May 15, 2006

COWBOY PETE'S SPICEY WEST WINGS

The last five weeks of "The West Wing" have played like the world's longest back door pilot. Kind of like the last weeks of "The Practice" that were basically a back door pilot for "Boston Legal," as one show wound down but another was being set up. Sadly, the new series that was being promoted was dead before it got a chance, and that's a damned shame.

I wanted to see Santos' first one hundred days. I wanted to see Donna and Josh's new relationship develop. To track Will's run for Congress, and Alan Alda's adventures as chief of state. Okay, okay, granted, I thought they'd make him vice-president, which would have been even better. But I guess they felt that it was just too unbelievable...as if CJ transitioning from press secretary to chief of staff didn't already push credibility to the breaking point and beyond.

Thank God they didn't blow away Santos during the inauguration. That was my biggest fear: That the guys who blew up Donna and sent a meteor heading toward Earth would go for some big shock, ER moment. Fortunately they had the good taste not to do that, instead focusing on the wonder of our government in which there's an orderly transition of power from one administration to the next. Granted, there was no tension over Toby's pardon since we SAW him a year and a half later at the Bartlett library opening (which, curiously, they never showed the follow-up to). I still think it wasn't originally intended that Toby was the leak, just as I think it was originally intended that the big White House wedding was going to be Zoey and Charlie, not Ellie and Some Guy We Never Heard Of. But I guess we'll never know...unless I ever meet John Wells, at which point I assure you I'm going to ask.

And as I watched the closing minutes, I kept saying, "Say, "What's next?"" Sure enough, the last spoken words of the new West Wing president in the last episode were the same as the last spoken words of the previous West Wing president in the pilot episode. "What's next?" The names may change, but the problems and challenges continue.

If the first rule of show biz is "Always leave them wanting more," then West Wing succeeded beyond all imagining.

PAD

Posted by Peter David at May 15, 2006 01:12 AM | TrackBack | Other blogs commenting
Comments
Posted by: Tom Keller at May 15, 2006 02:43 AM

I haven't seen this show in a while, so two questions. Who's Ellie? And who is Santos' VP?

Posted by: Robert Fuller at May 15, 2006 02:52 AM

That's how I felt when they canceled Aaron Sorkin's last show, Sports Night, which was an absolutely brilliant show that just gets better with repeated viewings. And yet it only lasted two seasons. True, they managed to wrap up all the dangling plot lines, but I want more!

Posted by: jmoney at May 15, 2006 06:45 AM

I agree on the fact that these last few episodes felt like a lead into a new series. It stinks that the show went through one "rough spot" and was never given a chance to recover. I really wanted to see Will Bailey win that seat in congress and it was really sweet seeing Sam and Josh back together again. Charlie going to law school was nice but it would have been even better to give him and Zoey one last scene together. All in all an excellent show, especially when I rewrite the 5th and 6th seasons in my head (listen to Nancy! Fitz never dies. Sam, Ansley, and just about every other character comes back sooner. John Goodman gets a reacurring role. sigh) Overall, I'll miss it.

Posted by: Jay at May 15, 2006 06:55 AM

To answer the earlier thread queston. Ellie is the President Bartlet's middle daughter. And technically President Santos doesn't have a VP as of yet. However, they want Pennsylvania governor Baker to fill the job.

Posted by: JonM at May 15, 2006 08:32 AM

I had forgotten how good that first episode was. A White House that runs the way we all would like to THINK it runs, with Martin Sheen as President. And I really missed Leo.

Posted by: sigma7 at May 15, 2006 08:54 AM

The last five weeks of "The West Wing" have played like the world's longest back door pilot.

Okay, I'm glad it made sense to someone on some level. I think NBC erred by airing the pilot before "Tomorrow" because the former is still a solid piece of dramatic work independent of the rest of the series. "Tomorrow" wasn't. No real character moments, no real insight, a lot of shots of people not reacting, and one of the central developments of the episode centers around a character that doesn't even appear.

I agree -- I'm glad they didn't go for an "ER" moment, but that's no reason for an episode with such an important plot to have so little happen. Contrast with the pilot -- a relatively sedate day, but the characters get to speak and shine and let their strengths and flaws show. (And I think part of this is the obvious torch-passing in so much of the episode, setting up that stillborn Santos series, but even those scenes were mostly bland, except for Tomlin's....)

The show's had so many powerful moments over its run that it's a shame to end it on such an empty note.

Posted by: sigma7 at May 15, 2006 09:34 AM

Oh, and if early whispers are true, Studio 60's going to be scheduled opposite CSI. Good job, NBC. *headdesk*

Posted by: Tim Robertson at May 15, 2006 11:46 AM

Yup, made me want more, too. I think there is a LOT of life left in the series. I would love to see another show based on it, even if Josh is now a comedy writer on another series.

There was so much left unsaid in this last show. They bring Sam back, and he does...not much. The entire series was really about Josh, and he had little to do on the last show.

Where the hell was Tobey? They should have had SOMETHING with him.

And why not show what happened at the library years later. That is what I was sitting here waiting to see, but no, we never see it. Perhaps they saved it for the DVD?

Posted by: Jester at May 15, 2006 12:49 PM

Sigma 7 wrote: "but even those scenes were mostly bland, except for Tomlin's..."

I'm not sure Lily Tomlin could ever be bland! If I were Santos, I'd have kept her.

Posted by: GaryS at May 15, 2006 12:54 PM

good finale for a GREAT show
nuff said

Posted by: Jay at May 15, 2006 06:21 PM

Toby wasn't around for the finale because despite the pardon, it would've been bad mojo to have him around for the inauguration.

It's a special moment in American history and I highly doubt they'd want someone who is considered a traitor at the event.

Posted by: Erik at May 15, 2006 07:38 PM

I was afraid that they were going to kill President Bartlett at the end of the show, with the unnecessary "ice storm in New England" plotline, with his plane going down...

But they ended the show pretty well... Not maybe storylines were "ended", but we learned some important things like Josh and Donna decided to stay together, CJ was ready for the next phase of her life and Will, Kate and Charlie went to see a movie.

One major gripe... They couldn't get Toby to appear in the final episode at all? Was he the one that put the kibosh on the reunion hour before the final episode?

Posted by: John at May 15, 2006 09:15 PM

I was really sad to see the show end, but I agree that the last episode was a little lackluster. There were two specific things in the episode that bugged me and seemed like sloppy writing and out-of-character behavior. The first was the comment at the beginning by Abby about who's idea was it to hold the inauguration on 1/20 and Jed responds with Jefferson, Adams, founding fathers, etc. The 1/20 date for inauguration only started 70 years ago (1937), prior to that it was March 4th. It seemed out of character for Jed to not know that. The second was at the end when Charlie asks Will and Kate if they want to go to a movie, but when asked if there was a movie theater around, Charlie says that he has no idea. Isn't Charlie from Washington, and didn't that play a part in how he interacted with the more "elite" staff members at various points in the series? I would think that he would know that there was a movie theater just north of the White House in Dupont Circle as well as a multiplex at Union Station...

Posted by: Andy Ihnatko at May 15, 2006 09:20 PM

A big disappointment, which was pretty consistent with the final half of the season. Just 60 minutes of running down the clock to the final buzzer.

For a series-capping episode, _way_ too many characters spent _way_ too much time making small talk. The only truly satisfying moment was when Bartlet gave Charlie his personal copy of the Constitution. Almost a literal handing down of responsibilities to the younger generation and a nice, subtle moment.

False moments: Josh and CJ...as if Josh could learn _anything_ from CJ that he didn't get from Leo during his 6 years as deputy; immense waste of precious time in the form of a false, utterly-impossible crisis; BS tease-up of Toby's pardon.

Missing moments: Moment of pride for Josh, the man who chose the next President and secured Bartlet's legacy; sense of how History regarded Bartlet as President; who got custody of Margaret?; crimeny..._any_ sort of sense of what was going through Bartlet's head that day.

And the lack of budget was pretty painfully obvious. It was 60 minutes of two or fewer actors in a room, and too many characters whose appearances were so slight that the phrase "Okay, but if we promise to wrap your scene before lunch, we only have to pay half, right?" accidentally appeared in the closed-captions.

The Post-Sorkin Era wasn't _worthless_...but on the whole, I'm going to sort of pretend that the series ended with Zoey's graduation party.

Posted by: Mark L at May 16, 2006 09:19 PM

The writers flubbed the Inauguration date. They either did it on purpose assuming the audience wouldn't know, or they did it on accident - which means THEY didn't know.

Either way, it's a sad statement.

Posted by: Ali T. Kokmen at May 17, 2006 09:36 PM

...but we already know that The West Wing is an alternate history...

To that, am I right in thinking that the conversation between Santos and Bartlet in the limo where they talk about JFK's inaugural address the most conspicuous mention of President Kennedy in the show?

I seem to recall that very early episodes made passing references to Nixon, but I've thought that for most of the show they didn't really refer to many "real life" presidents past about Eisenhower...