Letters to the Editor
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Why I will miss "The West Wing"
Even in its decline it's well up there among the best that television has to offer. As one whose body is outside the Beltway but whose heart is inside, I particularly appreciate the extraordinary efforts Aaron Sorkin and his writers made to present both sides of contentious and complex issues. Go back and look it up if you don't believe me -- in what other liberal democratic realm, mythical or otherwise, will you see national missile defense given a fair shake?
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Missing the West Wing? The best dialogue written for television? of course! (ok, Will and Grace is pretty snappy, but...)
I started watching it in re-runs on Bravo to catch up. Espiecially during the last 5 years, it became my fantasy time, to remember how it could've been, if people both intelligent AND moral had occupied the White House and its environs.
After reviewing other letters here, yes, my primary reason for missing it will be as for most of you; what a wonderful world it would be...if only...Martin Sheen WERE president!
RIP Leo/John.
Louisiana Annie
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Why I stopped
I love Cary Tennis immensely, his column is one of the best things about Salon and he hit the nail for me right on the head. I stopped watching the "West Wing" right after the 2002 elections. The dissonance between reality and the fantasy of a liberal President was too great. What was the point? So ditto, ditto, ditto, Cary. Perhaps great minds think alike.
Ken Kaplan
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When I Stopped Watching WW...
Shortly after Aaron Sorkin left the show. The episodes written by Sorkin were examples of satirical political commentary at its highest level in popular culture. They've had an extraordinary impact on me and my work; often when I'm working on a new political cartoon, I'll have a DVD from the first four seasons running in the background. Sorkin created characters that remind us that it is still desireable to be a thoughtful and intellectually curious person in a culture that consistently panders to the "lowest common denominator," as Bartlet put it in one episode.
Ben Smith
Fighting Words Comics
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It gave me a headache
I have dear, dear friends who love the show and never miss an episode. But I tried to watch and wound up with a headache. It wasn't so much the plot lines, or the gap between reality and fiction or anything substantive like that. For me, the format was simply visually painful. The snappy dialogue was just too snappy, and people were always speaking while moving around, and there was such a whirl of activity that I couldn't focus my tired old eyes. Of course, it wasn't nearly as bad a situation as NYPD Blue, which had that seasickness-inducing shaky-camera thing going. (And note to the producers of Boston Legal, a show I love: Quit with the camera zooming-in, zooming-out effects, already! What are you trying to do, increase sales of barf bags?)
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"You bet your boots!"
I remember the precise moment TWW lost me forever. It was the episode "The Stackhouse Filibuster", and the lightning rod was in the form of a diminutive intern named Winnifred Hooper. Bypassing the fact that Mr. Sorkin thinks Winnifred is a keen name (for a Preston Sturges vehicle, at any rate), this one scene is essentially a microcosm of everything I'd come to dislike about the show.
For those who don't remember, or are unfamiliar, it sets up like this: Sam and some staffers are going through stacks of files and reports, trying to see which government programs can be cut from the government largesse. All are in agreement, except for one intern who expresses her displeasure by sighing loudly. Sam holds her back after the meeting, asks her name, and when he asks, "Should I call you Winnie?" her reasoned response - to a senior staffer, no less - is, "Not unless you want me to spit at you."
Charming. Ms. Hooper then goes on to explain municipal solid waste in Sorkin's patented wonky detail/rapid-fire delivery ("The numbers would be even higher today?" "You bet your boots they would!"). When Sam offers her a job after she graduates college, she snottily replies, "When I get out of school, you should come see ME for a job." This one moment made me realize I wasn't watching one character verbally assault another. It was Sorkin dressing me down, his Loyal Audience, for being so... dumb.
And that was that. Now, I've been always eager to learn something new everyday, and when TWW worked best I was constantly amazed that the show did just that. I felt like I'd been in a classroom session with a fussy schoolmarm who was eager to teach but short on patience.
I don't enjoy preachiness, even if there's righteous anger feuling it. The Indigo Girls lost me when they finally told every white person in America "Shame On You." Maybe you're reading this and saying I overreacted, but I've been around long enough to know what condescencion sounds like. I always expect right-wingers to be jerkwads, but liberals I hold to a much higher standard. In the end, I could no longer give Mr. Sorkin unrequited love.
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West Wing and American President
I will sorely miss the West Wing, as it is one of two shows I actually watch on TV. Our actual "leaders" are ridiculously inarticulate, and so the fast-paced intelligent dialogue of the West Wing is a refreshing change of pace. I wish the real president could hold an intellectual conversation with anyone.
And AJ is not a character from the West Wing. It's CJ. AJ is the character Martin Sheen played in the American President, also written by Aaron Sorkin.
JR
DC
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Of course I will miss the West Wing, but to be fair, I already do
I'm a senior in college now, but my freshman year my roommate and I were addicted to the West Wing. We would jokingly refer to it as "crack." At least I think we were joking. We were both involved in our dorm's student government and we would literally try to convince people to plan meetings around our West Wing addiction. The West Wing gave hope to a generation that knows of JFK only as the guy who did Marilyn Monroe that government can help people. Government at its best ensures that everyone has a chance. For Government at its worst, turn on CNN. This isn't the whining of a liberal still upset that Kerry lost, this is complaint of an American who is sick of having a President who doesn't get it. President Bartlet may be our own collective wish fufillment, maybe its true that a great man can't become President. But we can still wish.