one of the Republicans in the running for the presidential nomination.
  

• It's been a while since we've seen President Bartlet smoke, and even longer since we saw him bum a cigarette from a Secret Service agent. He was first seen smoking in A Proportional Response, we heard about him asking a reporter for a cigarette on Air Force One in Celestial Navigation, and famously borrowed a lighter from a Secret Service agent in Posse Comitatus. 

DC location shots    

• None.

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

• At the start of the episode President Bartlet is listening to "Ave Maria" from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello, performed by the Orchestre National Bordeaux Acquitane & Alain Lombard (at least, according to Shazam). That's the same opera he intends to take Abbey to the following night.
  

• When the President jokes with CJ about grabbing Toby and heading out on the town, CJ responds with a bit about putting on sailor caps and chasing after Miss Turnstiles - elements of the plot of the 1944 stage musical and 1949 film On The Town.

• Toby is talking about "Shevardnadze" when he enters with Professor Lessig. Eduard Shevardnadze was president of the republic of Georgia shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and Georgia's independence in the early 1990s. Shevardnadze had stepped down from that post two years before this episode aired.
  

• Toby is seen reading Constitutional Choices by Laurence Tribe.

• Margaret has a Cure Autism Now calendar. We saw Josh wearing a T-shirt from that organization in the previous episode.

• President Bartlet says Prime Minister Graty might get aggressive and start quoting Churchill. He later compares her belligerence to "Hans and Franz," the Saturday Night Live skit with Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon.
  

• Lord John says he has an uncle who performed in The Mikado with the London Opera Company. He later mentions the Greek historian Thucydides, whose writings shed light on the political behavior of states and human behavior during crises.
  

• Lord John is reciting the poem A Birthday by Victorian poet Christina Rossetti as he reclines on the sofa in CJ's office pestering Kate.
  

• Lessig brings up Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson as he debates Toby over the proper form of government for Belarus.
  

• Toby says not liking the White Album might be a reason for a tyrannical president to start locking people up.
  

• As Annabeth hands out Valentine's candies in the press cubicles, we see signs for the BBC, Newsweek, UPI, CNN, Time, and NBC. We also see the MSNBC logo during the shot of Vinick making a statement on TV. 
  

• "Chet," the Iranian diplomat who meets with CJ, brings up the downing of Iran Air flight 655, shot down by an American warship in 1988, and the fact the United States never explicitly apologized for that event.
  

• Leo says talking to the French is "like talking to Madame Defarge," a character in Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities.
  

• The Supreme Court case Toby and Lessig talk about, Meyer v. State of Nebraska, is an actual decision from 1923.
  

• The cigarettes President Bartlet borrows from the Secret Service agent appear to be American Spirit brand, specifically the yellow-packaged "Original Blend Mellow Original Taste."
  

End credits freeze frame: CJ and the President in the Oval Office, making the decision to leverage an apology out of the Ayatollah with the Iranian Air Force recordings.

Previous episode: King Corn

Next episode: Freedonia