Posted on 05/07/2003 6:09:28 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
With Aaron Sorkin "voluntarily leaving" his show "The West Wing" and John Wells stepping in to replace him — a Very Bad Sign for the future of the slipping NBC White House series — it's probably now or never for the unveiling of my lyrics to the show's stately theme music. So here goes. It helps to read these while watching or, better, as I do, to sing them zestily aloud: "In D.C., there is a wing That's on the west side of a house It's not the east wing, or the south It's not the north wing, shut your mouth …" And that, despite years of trying to develop a second verse, is where I'm stuck. It's probably where I'll stay stuck because it's hard to imagine the series being worth much next season without Sorkin, it's creator, co-executive producer (with Wells) and writer of most of its scripts. Founding director Thomas Schlamme is leaving, too, It is indisputable that the series (8 p.m. Wednesday, WMAQ-Ch. 5) has developed a desperate air in the tail end of this season, throwing in unlikely, momentous events willy-nilly (Another White House shooting! A pending kidnapping!) in an attempt to either regain audience or mimic a daytime soap opera plot. What Wells is really known for, inside TV land, is being able to make the trains run on time. Sorkin's reputation is for holding up the trains as he pounds out the last few pages of a giddily literate script. Such indulgences were granted when the show was cleaning up in the ratings, winning three consecutive best drama Emmys, but this season, as the show has lost close to a third of its young-adult audience (mostly to "The Bachelor"), cost overruns apparently became more annoying. So prepare ye, "West Wing" fans, for a much more efficient television program next year, one where maybe the lows won't be so low, but the highs won't even come close. I'll be curious, yes, but I'll be a lot more interested in what Sorkin and Schlamme come up with next.
(Excerpt) Read more at metromix.chicagotribune.com ...
Michael
I'm not sure exactly when the shark was jumped. There are so many other leading candidates for that moment.
One might have been merely the SELECTION of buffoonish James Brolin to play the GOP candidate. Another might have been the point where the Prez started receiving terse, cogent summaries of various policy points and he firmly rejected all of them in favor of knee-jerk hard-left liberal dogma. Or the shark could have been jumped when the show simply became preachy. The first two seasons had very little of that.
The remaining audience for TWW is primarily DU members and hard-left yellow-dawg Dems - those of us who ignored the preachiness and enjoyed the excellent production values have long ago left in droves.
Also, it must be said that TWW inherited a cush slot on Wednesday nights - not much in the way of competition, and the other nets haven't taken TWW on head-to-head as they might have. That will change big time next fall. Blood is in the water.
Another factor is the 9/11 pretty much made the show irrelevant. There's no way the show could match reality.
Michael
This is what kills me about the show. It wouldn't damage the show a bit if there were REAL Republican characters who weren't either a smarter-than-the-average bimbette, a mushy Deep North-type that despises "right wingers" and allies himself with the Bartlet bunch to fight them, or a venal bottomfeeder who doesn't know the Constitution, world history, or the Ten Commandments. Yet that's what Sorkin, Schlamme, and Wells have insisted on, with Peggy Noonan and Marlin Fitzwater giving their tacit approval.
The new president, the former Speaker of the House who they unsuccessfully tried to depose with lies and smears takes the high office and becomes a bold man of action who routinely spreads the light of liberty and justice all throughout the world. Stain and Bore meanwhile in the coming episodes continue to try and hatch evil plots from their hideout in China only to be defeated time after time by the brave and honest former speaker.
Imagine the episodes you could have! Stain tries to steal elections, burns down the houses of christians, kills his political opponents and even works hand in hand with terrorists. You have all kinds of amazing plots that seem unbelievable but would work!
President Barlett's M.S. has caused him and his cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, and he has resigned without (for a reason I don't know) there being a Vice President available.
So, the Speaker of the House, a Republican, has just been sworn in as President.
The really ugly thing is that the pseudo-Hastert character is played by John Goodman, who acts nasty to everyone. We all know Dennis Hastert, our current speaker is a sweetheart, so the character assassination is a vicious final swipe of Republicans by Sorkin, may he rest in drug addicted pieces.
The show didn't have a Vice President??
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