The last West Wing update. CONTAINS END-SHOW SPOILERS
I've finished it, season five was, for the most part, pretty bad, early season six continued that, but it got to speed, and although it's a quite different show than the one Sorkin ran, it is really excellent, and that continued until the end.
My last comment was seemingly after Here Today, the episode with the reveal of who leaked the story about the military spacecraft. So the Al Smith Dinner was next, the real raise of the stakes in terms of the race for office. From this point on, the focus is really gone from the west wing itself, which had it's benefits and downsides. Although I didn't see Bartlet as the main character at all, he was the catalyst for everything earlier in the show, his presence was always felt, and when he was ever in the room, they did an excellent job of making him appear lordly. This was really taken away in the last season, he only really appears as a boss to CJ who we don't see delegate anything, it actually feels like two people work at the white house towards the end.
The focus is firmly on the race, and it's for the better, the Al Smith Dinner episode is the first real indication (at least to my recollection) of the relative positions of the two both in terms of their politics and popularity. We're told Vinick is fairly liberal for a Republican, and that Santos is the underdog because he was an unknown for the longest time, other than that, until this point I didn't really feel informed about their positions.
I'm certainly not going to go into a debate about the morality of abortion, we all have our views and it's certainly a topic many people feel strongly about, but this episode did an interesting thing, it's unusual in entertainment media for us to really only get one side of a debate. This episode does that, it's not a case of abortion even being considered wrong, it's just the degrees of reasons seen as legitimate.
The Debate is an interesting experiment. It worked, I'd love to see the other version (which reminds me, I want to see the other version of the live 30 Rock episode). Ultimately, it didn't move the show at all, it just even more attempts to put the candidates on a even keel. The show was brutally left wing until the sixth and seventh season, and this episode really stood out as preparation for having Vinick win, ultimately that was a misreading, it was more likely to prepare the audience for Santos' offering to Vinick at the end.
Undecideds I felt tried a little too hard. Bartlet is portrayed as a genius, the smartest president for a long time if not ever. And yet he needed a number of speech writers, as one might expect. This episode has Santos display a silver tongue while improvising alone that rivals Bartlet's staff at their best.
The Wedding episode was okay, the weakest of the season for me.
Running Mates on the DVD set I have starts with an announcement that John Spencer who played Leo had died. I wasn't aware of this till I saw the episode. Earlier in the thread I mentioned that I thought Santos might drop out and Leo would be elected in his place. This might appear to be a wacky idea, but it's not more wacky than CJ's career ladder jumping, at least, it didn't appear to me that way, knowing very little about American politics as I do. The reason I thought that was in the flashforward at the start of season seven, Leo isn't seen, but Josh says the president is coming, and he appears to be in the president's staff. I also assumed this scene would be revisited and completed at the end of the show, however it was not. I can't find any claim either way, but I think there is a chance that was the original intention. They also set up Santos as having some secrets that could be used to make him end the race around this time, I thought that might come into it.
I'm not going to detail every episode, but for the rest of the season, I enjoyed it all (except some lame celebrity bits).
The final episode was good, it tries hard to get the lump in your throat, and although final 'gift' from Leo is probably intended to be the crusher, for me the big one was the book Bartlet gave Charlie. Their relationship throughout the show has been really special, and it was a beautiful conclusion.
I should mention the Donna/Josh relationship, it was a big thing thru the show. I didn't like the way it ended. Like all of those potential couples in TV shows, the second they give in, and allow it, it's never the magical thing it appeared to potentially be. Much like in real life, but with TV and film romanticizing depictions of love, with all the additional build up, I expect that much more over the top happiness, and yet it all felt very comfortable but not at all surprising.
As a whole, the show has been phenomenal. Certainly among my favorites. One thing that is so bittersweet, is there isn't anymore. It feels like this is the first time a real reboot has been done, paced correctly, and we don't get the results. They spend literally two years putting it together, and we don't get Santos' reign, and I wanted that at the end.
Two Cathedrals remains the shows high point, it was incredible and I believe even as a stand alone piece of television, people should check it out. It's strangely far far better than Sorkin's The American President. He is a strange writer. He could write forty minutes of TV alone in a week, and it's as high a standard as the film scripts he spends years on. It was great to see him in the final episode too actually, felt very respectful for lack of a better term.
I loved the show, and am very glad I didn't abandon it at season five, it would have been a mistake for sure.
