NSF Thurmont - TWW S6E1

 

 

Original airdate: October 20, 2004

Written by: John Wells (4) 

Directed by: Alex Graves (21)

Synopsis

• President Bartlet's insistence on pursuing a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Gaza deepens the rift between Jed and Leo. A hail-mary effort to get cooperation from the Palestinians pays off. Josh continues to stick around at the German hospital as Donna fights complications from her injuries.
  

"... you are going to have to give the go-ahead for the bombings." 

"Or what?"

It feels like things are nearing the breaking point - which is the exactly the goal of John Wells' script, to show us the cracks developing between old friends and trusted advisers as one continues chasing what the other sees as pipe dreams. So, good job, John, I guess! It's certainly an involving kickoff to Season 6, even if the plot threads are twisty and complicated and sometimes a bit hard to follow.

 

Let's recap and set the scene for where we begin. A congressional fact-finding delegation to the Middle East was hit by a roadside bomb in Gaza, killing four Americans (including two congressmen and Jed's dear friend, Admiral Fitzwallace) while seriously wounding Donna, who was along on the trip on Josh's direction as he tried to fulfill her desire to get more responsibility out of her career. Calls for a retaliatory military strike against Palestinians immediately came down on the President, from Congress, the American people, and most of his closest advisers - particularly Leo. President Bartlet, though, was reluctant to use military force, even after the leader of the splinter cell responsible for the bombing was located - estimates of civilian casualties in a strike were too large for him to accept. Meanwhile, the relatively new NSA adviser, Kate Harper, (at the President's request) continued to provide non-military approaches to keep the administration's options open, including reaching out the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority to try to apprehend the splinter cell leader peacefully. That earned her a chewing out from Leo as he continued to press for what he believed to be the only realistic outcome, using the US military to strike back. More complications in the Middle East ensue, as the Israelis attack Gaza in a strike against terrorists (killing several civilians), which leads the Palestinians to respond with a suicide bombing of a bus in Israel, which in turn results in the Israelis surrounding the chairman's compound and cutting him off from all communications.

That's basically where we are as this episode kicks off. The President, in some ways, absolutely does look "feckless" (as Toby describes Congress defining him) and maybe somewhat naive in his continued obsession with finding a way out of the situation without killing innocent civilians. But, a couple of comments he makes, I think, state his case very clearly about seeing the long-range picture, which his generals and Congress and Leo seem to be missing in their table-pounding insistence on bombing - and even the fact that a link to the bombing is made to a Syrian terrorist camp, where an attack would not mean any civilian lives being lost, doesn't shake the President's stance of insisting on trying peace first.

In Memorial Day, the President tells Leo, "Bombing Gaza could be the most dangerous move this country has made in two centuries." He knows a strike against Islamic radicals could very well bring down terrorist attacks right here in America, a continuing and growing cycle of violence that has no end. And later on in this episode he expounds on the point, telling Leo, "Why would Palestinians murder American government officials? They never have before. They're deliberately provoking us, Leo. They know that we have to retaliate. They've studied us. They want us to overreact."

President Bartlet believes this splinter cell leader, Khalil Naisan, attacked the congressional delegation fully expecting an American military strike against Palestinians in return, and wants to use that attack as provocation to hit targets in the United States. He can see further down the escalating path of response begetting response, something that Leo isn't seeing, and that's illustrating a serious divide beginning to split these old friends.

And that, of course, is the major theme of the episode. We saw the split beginning a little at the end of Season 5, with Leo starting to react to the President dismissing his counsel in favor of others (particularly Kate's), and the realization that they are no longer on the same page with this particular aspect of foreign policy. Remember, these guys have been through thick and thin together, they've known each other since the 1960s, then became attached at the hip from the beginnings of Jed Bartlet's first Presidential campaign back in the late 1990s, through the election, through the exposure of Leo's drug and alcohol addiction and rehab, through the revelations of Jed's multiple sclerosis coverup, through re-election ... and now, Leo feels like his advice is being ignored and his friend is going astray. 

Leo believes he's truly on the right side. A military response is the only practical avenue, and the American public, the military brass, and nearly all of the President's advisers agree, even Toby and Will (Will, in particular, is ready to bomb every Palestinian he can find - "if the keffiyeh fits," in an especially unfortunate bit of phrasing by John Wells). When Speaker Haffley leads a delegation from Congress to the White House to insist on an attack - even bringing some Democrats along - the response from the President is not what he expected:

Haffley: "Mr. President, you have to go on national television, admit your mistake, and retract those invitations. You've insulted these men and their memories. You have to put this summit back in the cereal box it came in."

President (seething): "I didn't come here to play games." (begins to walk out) "I'm trying to find a way to make peace. And when I do, you can go on TV and explain why you're against it."

Meanwhile, Kate's idea of reaching out to Chairman Farad seems to be at a dead end, since the Israelis have him isolated and his public announcement of inviting himself to Camp David to talk peace has only enraged the Israeli government (Farad has a habit of agreeing to work with the Israelis on efforts toward peace, only to double-cross them at every turn, so they are dead-set against having Farad involved in any discussions). When the President cooks up a brainstorming session, looking for any ideas to pursue peace, no matter how stupid or outrageous, she speaks up:

Kate: "We ignore everything that's happened in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, Farad was cooperating with us, planning to arrest Naisan and the other perpetrators of the CODEL bombing. Then the Israelis surrounded his compound in the West Bank and his people in Gaza refused to arrest Naisan, right?"

Will: "Yeah, so?"

Kate: "So we hold Farad to his earlier promise. Tell him if he wants a summit then he has to arrest Naisan. Show us and the Israelis that he's serious about punishing terrorists."

The Americans manage to get a phone to Farad, then they wait, as a naval battle group gets into position to strike the camps in Syria. The Israelis continue to refuse to take part in any meetings that include Farad, even while Palestinian Prime Minister Mukharat tries to work around Farad to be included himself.

Finally, a phone call. President Bartlet debates with Farad, trying to get him to live up to his deal to arrest Naisan. Farad is reluctant - with so many different warring factions on the Palestinian side, arresting Naisan at the behest of the United States and Israel could mean he'd be removed from his position of power, or worse. Kate has a idea ... if only she can find paper and a pen:

Clumsy Kate, knocking over Jed's coffee mug

She has the President give Farad an offer ... if he can capture Naisan and turn him over to the FBI, the administration would be happy to say the FBI made the arrest themselves, leaving Farad out of it.

It's the best they can come up with, and it's not very likely. It's the dimmest spark of hope one can hope for, but it continues to be one President Bartlet continues to grasp, even as the Navy is in position waiting for the word to strike. That brings us to the pivot point of the episode, as Leo continues to insist on the attack.

The old friends shout at one another.

President (shouting): "Tell me how this ends, Leo! You want me to start something that may have serious repercussions on American foreign policy for decades, but you don't how it ends."

Leo (shouting back): "We don't always know how it ends!" (steadily) "The Lincoln will be in position in a few hours and then you are going to have to give the go-ahead for the bombings."

President Bartlet is not accustomed to being told not to do, not even by Leo. He doesn't appreciate it much, either, particularly as he knows Leo knows exactly where Jed stands on this issue, and why.

His glare speaks for itself.

President: "Or what?"

 Leo is in shock at this thinly veiled threat.

So here we are. The President has heard Leo out, but he's not going to take his advice. Leo is going to have to deal with that somehow. Which is going to be even harder for him when the Director of the FBI unexpectedly drops by the Oval Office:

Director Arnold: "Our FBI team in Gaza was just contacted by Palestinian security forces. They have Khalil Naisan in custody and they'd like to turn him over to us."

Farad has come through, the desperate gambit has paid off. He's made the good-faith effort, which gives the President what he needs to lean on the Israelis to insist they take part in peace discussions. The Camp David summit is back on.

But Leo isn't going to be a part of it, at least not at the start. As the Israeli ambassador comes to the Oval Office to take part in the phone call with Prime Minister Zahavy, he's told this:

President: "Leo, head down to the Sit Room and tell the generals to keep their pistols in their pockets for the time being. You don't believe in this, Leo, and they're not going to want to do it. I can't have them pick up any signals from you that we disagree."

And the door is literally shut in Leo's face.

You gotta think that hurts.

Everyone heads to Camp David, the President and his team (sans Leo), Chairman Farad, Palestinian Prime Minister Mukharat, and the Israeli Prime Minister. President Bartlet, though, does have one last move up his sleeve - he tells Leo as soon as the Palestinians land in the United States he'll give the order for the military strike on the terrorist training camp in Syria. So Congress and those baying for retribution will get their bombing, but the peace talks will go on anyway. A neat little trick to have it both ways and an illustration that Bartlet wasn't totally oblivious to what had to happen - although this does still fit in with President Bartlet's desire to limit civilian casualties, which an attack in Gaza would have resulted in.

The peace talks - and the outcome of the split between Jed and Leo - will be the subject of the next episode.

Meanwhile, in Germany ... we were left with Donna heading to urgent surgery after a blood clot threatened her recovery from injuries suffered in the Gaza bombing. Josh had gone to her bedside immediately upon her arrival at the military hospital, only to meet Colin Ayres, the Irish photographer who grew close to Donna on her trip, eventually sleeping with her just before the explosion.

Before going under anesthesia for the surgery, Donna asks to see Josh (not Colin, which is kind of important). While she can't speak with the oxygen mask on, she writes a note saying she's scared. Josh, while scared too, tries to comfort her ... and their hands touching certainly seems meaningful, somehow.

The Josh-Donna relationship has been a simmering storyline throughout the series. Famously, Janel Moloney says from the start she played Donna as being deeply in love with Josh, even without expressing it outwardly, just using that as character-building backstory to inform her scenes with Bradley Whitford. The two actors did have instant chemistry, as audiences were quick to respond to (so much so that the Josh love-interest character originally included in the series, Mandy, was written out after Season 1). Even while the two characters had their own other romantic couplings - Josh with Amy and a bit with Joey, while Donna dated Cliff and Jack Reese and others - there was always some kind of special bond seen between them. While that bond showed up in many episodes, from In Excelsis Deo to The Portland Trip to War Crimes to Arctic Radar to Inauguration: Over There and others, I think it was best expressed in 17 People, after Donna told the story of being taken to the hospital after a car accident and her then-boyfriend stopping off for a beer on his way to see her:

Josh: "I'm just saying, if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for a beer."

Donna: "If you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights."

Even so ... Josh doesn't really treat Donna as well as he should. In No Exit CJ tried to explain to her that if Josh really was trying to help Donna grow in her career, he wouldn't be keeping her stuck in her assistant role. And there are so, so many examples of Josh taking Donna for granted, not recognizing her excellent work in supporting him and her devotion to him and his position.

Colin just met Josh, and he can see it.

Colin: "There was this girl when I was 16. No, 17."

Josh: "This is when you were a bagman for the IRA?"

Colin: "She was mad about me, worshipped me, really, and I liked her, but I was off to the university in Dublin and she was going to stay in Belfast, work in her dad's shop."

Josh (concerned about the surgery): "This is taking too long. Isn't this taking too long?"

Colin: "She wrote to me every single day, and she called weekends. And she ... she was always there. And I took her for granted, you know?"

That's a truth bomb for Josh. But it only gets worse when the doctor reports the result of the surgery - there's a possibility Donna may have suffered hypoxia, a lack of oxygen to the brain, during the procedure, and she may have irreversible brain damage. Her life, and Josh's, may never be the same.

Josh stays by her side. Colin disappears - apparently his only purpose was to be Donna's guide in Gaza and a spur in the side of Josh to make him realize what she truly means to him. While there's a lot of indications in these recent German hospital episodes subtly illustrating Donna's true feelings for Josh, her reaction as she awakens from unconsciousness says, well, everything really.

"Josh?" she weakly calls out. "Josh?" Remember, she's only just coming out of what's basically a coma following her surgery. She has no idea of who or what is around her right now. She knew Colin had also been at the hospital, her mother was on the way, her eyes are barely open and she can't see who is there by her bedside. And yet, her very first instinct is to call out for Josh. What do you think that says about her deepest feelings for him?

"You're still here."

"Yeah ... I'm still here."

Does this mean Josh has realized how much he's taken Donna for granted, that these two will recognize and act on their romantic feelings, and everything will be happy every after for these lovebirds? Ha! I mean, well, eventually ... but we've got pretty much two entire seasons left before that actually works out, so Josh is still gonna be ... Josh.

Season 6 is off and running. Big changes are on the way, both in and out of the White House. As Paul Harvey used to say, "Stand by, for news!"

Tales Of Interest!

- Mary McCormack is added to the regular cast, promoted from her Special Guest Star role in Season 5, with a spot in the opening credits. Stockard Channing also shows up in the credit sequence, but she's had that going on only for episodes she's appeared in for a while.

- Speaking of Stockard Channing's Abbey, there's nothing I like more than military-grade snarky Abbey. Her comment in the limo on the way to Fitz's funeral is a golden example:

Leo: "Tell Farad he can have his summit if it can double as his retirement party. I'll spring for the watch."

President: "What do I need from him to get the Israelis to Camp David?"

Kate: "He'd have to promise to arrest the leaders of Hamas, put the Palestinian security forces under Mukharat and the moderates, and adopt a new PLO charter that gives up that portion of historical Palestine he's going to recognize as Israel."

Abbey: "Plus the watch?"

- For the fourth time out of five season premieres, the action of the episode picks up exactly where the previous season-ending episode left off. The only exception was Season 4's 20 Hours In America, which is set about six weeks prior to the November election and about four months after the events of Posse Comitatus.

It makes sense, of course, for season-ending cliffhangers to be addressed in the season opener, so the debuts kinda need to follow those cliffhangers directly. Season 2's In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen began in the immediate aftermath of the shooting at Rosslyn in What Kind Of Day Has It Been; Season 3's Manchester picked up in the midst of President Bartlet's press conference from Two Cathedrals; and Season 5's 7A WF 83429 began on the same night of the events seen in Twenty Five.

- Bringing up What Kind Of Day Has It Been reminds me of somebody I left out of my Season 5 wrapup post, when I was going over the list of characters who'd showed up and then departed over the series' first five years. I forgot about Gina Toscano (Jorja Fox), Zoey's personally assigned Secret Service agent. She first was seen in 20 Hours In L.A., played a very important part in the events of What Kind Of Day Has It Been, but then left the show after In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen. Fox - who was part of the ER to West Wing John Wells pipeline - got a major role in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in 2000 which left her no time for The West Wing.

- The timing does seem rather breakneck, although given the seriousness of the situation in Gaza, the murders of American congressmen, and the known location of Naisan, that all makes sense ... but the idea that a summit involving the Israeli Prime Minister, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian Prime Minister can all be organized and begun in a matter of a couple of days is bordering on unbelievable. The explosion in Gaza happened the weekend before Memorial Day, then we saw the events of that holiday Monday leading up to President Bartlet's appearance at a Baltimore Orioles baseball game that night to wrap up Season 5. We start here immediately after that, with Donna still in surgery for her blood clot and the administration trying to deal with Chairman Farad's self-invitation to Camp David that we first heard about as Jed was taking to the diamond at Camden Yards. It does appear "a couple of days" might have passed (going by Josh's mention of when Donna's surgical outcome might be known), but we're still talking about the week following Memorial Day, and already we're getting Middle Eastern leaders gathering in Maryland. That's pretty fast. No wonder that lady was so rushed she got the spacing of the documents wrong on the table to bring down the wrath of Debbie.

- I do appreciate the overhead-shot montage as the President and his advisers talk over possible approaches to their dilemma ("no idea is too stupid or outrageous"), as the camera slowly spins in that West-Wingy kind of way. For me it's a callback to the final scene of Pilot, where the camera pulled back high above the seal in the Oval Office carpet as President Bartlet and Mrs. Landingham got to work on the day's events.

- I've mentioned before that the show's writers and producers have completely forgotten about the nation of Qumar, whose existence has been talked about since The Women Of Qumar. The country became a serious player in The West Wing late in Season 3 with its Defense Minister planning terrorist attacks against the United States mainland, the eventual secret assassination of said Defense Minister on President Bartlet's order, sleeper-cell terrorists being tracked in the Pacific Northwest, and then the abduction of First Daughter Zoey by some of those terrorists that resulted in President Bartlet actually stepping away from the office for a day or so. Pretty important country, right? Here's where it was shown to be located at the beginning of Season 5, which agreed with maps we saw early in Season 4:

It's right across the Strait of Hormuz from the United Arab Emirates and Dubai.

Well, as I've made note of this with several late Season 5 episodes, when maps of the Middle East appear in the Situation Room, Qumar no longer exists. We get two looks at that map in this episode, and Qumar has been - *poof* - erased from existence, as Doc Brown would say.

- Speaking of erased from existence, we get a look at CJ's desk and the spot where Gail's fishbowl usually is ... but Gail isn't there.

 

- The budget for this episode must have been pretty high, considering the location shoots, the aerial photography, and the rental of the Sikorsky Sea King helicopter. Joshua Malina tells the story of the unfortunate props painting crew who mistakenly lettered "UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA" on the side of the helicopter instead of "UNITED STATES" (obviously, the error was caught and corrected before filming).

(You can see from this candid photograph from the time of filming that Mary McCormack was quite pregnant. Scenes with Kate were rather artfully shot to conceal that fact from the audience.)

- Charlie remarks to the President at Camp David while they're waiting for the other delegations to arrive, "The Israelis just cleared our airspace." Typically the phrase "clearing our airspace" means an aircraft has just left ... in context here, Charlie means they've just entered the airspace, so he's phrasing it wrong (thanks a lot, John Wells).

- CONTINUITY ERROR: When Donna is about to go under for her surgery and writes notes to Josh, her first note says, "Nice Hat!" with an exclamation point. A moment later, just before she adds, "Scared" to the note, the exclamation point disappears.

- Why'd They Come Up With NSF Thurmont?

As the staff is heading to the Marine One helicopter, Toby asks Kate, "Have you ever been to NSF Thurmont before?" to which she replies, "Camp David? No, I haven't." The Presidential retreat commonly referred to as Camp David, located in Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland, is technically named Naval Support Facility Thurmont.

Quotes    

Kate: "Sir. I feel as if my counsel is largely responsible for this mess."

President: "I get lots of counsel, Ms. Harper. What I choose to do with it is my responsibility."

----- 

Will: "The President knows, right? You guys are telling him?"

CJ: "Knows what?"

Will: "That there is no viable alternative. He's going to have to bomb Palestinians."

-----

Toby: "What's the President doing, Leo? A summit? He's already got a Nobel Prize. What does he need a second one for, bookends?"

-----

Colin: "So you fly halfway around the world at a moment's notice to rush to a woman's bedside when the White House is facing off a biblical apocalypse?"

(pause)

Josh: "We work together."

-----

President: "It passed?"

Toby: "Yes, sir."

President: "How many Democrats against us?"

Toby: "Too many."

President: "But we swept the Vermont delegation, am I right?"

Toby: "Actually, no."

-----

Toby: "Ever been on Marine One?"

Kate: "No, I haven't."

Toby: "You like helicopters?"

Kate: "No, not really. I get airsick."

Toby: "Okay, you can sit with Will."

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

• Armin Mueller-Stahl (Shine, Eastern Promises, Angels & Demons) returns as Israeli Prime Minister Zahavy. Mueller-Stahl was first seen in that role in The Warfare Of Genghis Khan.

• Jason Isaacs (the Harry Potter films, The Death Of Stalin, Star Trek: Discovery) is back as Colin Ayres, the Irish photojournalist who had a fling with Donna in Gaza before the bombing. Oddly, this will be the end of Colin for us ... Donna apparently drops him like he's hot.

• Along with Speaker Haffley, who shows up at the White House to harangue the President again, we get the House Democratic Minority Leader Sheila Fields, played by Charlotte Colavin. Rep. Fields has appeared as the House Minority Leader a couple of times before, and she's meant to remind us of California Representative Nancy Pelosi, who actually was the House Minority Leader from 2002 to 2007, when she became Speaker of the House.

• When the President enters the room with the congressional leaders, he says, "Are these the same right-wing turkey basters that said I faked MS to get the sympathy vote in the last election?" President Bartlet's multiple sclerosis diagnosis was revealed in He Shall, From Time To Time ... and the impact of that news becoming public was the Season 2-ending plot line from 17 People through Two Cathedrals. In H. CON-172 the President took a congressional censure for covering up his disease during his first campaign.
  

• Debbie shows up briefly, with a ruler but without even one line, although she does have quite the scornful look for the woman who didn't get the documents lined up correctly on the negotiating table.

• If you remember Access, we were introduced to FBI Director George Arnold (Michael Kagan), where in flashback scenes we learned he had been FBI Director from the beginning of the Bartlet administration in 1999 (even though the President called the FBI Director by a different name in A Proportional Response). Just to reinforce the never-before-heard information we learned in Access, here's Director Arnold once again, doing his FBI stuff.

• The regular reporters Gordon and Chris are seen in the briefing room.
  

• Here's the background actor I only call Buzz Cut Guy, who pops up in West Wing scenes all the time. Once you notice him, then you start seeing him all over the place.

• We get not one but two Bartlet jacket flips. Martin Sheen's left shoulder was injured at birth, making it difficult for him to raise that arm above the shoulder, so he came up with the over-the-head flip to don jackets.

• Toby complains about the President's peace efforts, saying he's doing it only to get a second Nobel Prize. President Bartlet was granted the Nobel Prize for Economics before entering politics - while the economics prize isn't one of the five official awards established in Alfred Nobel's will, it is still awarded by the Nobel Foundation at the Nobel Prize Award ceremony.
  

• This is almost certainly not foreshadowing, but Toby telling Kate she can sit with Will in Marine One (because she gets airsick) and then her friendly conversation with Will as he's jogging at Camp David might take on a different note once we really roll our way into Season 7. You'll see what I mean.
  

DC location shots    

• The opening hearse/casket shots and then the scenes around Admiral Fitzwallace's funeral were filmed at and around St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Annapolis, Maryland.

•  I believe the Camp David scenes were filmed at ThorpeWood, an environmental education center located in a forest preserve in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland.

 

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

• I'm still a little amazed it took NBC the entire first season to realize they had a 24-hour cable news network they could promote on their own series, but by Season 6 they are taking full advantage to get MSNBC's logo onscreen. (CNN also gets mentioned in this episode, as well as the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes.)
  

• With the mention of the military strike coming from the Lincoln Battle Group and the video of aircraft taking off from the carrier deck, it's worth noting the USS Abraham Lincoln is indeed an aircraft carrier in the US Navy, and does have the designation CVN-72 as seen in the Situation Room.
  

• We see a USA Today newspaper in the bullpen outside Josh's office.

• CJ brings bottles of Aquafina water into Toby's office with her peanut butter crackers, and she also mentions she likes Diet Dr Pepper.

• President Bartlet is seen wearing a Notre Dame fleece. When he was offered the role, Martin Sheen insisted that Jed Bartlet be a Notre Dame graduate.

• Will is jogging at Camp David in a Carnegie Mellon T-shirt, which implies he's a graduate of that school. While it was mentioned previously that he went to Cambridge on a Marshall Scholarship, that could have been graduate work. What is also of note is that Joshua Malina tells the story that director Alex Graves didn't want Malina to have his sleeves rolled up for this scene, but the actor did it anyway to show off his toned arms. Again, that's according to Malina.

• Will mentions Beanie Babies in his criticism of Chairman Farad; Josh compares the nurse ordering him to shut off his cell phone to Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
  

• As the President gets ready to greet Prime Minister Zahavy at Camp David, Abbey tells him, "Go get 'em, Cassius." This is likely a reference to the Roman general Gaius Cassius Longinus, who is best known as one of the plotters in the assassination of Julius Caesar, but prior to that sought to find peace during the civil war between Caesar and Pompey.
  

End credits freeze frame: The Oval Office as the President talks on the phone with Chairman Farad, with Kate looking for something to write on, or a coffee mug to spill.

Previous episode: Memorial Day

Next episode: The Birnam Wood

 

Wrapping Up Season 5

Season 5 was a turning point in the history of The West Wing. Show creator Aaron Sorkin had departed, after receiving writing credits for 85 of the first 90 episodes of the series (and that's including Documentary Special, which we really shouldn't). John Wells, best known as the producer of ER, took over running the show and steered it into a slightly different direction, with more personal-relationship oriented plotlines and sometimes a more soap-opera-y feel. The show also suffered from a writing staff looking to find its footing without Sorkin, with a loss of a lot of humor and lightness his writing provided.

So it's not surprising that the ratings slide the series first encountered in Season 4 continued into Season 5. The show went from the 22nd most viewed TV series in 2002-03 to number 29 for 2003-04, dropping from an average of 13.5 million viewers per episode to 11.8 (in the show's heyday as a top 15 ranked series in Seasons 2 and 3, it averaged around 17 million viewers per episode). By comparison, though, in today's fractured broadcast/cable/streaming world of television, in 2021-22 the highest-rated non-sporting-event TV series, NCIS, averaged 10.9 million viewers, which makes The West Wing's numbers from 20 years ago seem pretty legit.

The season-opening 7A WF 83429 had over 18 million viewers watching, actually slightly ahead of the Season 4 debut episode 20 Hours In America, as people tuned in to see if there would be a resolution to Zoey's kidnapping cliffhanger ... but when that episode didn't resolve anything, people (including me) started tuning out. After that, viewers rarely cracked 13 million for following episodes, and after The Stormy Present aired to begin 2004 the numbers didn't even get above 12 million for the last twelve episodes of the season. Compare that to the past four years where only one episode in all four seasons (Privateers) had fewer than 12 million viewers.

It's difficult to maintain excellence (and it's difficult to measure excellence by simply numbers of viewers and Nielsen ratings), and that gets even harder when your creator and series guide moves on, leaving the creative direction to others. Now, I'm not saying Season 5 was bad - there were definitely high points like The Supremes and Separation Of Powers - but it was certainly different, and absolutely less consistent. It's completely understandable to see viewership drop under these circumstances.

The show also ended up considerably less critically lauded than in the past. After winning the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series the past four years running, with 10 other Emmys awarded in other categories, only Allison Janney earned an Emmy for this season - and that was actually for what's regarded as one of the poorer episodes of the year (Access). The show had won 14 Emmys with 47 nominations over the first four seasons; this year it was one win in seven nominations.

Once viewership starts declining in this way, producers often make changes in an effort to spur interest from new viewers, and/or bring lost viewers back. Sometimes these changes are subtle, sometimes they are radical, sometimes it means bringing in new characters (Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch, or Jonathan Winters in Mork & Mindy) or revamping the situations or the setting (Laverne & Shirley moving from Milwaukee to Los Angeles, for instance). Nothing quite so radical happened here, but we did see some personnel adjustments - Ryan Pierce, Josh's intern, and Rena, Toby's assistant, seemed to be brought in to add a "younger perspective" to the cast; and towards the end of the season we saw Mary McCormack's Kate Harper added to our story. While she remains a "Special Guest Star" at this time, along the lines of Gary Cole's Vice President Russell, she'll eventually become a full cast member and significant player in Seasons 6 and 7.

The big change in direction won't come until later in Season 6, with the shift to covering the campaign for the 2006 Presidential election (for a good part of Seasons 6 and 7 the episodes alternate between campaign entries and Bartlet administration goings-on), and we'll also get some of our characters taking on new and more challenging roles. We still have to live through episodes like The Hubbert Peak and Ninety Miles Away, but the overall quality, I think, takes a turn for the better with the campaign episodes and the show finishes strongly in Season 7.

My Personal Blogging Progression

Just for funsies, I thought I'd take a look at how long it's taking me to make my way through this rewatch as I blog my thoughts for you. Turns out I began this entire process back in April of 2017, mostly inspired by the podcast The West Wing Weekly, hosted by Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway. If you consider yourself a fan of The West Wing, I'd highly encourage you to give that podcast a listen ... heck, pair up their entries on each episode with my blog posts, for a double-your-pleasure kind of thing. I had only just finished up a rewatch of the show to help me get through what was going on in the political world of 2015-16 (a rewatch which, as I've mentioned, was the very first time I'd actually watched almost all of Season 5). Anyway, April 28, 2017, I published my first post on Pilot - immediately followed a few days later by another post with stuff I forgot to mention.

My formatting and structure have changed a bit from the beginning, plus back then I was still fully employed and often viewing episodes and taking notes during break time at my job. Add to that family time, my acting endeavors, my part-time football play-by-play gig on the radio, buying and selling a house and moving a year and a half ago (not to mention a devastating storm that knocked power out to my house for nearly two weeks and disrupted life in my city for months), and sometimes it took a little while to work my way through. I knew I could never commit to weekly posts, like Josh and Hrishi did for their podcast, but I just soldiered on the best I could.

So, how long has it taken me? This is now mid- February of 2023, so it took a little less than six years to cover five seasons of the show (69 months, to be exact). I certainly didn't intend for my blogs to take even longer than the actual broadcast time of the show, but what can you do? I'd hoped with my retirement at the end of 2018 I could speed up my efforts, but life continues to be, well, lived. I do feel like I'm stepping up a bit better going into 2023, my note-taking and blog structure is getting a bit more streamlined, so ... we'll see.

-Season 1: about 15 months (April 2017 to July 2018)

 

-Season 2: I raced through one of the best seasons in TV history in 12 months (August 2018 to July 2019)

 

-Season 3: again, 12 months from August 2019 to July 2020

 

-Season 4: things got bogged down a little, what with a derecho and moving ... this ended up taking about 19 months, starting in July 2020 and wrapping up in January 2022

 

-Season 5: despite the draggier nature of the season's episodes and the less interesting stories overall, I almost got back to my Season 2/3 pace, covering 13 months from January 2022 to February 2023 ... although I ended in quite a rush, with my last seven blog entries in just over ten weeks 

Where Have You Gone, Mandy Hampton?

This may be kind of silly, but I thought with five seasons under my belt it might be fun to reminisce about characters who have come and gone, perhaps to return later or perhaps not, and sometimes disappearing without a trace. After all, the series hit that magical 100-episode syndication mark during Season 5, so that's about a good a time as any.

• Let's start with the originator and first resident of Mandyville, Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly). Second-billed as a regular cast member from the start, Mandy was intended to be a foil for Josh, an ex-girlfriend brought into the Bartlet White House as a savvy media specialist. Kelly and Brad Whitford never really clicked chemistry-wise (especially noticeable as Janel Moloney's Donna set off sparks playing against Whitford), and the writers struggled to find any real role for Mandy in the storylines. She was last seen in What Kind Of Day Has It Been discussing the President's visual look at an upcoming town hall, and perhaps most strikingly has never been seen or even referred to since - not even in flashbacks to the campaign or times when she and Josh would have been together. That's a really odd character ending for a series that's usually pretty good about keeping long-time references alive.
  

• Then there's Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), who was the first-billed regular cast member for the four seasons he was on the show. I've gone over some of the stories behind Lowe's departure (he and Sorkin apparently never got along, Sorkin started writing him out of main plotlines, Lowe felt disrepected and underpaid - there's some interesting background about that in my Season 4 wrapup post), but at least there have been a couple of mentions of Sam's existence after he left to run for Congress. He was last seen in Red Haven's On Fire, but don't be surprised if Mr. Seaborn pops up again before the series concludes.
  

• Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter) was a dazzling, spunky addition to the White House Counsel's Office starting with In This White House, and had some really fun storylines in her short time on the show. Unfortunately, Sorkin wasn't sure he could write enough stories for Ainsley to keep her as a regular cast member, and when Procter took a full-time gig on CSI: Miami (which debuted in the fall of 2002) she could no longer play the recurring role of Ainsley. Sorkin still regrets not being able to find a full-time role for her on The West Wing. Her final appearance was in The U.S. Poet Laureate, but like Sam, her existence has been mentioned in later episodes. Ainsley might also appear again in Season 7.
  

• Amy Gardner (Mary-Louise Parker) exploded on the scene in The Women Of Qumar flirting with Josh over water balloons. They had quite an on-again/off-again romantic relationship, which ends at one point over a political fight regarding a welfare funding bill (Josh weakens Amy's standing so much she has to resign her position at the Women's Leadership Council), but after Amy is hired as Abbey's Chief of Staff in Red Haven's On Fire they rekindle their relationship in Jefferson Lives. Amy leaves Josh and the White House for good in Constituency Of One after her efforts on behalf of Abbey get her chewed out by the President. Amy is another character that hasn't disappeared forever; she'll pop up again in the campaign episodes of Season 6.
  

• Danny Concannon (Timothy Busfield) first appeared as the Washington Post White House correspondent in A Proportional Response. He and CJ had a flirty relationship throughout Season 1, then Concannon disappeared from the show after The Portland Trip. He came back in Holy Night, kissing CJ as Santa Claus and then explaining his dogged pursuit of leads in the story of Abdul Shareef's killing. After covering the events around Zoey's kidnapping in 7A WF 83429, Danny disappears again ... although like Sam and Ainsley he is still referenced as existing outside the events we see onscreen. Danny does make a significant reappearance in Season 7.
  

Then we have the deaths:

• Admiral Percy Fitzwallace (John Amos) first appeared in A Proportional Response as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and played his part as President Bartlet's friend and guide through the thickets of military brass throughout the first four seasons. Fitzwallace retired after The Dogs Of War, then was asked by President Bartlet to tag along on the congressional delegation to the Middle East, where he was killed in the IED attack on their motorcade in Gaza.
  

• Dolores Landingham (Kathryn Joosten) was President Bartlet's loyal personal secretary from the very start in Pilot (and we later were witness to their first meeting back at Jed's boarding school in Two Cathedrals). We learned her tragic family backstory of losing her twin boys in Vietnam in In Excelsis Deo; then were saddened by her death in a car accident in 18th And Potomac. We got to see Mrs. Landingham in Jed's mind as he pondered his future in Two Cathedrals, and we also saw her in flashbacks in Bartlet For America and Debate Camp. 
  

• Simon Donovan (Mark Harmon) had a short run as the Secret Service agent on CJ's detail after her life was threatened in Enemies Foreign And Domestic. It looked like he and CJ might have been able to start a relationship after the threat ended, kissing in Shubert Alley in Posse Comitatus, but Simon was later shot dead during a bodega robbery in New York City in that same episode.
  

And the supporting/somewhat recurring characters:

• Justice Roberto Mendoza (Edward James Olmos) played a key role in The Short List, as the President and his advisers turned to him as a bold Supreme Court nominee instead of the safer, more moderate choice they'd originally made. Sam and Toby made a trip to Connecticut to get him out of jail in Celestial Navigation, and that's the last we saw of Mendoza. He's been mentioned several times since, most recently in The Supremes, so we know he's still around, but he doesn't actually appear, not even in episodes like The Red Mass when Supreme Court justices are shown.
  

• Joey Lucas (Marlee Matlin) first appeared as director of a congressional campaign in Take This Sabbath Day, but by her next appearance in 20 Hours In L.A. she had become a polling expert. Her role as a pollster and possibility as a romantic partner for Josh continued through her most recent spot on the show, The Benign Prerogative, where a pregnant Joey took Toby along on her polling-delivery-of-the-State-of-the-Union mall tour. She'll be back as the 2006 Presidential campaign ramps up.
  

• I can throw in former Vice President John Hoynes (Tim Matheson) here, although his departure from the administration was pretty obvious. From our first meeting in "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" we saw tension between President Bartlet and Hoynes, tensions that were prodded and gradually explained as the series went on (Bartlet For America, when Hoynes learned he had lost the nomination to a man who was hiding a serious health condition, was the most obvious bone of contention). After he was discovered spilling government secrets to a woman he was having an affair with was uncovered in Life On Mars, he resigned the Vice Presidency ... only to return in Full Disclosure with a book deal that almost ended up exposing a one-night-stand he had with CJ. Yes, John Hoynes will be back and running for President again in Season 6.
  

• Sam's assistant Cathy (Suzy Nakamura) was seen throughout Season 1, but disappeared after that. Nakamura got a role on the TV series Daddio in the fall of 2000 and left The West Wing.
  

• Bonnie (Devika Parikh) was an assistant in the Communications bullpen right from the start, often seen (along with Ginger) providing support for Toby. Bonnie's appearances began to trail off in Seasons 3 and 4, and her last appearance on the show was in Shutdown.
  

• Speaking of Ginger (Kim Webster), she first appeared in A Proportional Response as "Kim," then became Ginger in In Excelsis Deo. She was Toby's top assistant through the first four seasons, but with the new direction of the show in Season 5 only appeared twice that year (the last time in Han). Ginger isn't completely gone from the White House, but she only has a couple of episodes yet to show up in.
  

• And speaking of the new direction of the show in Season 5, we saw Ryan Pierce (Jesse Bradford) interning with Josh beginning in The Dogs Of War. He appeared sporadically throughout the season, with his internship (and role) ending in Talking Points as he becomes legislative director for a congressman. Even though the episode sets him up as a potential thorn in Josh's side, we never see Ryan again.
  

• Also, there's Rena (Melissa Marsala). She first appears in Shutdown wearing casual, revealing clothes as she picks up garbage, mysteriously still working on a government payroll even while all non-essential workers are sent home. By The Benign Prerogative she's Toby's new personal assistant, but after The Supremes she disappears without a trace, or a mention.  
  

• As long as we're in Season 5 additions, there's Angela Blake (Michael Hyatt). Her character was mentioned by Leo when he asked Margaret to get hold of her in 7A WF 83429; she first showed up in The Dogs Of War talking about polling numbers for President Bartlet during Zoey's kidnapping; then she was brought in to lead the budget negotiations with Congress in Disaster Relief, which end up in ruins until Josh manages to save the day in Shutdown. We learned her backstory as one of Leo's closest advisers at the Department of Labor when he was Secretary of Labor in the early 1990s, and she also pushes Charlie and her friend's daughter Meshell into dating in The Benign Prerogative ... after which she also disappears from existence.
  

• Ben (Brian Kerwin) pops up as a romantic partner for CJ. First referred to in Constituency Of One as someone CJ lived with for six months back around her college days and is now trying to reconnect with her, Ben actually appears in Carol's office (with one of the slowest camera reveals in series history) in An Khe. CJ plans to try to make an effort to build a relationship with him as he shows up in a couple of later episodes, and is last spoken of in No Exit when CJ has to cancel a camping trip with him when the West Wing is locked down. He is never spoken of again.
  

• Hmm, seems that Season 5's new show runners threw a lot of new and different characters at the walls of the West Wing to see what would stick, and ... nothing much did.
  

2004 EMMY AWARDS

The West Wing was a critical darling for its first three seasons, winning 12 Emmys and the Outstanding Drama Series award in those three years. In Season 4, while the show was named the outstanding drama of the year for the fourth consecutive time, it only received one other statuette, and not for acting (it was a directing Emmy). Now, in Season 5, with Aaron Sorkin gone and the consistency faltering, there was only one Emmy win on tap out of seven nominations (after earning an average of nearly 12 nominations in each of the first four seasons).

The lone Emmy Award went to Allison Janney:

• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, for her performance in Access, her fourth Emmy win for the show. Janney earned the Supporting Actress award for Seasons 1 and 2, and a Lead Actress Emmy for Season 3. She was also nominated in that category in Season 4 but did not receive the trophy.
  

The other Emmy nominations the show received for Season 5 included:

• The series was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series for the fifth year in a row, but for the first time it did not win. The HBO drama The Sopranos took home the statue.

• Martin Sheen earned his fifth straight nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Memorial Day). James Spader took the Emmy home for his work on The Practice.
  

• John Spencer was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for An Khe and Memorial Day. It was the fifth straight nomination for Spencer, who won in the category for Season 3. This year's award went to Michael Imperioli for The Sopranos.
  

• Both Stockard Channing (7A WF 83429/No Exit) and Janel Moloney (No Exit/Gaza) were nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Channing has been nominated in the category all five seasons of The West Wing, winning the award for Season 3, while it was Moloney's second nomination. The award went to Drea de Matteo for The Sopranos.
  

• Matthew Perry got his second nomination in the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series category for Separation Of Powers, after also being nominated for his appearances in Season 4. That Emmy went to William Shatner for The Practice.
  

2004 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS

The 2004 Golden Globes were held in late January, as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association honored performances from the end of Season 4 and the first part of Season 5. The West Wing earned three Golden Globe nominations, but once again didn't take home any awards.

The nominations:

• The series earned its fifth consecutive nomination for Best Television Series - Drama, which was won this season by 24.

• Martin Sheen got his fifth straight nomination for Best Actor in a Drama Series but the trophy went to Anthony LaPaglia for Without A Trace.

• Allison Janney got her first Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series (after several previous nominations for Supporting Actress), but that award was given to Frances Conroy for Six Feet Under.

2004 SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS

The SAG awards were held in late February 2004, with nominations coming midway through the 2003-2004 season. The show, Martin Sheen, and Allison Janney had all won SAG awards at both the 2001 and 2002 events - the same three nominees fell short in both 2003 and 2004.

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

• Martin Sheen was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series. Kiefer Sutherland got the award for 24.

• And Allison Janney was again nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series, but saw the award go to Frances Conroy for Six Feet Under.

Season 5 saw some big changes in the series - the departure of Aaron Sorkin, the arrivals (and then departures) of several younger, hipper characters trying to pull in the younger demographic, episodes that ranged from pretty darned good to fairly dreadful, a change in direction to more dour, personal relationship kinds of story lines - but still remained among the best dramatic series on network television. Season 6 will continue a sort of bumpy start as we negotiate the resolution of the cliffhangers (Will Jed finally get us peace in the Middle East? Will Donna stick with the dashing Irish photographer or finally express her unspoken love for Josh? How will Leo cope with Jed turning away from his advice?), but the early stages of the beginning of the next presidential campaign will eventually bring us some fresh blood and fresh air. And some of our characters will find new jobs and new directions ... stand by and see.