TV Show of the Week 16: The West Wing

Mr E

Running from 1999 to 2006 for over 150 episodes, The West Wing was very popular to those who got into it.

From Wikipedia: The West Wing is an American television serial drama created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast from 1999 to 2006. It was produced/written by Sorkin (for the first four seasons) and also produced by Thomas Schlamme. After season four it was produced by John Wells. The series is set in the West Wing of the White House, the location of the Oval Office and offices of presidential senior staff, during the fictional Democratic administration of Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen).

I have to confess that I never got into it (not sure if I have even seen a full episode!) so convince me why its so good, and why I should pick up the 7 season box set in HMV for 80 quid. Is it worth getting into?

Rineanna

Mr E wrote: »

I have to confess that I never got into it (not sure if I have even seen a full episode!) so convince me why its so good, and why I should pick up the 7 season box set in HMV for 80 quid. Is it worth getting into?

And how!

Mr. E, the West Wing is, in my opinion, the single greatest television series ever to grace any television screen. I know that's a statement that almost everyone will contest as everyone has their own personal taste and opinions, but I can not convey the depths of how much I adore this programme.
I'll admit that the very first episode I saw of the WW was its finale when it was on RTÉ. Seeing them all pack up their offices after seven series inspired me to borrow, buy, beg and steal the box-sets. It was the single greatest move I've ever made as I found a programme that was a pearl among the throngs of inferior series which pollute t.v screens.

It has the perfect mix of being an entirely serious programme, yet managing to permeate each episode with sharp humour. C.J, the press secretary, single-handedly had me in stitches from the first 5 minutes of the very first episode (the treadmill scene for those who've seen it). Unusually, for a series of its type, it has the ability to make you laugh out loud several times in a single episode.

It's also so fast-moving, that it's hard to get bored of any episode. One word of caution, is that if you start watching one episode, the likelihood of you ONLY watching one episode is slim. I've found myself watching three or four episodes in a row untill the wee hours of the morning!

Anyway, I would 100% recommend you buy that box-set, Mr. E. In my humble opinion, it's absolutely fantastic. I'm just finished watching series one again on my nth time watching all the series over-and-over again.

/obsessive rant.

Trampas

Get it for less than €60 off Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-West-Wing-Seasons-Disc/dp/B000I8OC08

The West Wing is pure class if you ask me

elurhs

Yeah, its my favourite TV show ever. Sure, it's totally idealistic but it's so well written and performed that you can overlook this. Sorkin might be a bit of a nutcase, but he made a hell of a tv programme. The quality dips a bit after he and Tommy Schlamme left after the fourth season, but it picks up again for the last year as it follows the Santos/Vinick election. A bargain at 80 euros.

robo

I too never watched it when it was on but I did invest in the box set from Zavvi a few months ago. And I am enjoying watching them too.

tvnutz

Great show,especially the first 4 or 5 seasons,up until Sorkin left. After that it went downhill a bit,but was still very good.

Not the best show ever made,but definatly worth a watch,especially at the price the boxset is now. I saw it the other day and said that is a bargain for a full series of a quality show. I paid about €200 for seasons 1-6 boxset a few years ago.

Ron DMC

The West Wing is one of my favourite shows ever for many reasons.

Quality cast, great acting, compelling storylines, spot-on dialogue, intelligent writing.

As much as people are saying the series dipped after the first four seasons, I'd agree, but it only dipped to a level that most other shows only dream of achieving.

Basq

Balls.. this thread reminds me to finish this wonderful series.

The dip in season 5 after Sorkin left is extremely evident alright. I'm mid-way through it and I'm gonna need a small push to finish it.. and the series. It's not unwatchable.. but it's paled in quality for sure.

The first 4 seasons were absolutely amazing viewing.. never overly schmaltzy despite some of the material verging on preachy, wonderful performances from all the cast (but particularly Alison Janney and Bradley Whitford) and an extremely sharp script.

It also had some fine uses of music - Dire Straits 'Brother in Arms' and Jeff Buckley's 'Hallelujah' being two notable examples.

You could do a helluva lot worse for €60 so I will coin in with everyone so far..

Mr E.... buy it now good sir!

protos

Yes - its an excellent show - highly recommended. One small bugbear for me was the women that Josh got involved with - Donna must be the single most annoying person in the world, and any episode where she had a lot of screen time was spoilt for me.

Also his sometime girlfriend - Amy i think her name was. God she was so irritating !!

Ron DMC

protos wrote: »

Yes - its an excellent show - highly recommended. One small bugbear for me was the women that Josh got involved with - Donna must be the single most annoying person in the world, and any episode where she had a lot of screen time was spoilt for me.

Also his sometime girlfriend - Amy i think her name was. God she was so irritating !!

They were both amazingly hot. Especially Mary-Louise Parker (Amy Gardner). She's great in Weeds also.

Basq

Thought Mary-Louise Parker's nose looks odd in 'The West Wing'.. she's fiiiine in Weeds thouhh.

TarfHead

Just to add my 2 cent to endorse all that has already been said.

I watched this on RTE from the start and stuck with it, despite RTE's best intentions to lose viewers by pushing out the start time later and later as the series progressed.

When it finished, I started watching the repeat on more4 and haven't missed one of those. So that totals over 250 hours of my life so far spent watching it and I don't regret any one of those hours.

From the West Wing, I then learned about Sport Night, Sorkin's previous TV venture, and got to love that too. I was also looking forward to Studio 60, but that was hard to love.

As TV drama goes, the West Wing deserves to be ranked with the best. The boxset is an investment and would, IMHO, stand up to repeated viewing.

pickarooney

I made it through four episodes of this bollocks before I gave up in disgust. Practically every line made me cringe with it's smug, high-five-me-I'm-so-witty shenanigans.

grumpytrousers

It's good...but....

The prices you've quoted suggest you're getting a bargain. I think the West Wing is a fine show and certainly the early episodes are wonderful. The best relationship in it is the one between Leo McGarry and the President, played by Martin Sheen; it's genuinely affecting. Alison Janney as CJ is great and the supporting cast are great too.

Problems I have with it? Well, it's awfully formulaic. The writing, i mean. I'm not saying I can do any better, but I can see how the stuff runs. You get a pop culture reference and something deeply political in the same conversation, then it stays serious and hohoho pop culture thingy pops up again at a hilariously inopportune moment to remind us that, hey, these things happen.

I think the show is a little overwritten. It's not enough that the writers all appear to have PhDs in politics from Harvard, DAMMIT they're going to show that they've got them.

However, I nitpick. It stands head and shoulders above 95% of other stuff on telly and what it does, it does very very well indeed.

It does, i think, tail off towards the end. I'm watching the episode a week now on More 4 and (don't think this is spoiler stuff) the stuff about the upcoming elections leaves me all a bit 'meh'. Inevitably, new characters have to be brought in, but it's too much in too short a time-space and it's suffering because of it. Normally, TWW has my undivided attention when i'm playing it back on the sky plus box. Last weeks one (King Corn) had me fidgeting and going online, watching the show only out of the corner of my eye.

However, note, i DID watch it, and i DID keep the series link. The same can not be said for Heroes. Or Lost!

K4t

'Let Bartlet be Bartlet'

A truly phenomenal tv show.

ixoy

I've yet to watch the final season, but I've enjoyed it up to this point whilst also acknowledging that there's a drop in quality after S4. The characters are all very witty and almost too smart - everything is a witty retort and most lines often seem to serve to show how well smart and researched the writers are.
It's a good complaint to have of course - too much smartly written dialogue - but it could definitely put people off. The dialogue is also very rapid fire (the scripts for this show must be twice as thick as normal) although the conversations have a trade-marker tennis match feel at times, e.g.:

Toby: The president wants to read my speech in his blue hat.
Josh: His blue hat? The blue hat given to him by the President of Fake African Country?
Toby: Yes, that blue hat! Nobody's going to hear my speech because they'll be looking at that stupid blue hat!
Josh: I think it'd be great. The president will look great. CJ - did you know the President's going to wear the blue hat?
CJ: He's what? He can't wear that hat; it's blue - he'd look ridiculous.
Toby: Thank you! There you go - blue hat will look ridiculous.
CJ: I'm going to tell him not to wear the hat.
Josh [to empty room]: Nobody else thinks the blue hat would be good? No-one?!

As to the issues it covers - it's a leftie liberal's wet dream of a government. It ain't ever gonna happen and it can be a little too idealistic at times - I'm sure Bartlett would be a great president to have, but it's at times hard to swallow the America we know accepting his administration (albeit, it's a world in which 9/11 didn't happen. And yes the 9/11 special episodes didn't happen for continuity purposes).

The only reason I haven't watched the final season is a lot of other shows crept back and I want to give it my full attention. Yes it's a bit flawed, yes it can be formulaic, but as an intelligent, mainstream network show we've not seen such a sparkling written and well-acted one in a long time.

Otacon

I was one of those people who only watched this show after it left the air. I started with, I think series 3 because that was one laying around the house during college. I am pretty sure I watched that entire series in one weekend. I genuinely could not stop watching it.

Since then I have acquired all of the seasons, through either Amazon, HMV or Play.com. The quality of the writing, acting and production of the show is unparalleled. The story of the Bartlett presidency was probably what got me so interested in American politics, even after the initial Bush years had made me so apathetic towards the subject.

The characters are well realised, especially those of Jed, CJ and Josh. The relationship between Leo and Jed, as mentioned, is genuine. I still rewatch the entire series every-so-often.

Sorkin also did Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and wrote Charlie Wilson's War, both well worth a look.

bnt

Can't say I'm surprised to see TWW come up again, since we have a new administration in the White House, and Obama's new Chief of Staff (Rahm Emanuel) was allegedly the inspiration for the character of Josh Lyman. I've just started watching it again from the Pilot, and am enjoying it a lot. I know that Josh was pretty central, and Leo, and (of course) the President, but in my view C.J. is the soul of the show, and Donna becomes more important too.

Plus, C.J. does a mean Jackal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7H_L5cYkg8

Daysha

I started watching it this day last week, mainly due to all the Obamania around the place.

Fast forward a week, season 1 is completed, and all I can is "HOW THE HELL DID I NOT START WATCHING THIS SOONER!!!???"

Easily the best seasons of any TV show I've seen, even better than seasons 1 or 4 of Lost. The writing is amazing and the characters are brilliant, in particular Josh, Bartlet and Leo.

As for my favourite episodes so far, I wouldn't even know where to begin. "Let Bartlet be Bartlet", "A Proportional Response" and "20 Hours in LA" are all class, but my favourite has got to be "Celestial Navigation". I honestly couldn't stop laughing at Josh trying out the position of press secretary.

The complete box set is now on order from Amazon and so it should be. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks in front of the tv

kerry4sam

deise59 wrote: »

I started watching it this day last week, mainly due to all the Obamania around the place...

wait until you start to see the resemblances toward the latter series of the West Wing and the Obama Presidential Campaign ... truly a phenomenal watch

Ruskie4Rent

bnt wrote: »

Can't say I'm surprised to see TWW come up again, since we have a new administration in the White House, and Obama's new Chief of Staff (Rahm Emanuel) was allegedly the inspiration for the character of Josh Lyman.

And aparantly some of Matt Santos' character was based on Obama so that means that the President and COS that the show finished with were partly inspired by the current real life ones.

Slight bit of life imitating art.

The Black Oil

It's a brilliant show, the acting, the writing, the direction. The characters are so well-realised. Richard Schiff's portrayal of Toby Ziegler is one of the greatest performances on TV, ever.

Sure there's a definite dip in quality in series 5, John Wells turned it into a political version of ER and struggled after Sorkin's 'f**k you' in the series 4 finale. The issues fell off the centre stage and the personalities started to take over, annoying characters were added not to mention god awful episodes such as Access. That said, series 5 isn't all bad with Shutdown and The Supremes. Things did start to get back on track with series 6 and parts of series 7 came close to reaching the Sorkin bar. Not to say he Sorkin didn't have his weak moments, I think he said he found it difficult to wrote post Sept 11th and this is perhaps reflected in parts of series 3.

A show that can tug the heartstrings, make you laugh and grip you like no other. Definitely a high point in TV history.

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

Massive +1 to every positive thing said so far in this thread. If I was responding first I would have written pretty much the same so I won't bore you with a repeat / rehash of what has gone before.

Absolutely brilliant and definitely the top tv series of all time. Season 2 finale I could watch all day. Anyway thats starting to repeat what I said I wouldn't

spank_inferno

I was always an avid fan of the show.
When it was on form it was the best TV out there.
On bad days it was better than most!.

The final season was still very good.
Particularly the episode with the live presidential debate between jimmy smits & Alan Alda.

I read that the death of John Spencer coupled with the impending cancellation of the show lead to a re-write of the Presidential election with Santos winning. I think the writers had intended for The republicans to win with Alan Alda continuing in the show.

Anyway, I digress. Excellent show & cast, with special mention to Richard Schiff & Stockard Channing.