It’s 18 years to the day since The West Wing first aired, ushering in one of the greatest TV dramas of modern times.
The Aaron Sorkin-scripted drama ran over seven series on NBC between 1999 and 2006 – Sorkin wrote the first four before stepping away – and ranks alongside The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under and Breaking Bad as one of the best shows of the last two decades.
Hence, we present all the reasons why should jump back in (or start watching it if you’ve never seen it before, watch out for the spoilers).
In no particular order…
The characters
You’ve got the funny one (Josh Lyman), the idealistic one (Sam Seaborn), the cranky one (Toby Ziegler), the sassy one (C.J. Cregg), the wise one (Leo McGarry) and the Presidential one (Jed Bartlet).
Those are the broadest of strokes, however, and don’t come close to nailing down how funny Toby could be, how quickly Sam could lose his temper, Josh’s psychological issues, C.J.’s warmth. They’re characters you’re happy to spend hours at a time with and they make the show one that you will watch over and over again from beginning to end.
The dialogue
They converse in Sorkinese, a variation on the English language spoken at breakneck pace and absolutely never, ever dumbed down. Sorkin never talks down to his audience, perhaps the show’s greatest strength.
The walk-and-talks
Sorkin’s signature that ran through the early seasons of the show, these long tracking shots while walking through the halls of the White House were the business.
How they didn’t bump into more stuff is beyond us.
Martin Sheen
The West Wing without Martin Sheen would have been like Breaking Bad without Walter White, but he was originally supposed to play just a bit-part role.
He explains how his role grew out of a cameo appearance in the show’s pilot episode, as well as being turned away from the White House by the Bush administration, here…
The fact that you won’t understand lots of the political jargon, but that doesn’t really matter
While knowing the procedure for making nominations to the Chair of the Federal Reserve can’t hurt when watching the show, it really doesn’t matter one small bit if you haven’t a notion what they’re on about.
Who cares if you can’t name any of the judges on the Supreme Court? If you can’t speak intelligently on the historical differences between India and Pakistan? If you don’t know your school vouchers from your budget deficits?
None of it matters. Honestly. The West Wing is primarily about the people, and the show is written in such a way that by the end of every episode you’ll have a firm grip on the tough stuff anyway.
The cameos
From the minor (Jay Leno and David Hasselhoff get a couple of lines each in the first series) to the major (Christian Slater and Matthew Perry both land jobs at the White House and have serious roles to play), the brilliance of Sorkin’s writing extended to the stars of sitcoms, talk shows, ’90s blockbusters, teen romances, and pseudo-German pop sensations.
The Irish angle
http://youtu.be/JR09Gt9DTKY
Supreme Court judge Roy Ashland was played by the late Dublin actor Milo O’Shea, his haunted performance one of the best in the entire series.
It’s nicer than House of Cards
Arguably the two greatest political dramas ever made, The West Wing could not be more different from the far darker and more cynical (but no less brilliant) House of Cards.
Whereas the Netflix show thrives on backstabbing, double crossing, treading over the weak and even murder, The West Wing’s warmth wins out in our eyes.
Let’s put it like this, you don’t feel like you’ve stepped out of the octagon with Jose Aldo after watching a couple of episodes of the older show.
The fact that the only really annoying character got written out after the first series
Sorkin knew that the shrill, unsympathetic political operative Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly) wasn’t working just a few episodes into the start of the show. The chemistry wasn’t there with Bradley Whitford, who played Josh, and she appeared less and less as the series went on.
Even though the events of the second series start just moments after the end of the first, Mandy is nowhere to be seen and the show is stronger for it.
Two Cathedrals
Arguably the greatest episode in the show’s history, we see Bartlet both in the present day and in flashback as both the death of Dolores Landingham and his MS revelation take hold.
The scene in the church, where he angrily confronts God, is powerful stuff.
Not to mention the Dire Straits soundtrack. Goosebumps.
The theme tune sounds like Birds Eye country
When JOE editor Paddy McKenna told us that the West Wing theme tune was like a latter day version of a 1960s Birds Eye ad, we didn’t believe him.
Turns out he was right.
The ‘West Wing weeps’ at the end of every episode
So what if we’re complete softies, curled up on the couch blubbing into our tissues at the love that dare not speaks is name between Josh and Donna, CJ and Danny, Leo and the President… We’re proud of our sensitive side.
The way it all ends
Well, the constitution of the United States had a great deal to do with this, even Sorkin’s replacement John Wells wouldn’t f**k with Bartlet’s two-term limit, but it was nicely tied up with Matt Santos assuming the role of the President as Bartlet went back to Nashua.
We pretty much couldn’t cope by the time the final scene rolled around…
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