West Wing: Nos Bastidores do Poder

I just started watching this show 5 days ago. My family received the first 3 seasons on DVD and I put it in and started watching. I'm on the 14th episode of the third season now, and having sat here for 36+ hours watching, I must say this show is intelligent, witty, funny, reasonable, has wonderful acting and actors, writing, and is a great look into the White House and the government of this country.

I'm only on the 3rd season and I don't know how long it will take for the others to come out on DVD (as i won't be watching the show on TV, since i don't want to miss anything) but up to this point, I LOVE this show, the characters and will continue to watch it at any opportunity available to me.

Now that the last episode has been shown in Australia, and having very much enjoyed the show despite seeing it out of order in several different countries, I'd like to make a few general comments. Thankfully the ABC showed series six and seven weekly in blocks of two episodes without commercials; thus the pleasure was undiluted.

1. Whatever inaccuracies there may have been in the depiction of White House procedure (apparently Clinton adviser Dick Morris was not impressed) and however impossibly smart everybody seemed, "West Wing" caught the essential flavour of politics, US style, where a squillion issues, some great, others trivial, all compete for attention in a complex legalistic and ponderous system.

2. There is a lot of emphasis on the trappings of the "imperial presidency"- flitting around the countryside in Air Force One at a cost of about $10,000 an hour, the amazing White House protocol for almost everything, the veneration of the public for the office. Louis XIV never had it so good. But then I was brought up in a country where until recently the Prime Minister's phone number was in the phone book and he used to walk the 800 metres to work. Of course the security measures don't require much justification in the land of guns for all.

3. President Jed Bartlet is indeed the liberal ideal (the show could well be called "Left Wing") but he is also a patriot, and to those of us who have to put up with the US heaving its weight around abroad this is a problem, not a matter for praise.

4. The "walking heads" delivering rapid-fire dialogue are off-putting at first, but do give the show pace; compare "Commander in Chief" which is leadenly slow (and otherwise dire) by comparison. It no doubt helps to know something about how the US political system works but generally there is enough information provided to at least follow the story.

5. The internal politics of the White House are downplayed; Bartlet's team are portrayed as uniformly bright, keen and loyal, both to the president and each other, and not interested in internecine conflict. Lucky Jed.

6. The acting from the main players is all that one could ask for – they emerge as real people, but then they get a lot of air time, sometimes with most of an episode to themselves. Some of the minor roles tended to be written and played as stereotypes. My favourite was Lily Tomlin as the Pres's secretary – she acted as if she could do his job herself, although Allison Janney as CJ ran a close second.

7. It must have been a fun series to create and we must thank Aaron Sorkin for the effort he made in developing this show from his "The American President" which was a piece of fluff by comparison. He got away with what must be about the talkiest show on television. Alas, things did tail off a bit after he left (after the fourth series) but the show had enough momentum to make it entertaining right to the end of Bartlet's second term, though the last few shows were rather limp.

So much political reporting seems to be an attempt to fake a drama out of little material. I missed the West Wing when it started, but am catching up now, and find that it turns the specifics of politics into gripping human drama with a fast pace.

The camera seems to move as quickly as the people, following one conversation, then picking up another as two corridors intersect, and going off after that conversation instead. It's a remarkably effective dramatic device, that helps generate a sense of many topics, issues and personalities all being constantly on the move in response to events.

The acting is uniformly good, and often not on screen, Martin Sheen's president remains a constant presence shaping every story.

Network: NBC; Genre: Drama; Content Rating: TV-PG; Available: DVD and syndication; Perspective: Modern Classic (star range: 1- 5);

Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (7 seasons)

Created out of the ashes of the tragic failure that ABC befell his neo-classic "Sports Night" (which I also highly recommend), Aaron Sorkin's next effort aims at nothing short of the most powerful office in the world. "The West Wing" takes us behind the scenes of the Bartlet (Martin Sheen) administration and his staff, which includes special counselor Leo (John Spencer), the dryly spunky Press Secretary C.J. (Allison Janney), Chief of Staff Josh (Bradley Whitford) and his model-like assistant Donna (Janel Moloney), morose Communications Director Toby (Richard Schiff), aid Charlie (Dule Hill) and Deputy Comm Director Will (Josh Malin, "Sports Night").

To best enjoy "Wing", with its occasionally maddening bouts of self indulgence and nose-in-the-air intellectual showboating, is to understand how purposefully different it is from just about anything else on TV. It lacks the kind of compelling situational drama you'd expect. Most of the real action occurs off screen, with us simply hearing that a crisis was solved. This show is about conversations, history and civics lessons and an ambitious deconstruction of wedge issues that you never heard spoken of so thoughtfully in entertainment television. "Wing's" vision of politics is an old-fashioned fantasy of a noble grass roots attempt, guided by history and the framers, where the political process is a necessary tool, o do what's right for the common man.

The political right has taken the show out to the woodshed for spouting liberal propaganda (every character is a vocal Democrat), but in my experience with it, it has been nothing but honest and fair with it's topics, unlike the blunt object beating we get from David E. Kelley and Dick Wolf shows. You have to be quick to catch inferences to tax cuts creating service cuts and women's lives being ruined by having a child and not an abortion. Free from a need to create simplistic sound-bytes or follow poll numbers of real-world politicians, Sorkin's world depicts the kind of well reasoned discourse lost in the modern, media-driven political climate.

Back to the dialog and the most important thing. This is a show that can be written with such lyrical beauty and directed with such cinematic majesty that it elevates it from a conceptually tedious concept and static stories. Sorkin brings back the snappy, lightening-fast "His Girl Friday" conversations of "Night". A man in love with his dialog (I can't fault him for that), he crams very syllable of every crisp monologue in the running time.

Satisfying the audience's desire to see behind these particular closed doors, "Wing" consciously maintains a fly-on-the-wall quality as we follow the White House staff through hallways and offices discussing everything from the most frivolous everyday annoyances and grammatical idiosyncrasies to weighty issues of domestic and foreign policy. It gives us the wonderful illusion we are seeing the real nit and grit behind the political process - from getting enough votes to pass a bill to keeping piece in the Middle East. This is C-SPAN stuff, packaged with beautiful, epic pageantry.

At series' end my initial reaction to the show still holds water. By comparison it doesn't have the heart or the laughs of "Sports Night". It has a rich look and feel but, for all its philosophizing and linguistic gymnastics, I still remain detached from the characters and any emotional core at all. Spencer is terrific and Janney and Whitford make TV stars of themselves with what are for the most part mechanical characters with just enough quirks to get them banging against each other nicely. That said, Whitford and Moloney have an engaging chemistry that draws us in and lets us root for them. A chemistry that the show takes a smart 7 years to pay off.

Sorkin and Sheen's president is a Frank Capra fantasy the melds together the most idealistic elements of politics and Americana into someone who can represent the best of his ideology and is still human enough to display the worst. Granted, this is Sorkin's fantasy so the latter is rare and Bartlet gets the last wise word most of the time.

After the 4th season, Sorkin leaves the show amid rumors of drug use and studio hack John Wells is brought on board. Wells is a network hack who took over "ER" when Michael Crichton stepped away and turned it into a soap opera, and then did the same with his own "Third Watch". The show slowly changes under Wells and while he resists his usual urge to sadistically kill of major characters, Sorkin's trademark dialog is slowed down and the show gets more traditionally exciting, but the intellectual substance remains and Wells gels with the show well.

I don't love "The West Wing" as much as others. Each episode starts strong and ends strong, but almost always looses steam in the long 2nd act. So goes entire seasons, which can bring us in and go out with an assassination, a kidnapping, terrorist attack or some other exciting peril for a main character and stall for entire hours in the winter.

Under Wells' control, the series ends with a spectacular bang. The final season brings an end to the Bartlet administration and follows the feverish presidential campaign of both parties race to win the election and instill their candidate - either Republican Senator Vinick (liberal He-man Alan Alda) or Democrat congressman Santos (Jimmy Smitts) - in as his successor. After 7 seasons the show goes out as rewarding and classy as it came in. A behind-the-scenes celebration of the American political process. It is an exceptional final season for a classy and classic show.

* * * * / 5

This gem of a series really took me by surprise. Observing the world of American politics and the lives of those working in the White House could be an extremely dull concept. But thanks to an outstanding script and the wonderful skills of the experienced cast, The West Wing effortlessly draws the viewer in and provides top quality drama in every action-packed episode.

Following the trials and triumphs of those working behind-the-scenes in and around the Oval Office, this series perfectly portrays the shrewdness that the president and his staff require to do their jobs and the way they inter-relate in a manic environment to get those jobs done, while still managing to maintain a personal life. Combining a subtle mix of poignancy, humour and dramatic tension with varying degrees of pace, it is a joy to watch.

Each episode is relatively self-contained with running storylines developing throughout the series. The characters are perfectly rounded, the script continually sharp, and credit goes to the directors and editors who ensure such slick movement and spot-on timing on screen.

Singling out any particular member of the cast is difficult as each one of them is truly first-rate. However, Martin Sheen is excellent as President Bartlet, a fiercely intelligent and discerning man with a genuine passion for his job. Rob Lowe is a revelation as Sam Seaborn, the wise and witty deputy communications director, and Allison Janney, as the astute press secretary, CJ, is far removed from her almost unrecognisable role as Barbara Fitts in American Beauty.

Whether White House life is in reality as appealing as this remains to be seen. It would, however, be very reassuring to believe that those who actually do hold such influential positions are as unashamedly charming as The West Wing brilliantly depicts them.