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The West Wing

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The West Wing
File:TheWestWing.JPG
The West Wing Title Screen
Created byAaron Sorkin
StarringAlan Alda
Kristin Chenoweth
Dulé Hill
Allison Janney
Joshua Malina
Mary McCormack
Janel Moloney
Richard Schiff
John Spencer
Bradley Whitford
with Jimmy Smits
and Martin Sheen
Country of originUSA
No. of episodes137 (as of Oct. 9, 2005)
Production
Running timeApprox. 45 minutes
Original release
NetworkNBC
ReleaseSeptember 22, 1999 –
present

The West Wing is a popular and widely acclaimed American television serial drama created by Aaron Sorkin for NBC which has aired since 1999 and is currently airing shows from its seventh season in its new time slot, 8pm on Sundays (Eastern and Pacific). The show is set in the White House — which serves as the residence of the President and his family — during the fictional Democratic administration of Josiah "Jed" Bartlet. The West Wing of the White House is the location of the President's Oval Office and the offices of most of his senior staff. The show is produced and co-written by John Wells.

Show's evolution

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A Saturday Night Live skit featured former Vice President Al Gore with West Wing cast members on the Oval Office set.

The series has its roots in the 1995 theatrical film, The American President, for which Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay. Sorkin took unused plot elements from the film and created entirely new characters around them. These plot elements and characters became The West Wing.

Initially, the character of the President was intended to be an unseen or a secondary role, but it was expanded as the series progressed. Positive critical and public reaction to Sheen's sometimes Clintonesque performance raised his character's profile, sidelining Lowe's Seaborn. This shift is one of the reasons for Lowe's departure from the show during its fourth season [1].

The West Wing often features extensive discussion of current or recent political issues, and with the real-world election of Republican President George W. Bush in 2000, many wondered whether the show could retain its relevance and topicality.

Following 9/11, the third season premiere was postponed a week. A script for a special episode was quickly written and filming began on September 21. "Isaac and Ishmael" finished shooting in about a week, an incredibly quick turnaround time for a TV drama. The episode aired on October 3 and addressed the sobering reality of terrorism in America and the wider world, albeit with no specific reference to September 11. While Isaac and Ishmael received mixed critical reviews, it nonetheless illustrated the show's flexibility in addressing current events.

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Popularity of the series has lead to publication of Aaron Sorkin's scripts

For the first four seasons, Sorkin wrote nearly every episode of the series. The stress of meeting deadlines may have contributed to his increasing personal problems, including a very public arrest for possession of illegal drugs followed by a couple of unsuccessful attempts at rehab. Although he eventually appeared to get his life back on track, he opted to leave the show after the fourth season, leading many to expect that the show would develop a more bipartisan footing. Plot themes centering on foreign policy (perhaps mindful of overseas syndication), for example, have grown more common, arguably making the show more approachable. Though it is still occasionally derided as The Left Wing, the show's award-winning writing, high production values, and acclaimed standard of ensemble acting, plus an unprecedented accuracy in showing how the presidency operates (demonstrated in a special documentary episode interviewing actual past West Wing staffers which aired during Season 3), have earned The West Wing respect. Even many who do not share its unambiguously expressed views admit to the educational value of the series.

The perceived switch of emphasis from Sorkin's dialogue-centric style of writing to John Wells' focus on plot-driven drama has angered some of the show's fan base, a few of whom feel so passionately about the switch that they are actively campaigning for the show to be cancelled, citing Sorkin's departure as the sole cause of the show's "decline". However, most viewers continue to enjoy the show, stating that despite Sorkin's departure it is still far superior to other shows, and in its theme unique among drama series.

Season 6's plotlines, including the replacement of Leo McGarry as White House Chief of Staff by former Press Secretary C.J. Cregg, have lent themselves to more of the witty rapid-fire dialogue for which Sorkin's scripts were noted. This trend appears to be accelerating with the sometimes inadvertently-comic Toby Ziegler taking on new duties as acting press secretary, the transfer of Bartlet's bodyman Charlie Young to C.J. Cregg's staff, and departures from the West Wing of Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman and his senior assistant Donna Moss to the campaigns of opposing Democratic presidential candidates. The addition of Kristin Chenoweth has also been a breath of fresh air for the series.

Generally, the series has rebounded somewhat after a low point including most of the fifth season and the first two episodes of the sixth season. The recent episode "Faith Based Initiative", written by series regular Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman), reminded some of the rapid-fire, politically intricate and yet dryly witty scripts from the first few seasons which made the Sorkin-created and penned drama such a big hit. Ironically, the episode chronicled Lyman's departure from the White House to run the presidential campaign of Congressman Matt Santos.

Main characters

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The primary cast of The West Wing (from left to right): John Spencer, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney, Stockard Channing, Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, Janel Moloney, and Richard Schiff

Note: The following characters are considered "main characters" in that they have appeared as stars in the opening titles for the series. Other important characters are listed in the main article: Characters on The West Wing.

Episodes

The West Wing universe

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In an unprecedented plot twist, guest star John Goodman appeared as the Speaker of the House, temporarily seated in The West Wing as Acting President

The West Wing parallels the real world in many ways, yet also has several key differences. Sorkin, the show's creator, has noted in a DVD commentary track for the second season episode "18th and Potomac" that he has tried to avoid tying the show to a specific period of time. Despite this, real years are occasionally mentioned, usually in the context of elections, and the show's events take place during President Bartlet's two-term administration.

The September 11, 2001 attacks did not unfold in the same way in which they did in the real world, but the country has entered into a variation of the War on Terrorism, which began with the end of Season 4 when Zoey Patricia Bartlet, the president's youngest daughter, was kidnapped by Muslim extremists. Like 9/11, this act sparked an invasion and bombing campaign of a terror-supporting Muslim country.

Some real-world leaders exist, or have existed, in the show's universe, but most foreign countries are given fictional rulers. Some persons from the real world mentioned in The West Wing include:

Fictional countries are also invented for use in the plotline, including:

Some events from the real world mentioned in The West Wing include:

Presidential elections

Timeline Skew

The passage of time on the show relative to that of the real world has always been somewhat ambiguous. When The West Wing premiered in late 1999, the Bartlet Administration was said to have been in office for a little less than a year, implying that Bartlet was initially elected in 1998. In real life, U.S. presidential elections are held in years divisible by four, i.e. 1996, 2000, and 2004. In the second season episode "17 People", Toby Ziegler questions whether Vice President Hoynes will be dropped from the 2002 ticket, specifically mentioning the year. That season featuring the 2002 election was shown in the fall of 2002 in real world time. However, it appears that sometime in the middle of the fifth season a year was lost; the filing deadline for the New Hampshire primary, which would normally fall in January of the election year, was in the episode "Faith Based Initiative", which aired in January 2005.

However, in interviews given before the start of the sixth season, John Wells stated that the beginning of season one took place one and a half years into Bartlet's first term and thereby implied that the election to replace Josiah Bartlet was being held at the correct time without a year being missing. This is demonstrably false, however, as numerous references in each season date the first season to the first year of office and place each subsequent season, at least until the fifth, a year later. This statement also does not explain why only three years have passed since the election in 2002 or why an important event such as the midterm elections of Bartlet's second term was not addressed. The only explanation is the large hole in the middle of season 5.

An article in an issue of the British magazine TV Zone has put forward a reason for the change in the election cycle. It suggests that the 25th Amendment passed in 1967 in the real world wasn't passed in The West Wing so after President Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974 as there was no current Vice President in office as Spiro Agnew had been forced to quit in 1973, the Presidency would have passed to the Speaker of the House Democrat Carl Albert. It suggests that he would have been reluctant to effectively reverse the mandate of the Republican landslide victory of 1972, and announced he would only serve until a special Presidential election could be called for Tuesday November 5 1974. Logically, Ford must have been the Republican candidate and apparently won. In West Wing's world, Ford would not have been tainted by giving Nixon a pardon and the fact he was liked by Republicans and Democracts alike prior to becoming President , this would have made him a popular choice to heal the wounds of Watergate. Also Ford is not present at the funeral of former President Owen Lassiter in 2004 it must be assumed that he has died in The West Wing world.

While many consider this a plausible theory, the 25th Amendment would have been passed later on, since in 2003 in the West Wing world, the Democrats had to pick a new Vice President following the resignation of John Hoynes. To date, the program has never discussed how the election cycle was altered by two years from reality.

The last real-life president to have existed in the show's universe is Richard Nixon, although it has not been made totally clear if Gerald Ford was President or not. There have been two indirect references to Ford. The first is that of a mention of Donald Rumsfeld who served as Ford's Chief of Staff and later as Secretary of Defense until 1977. The second reference is to Executive Order 11905 which was signed by President Ford in 1976. In the second season President Bartlet and Josh Lyman were treated for gun shot wounds at the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine as can be seen during exterior shots of Toby Ziegler and Ron Butterfield talking outside the hospital.

West Wing presidents following Nixon and Ford include Democrat D. Wire Newman (played by James Cromwell) and Republican Owen Lassiter, who passed away in the season five episode "The Stormy Present." Newman served only one term and was defeated for re-election. Lassiter served two terms. While it never was clarified that Newman and then Lassiter's terms immediately preceded Bartlet's, it is heavily implied in an episode which centered around Lassiter's funeral. In an epsiode that takes place in 2000, it is stated that there have been four Republican Presidents in the last thirty years. These would be Nixon, Ford, Lassiter and one other, meaning their must been another Republican President after Ford but before Lassiter. As we know that Lassiter served two terms as President and in the time frame we know, he would have been President from 1991 to Bartlet`s arrival in 1999, meaning he must have won the Presidential election in 1990 defeating Newman, which means he was elected in 1986. Also in this world there have been two Presidential election`s in which a Republican candidate has won 49 out of 50 states in the last thirty years, as mentioned in season six. In the real world, only one candidate in the same time frame has done this: Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election.

Bartlet's First Campaign (1998)

Bartlet's 1998 campaign in the general election to win the presidency has never been significantly explained in the series yet, though it is known that he was elected with 48% of the popular vote, 48 million votes and with a 303-235 margin in the Electoral College. It has not been made known who Bartlet`s Republican opponent was, although in the first episode of season 4 the name Richards can be heard as a opponent during a debate. It's not clear if this was a presidential debate. (It is assumed by most fans to have been two-term Republican President Owen Lassister's Vice President.) It is known from some episodes, that Bartlet won Florida, New Hampshire and Oregon (by 10,000 votes), but lost in Maine, and Texas. But thanks to Hoynes' presence on the ticket, Bartlet did very well in the rest of the southern states. Unlike four years later Bartlet faced three Presidential debates with his Republican opponent. The final debate was held in St Louis on October 30 1998. Bartlet was elected on Tuesday November 3 1998. The campaign for the Democratic nomination was extensively addressed. In "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen" and "Bartlet for America," extensive flashbacks are used as a vehicle to tell how Bartlet defeated Texas Senator John Hoynes (played by Tim Matheson) and Washington Senator William Wiley. Also stated, as may be expected, is that there were additional less successful primary opponents. The former episode also revealed how Leo McGarry convinced Bartlet around late October or early November 1997 who was then Governor of New Hampshire, to run, how Bartlet didn't expect to win, and how he came to ultimately select Hoynes as his choice for Vice President.

Bartlet's Re-Election (2002)

The West Wing's 2002 presidential election pitted Bartlet and Vice President John Hoynes against Florida Governor Robert Ritchie (played by James Brolin), and his running mate Jeff Heston. Bartlet was unopposed for renomination, while Ritchie emerged from a field of seven other Republican candidates (who are named as Simon, Daniel, Kalmbach, O`Rourke, Ross, Stephens, and Western).

Democratic Senator Howard Stackhouse launched a third-party candidacy from the left of Bartlet, but withdrew and ultimately endorsed Bartlet. Bartlet's staff contemplated replacing Vice President John Hoynes from the 2002 ticket with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Percy Fitzwallace (played by John Amos) among others, in April 2002 after it was clear Ritchie would be the Republican nominee but Bartlet vetoed the idea, declaring that he wanted Hoynes in the #2 spot, "Because I could die."

Throughout the season it was anticipated that the race would be close, but a stellar performance by Bartlet in the sole debate between the candidates gave Bartlet a landslide victory in both the popular and electoral vote.

At 11:01 EST on election night the popular vote stood at:

  • Bartlet (D): 53,766,221
  • Ritchie (R): 42,992,342

Based on the states we know Bartlet won and lost a likely electoral college result is 423-115. Bartlet won an unusual victory for a modern Democratic presidential nominee. He carried all of the states of the Great Plains and the Midwest, but in the deep South he only carried Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina, losing Hoynes's home state of Texas just as he had in his first race and Florida which was Ritchie's home state and which Bartlet had carried four years before, he also lost Georgia which he also won in 1998. He also carried his home state of New Hampshire as well as Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Santos vs. Vinick (2006)

See also: U.S. presidential election, 2005 (fictional)

According to series producer John Wells, the upcoming election will occur in November of the 2005-2006 season (for United States viewers), with the inauguration happening in January. However, recent press articles have indicated that the timeline may again be altered in order to have the election occur later in the season, thus allowing the Bartlet administration to remain in office for several additional episodes. The altered schedule for the show has the election episode airing in March. Starting with the seventh season, Fall 2005, the show moves to Sunday nights. An article from TV Guide [2] revealed that the producers were thinking about broadcasting live an episode centering around a debate between Santos and Vinick.

Santos/McGarry

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Matt Santos and Leo McGarry at the 2006 Democratic National Convention.

A speed-up in The West Wing's timeline (in part due to the expiration of many cast member's contracts and a desire to continue the program with lower production costs) has resulted in the omission of the 2004 midterm elections and an election during the 2005-2006 season. The recently concluded 2004-2005 season extensively detailed the primary campaigns, while the 2005-2006 season will cover the general election and transition to a new administration, and will slow the timeline down again to concentrate more on the general election race. The upcoming November 2006 election will take place in March of 2006 in real time.

Texas Congressman Matthew Vincente Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) was nominated on the fourth ballot by the Democratic Party at their convention, staged as the 2004-2005 season finale. Santos, who was planning to leave Congress before being recruited to run by Josh Lyman, polled in the low single digits in Iowa and was virtually out of the running in New Hampshire when a last-ditch direct television appeal vaulted him to a third place finish with 19% of the vote.

Polling behind incumbent Vice President and early front-runner "Bingo" Bob Russell (played by Gary Cole) and former Vice President Hoynes, Santos surged late in the primaries, picking up delegates (winning among others the California primary). The disclosure of an alleged sexual harassment incident from more than eight years ago involving Hoynes effectively dropped him from serious contention, but no candidate had the 2,162 votes necessary to secure the nomination going into the convention.

At the convention Pennsylvania Governor Eric Baker (played by Ed O'Neill), who in November 2005 had announced he would not seek the nomination, announced that if chosen he would accept the nomination after all. Following the first ballot, delegates flocked to Baker from the camps of all three other candidates, and briefly it seemed as if it would be Baker, not Russell, Santos or Hoynes, that would be the nominee. But a disclosure about Baker's wife's health -- more correctly the fact that Baker had failed to disclose the health problem, rather than the problem itself -- slowed his momentum considerably, until he was out of the running completely. Later, Leo once again went to Josh, and told him that Santos would have to step down in order to "save the party". However, Santos instead pulled off a stunning speech in order to rally Democratic support and gain the nomination. After many allusions during the Bartlet administration, Josh convinced Leo to become Santos's running mate.

Vinick/Sullivan

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Senator Vinick played by Alan Alda.

California Senator Arnold Vinick (played by Alan Alda) secured the show's Republican nomination, defeating Glen Allen Walken (played in previous seasons by John Goodman, but unseen during 2004-2005), Rev. Don Butler (played by Don S. Davis) and a host of other, known but not-mentioned-by-name candidates.

West Virginia Governor Ray Sullivan (played by Brett Cullen) was chosen as his running mate after Butler essentially refused the nomination due to a disagreement with Vinick on the issue of abortion. Vinick has been portrayed throughout the 2004-2005 season as virtually unbeatable due to his popularity in California, moderate views, and wide crossover appeal.

Supreme Court appointments

Several episodes of "The West Wing" have focused on the President's power to fill vacancies on the United States Supreme Court by nominating justices, who take office if the United States Senate confirms them. To date, President Bartlet's appointments have been:

Cabinet and Presidential Order of Succession

Office Name Term
President Josiah Bartlet 1999—
Vice President John Hoynes
Robert Russell 		1999–2003
2003—
Speaker of the House Glen Allen Walken
Jeff Haffley 		????–2003
2003—
President pro tempore Joseph Furman ????—
Secretary of State Lewis Berryhill (William Devane) 1999—
Secretary of the Treasury Ken Kato (Conrad Bachmann)
Teresa Browning (Marcie Lynn Ross) 		1999–2004
2004—
Secretary of Defense Miles Hutchinson 1999—
Attorney General Alan Fisk (Dylan Baker)
Dan Larson (Sherry Houston)
Alan Fisk 		1999—2000
2000—2003
2003—
Secretary of the Interior Bill Horton (Edmund L. Shaff) 1999—
Secretary of Commerce Mitch Bryce (Alan Dale) 1999—
Secretary of Labor Carl Reid (Jack Buckland?) ????—
Secretary of Agriculture Roger Tribbey (Harry Groener) 2000—
Secretary of Health and Human Services Unknown ----–----
Secretary of Education Unknown ----–----
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Deborah O'Leary (CCH Pounder)
Bill Fisher (Jim Jansen) 		1999—2001
2001—
Secretary of Transportation Unknown ----–----
Secretary of Energy Bill Trotter
Gerald Deloit (Terry Bozeman) 		1999–2004
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Unknown ----–----
See also: List of West Wing universe politicians

Awards

The West Wing has won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, along with 19 individual Emmys awarded for the writers, actors and crew. It holds the record for most Emmys won by a series in a single season (9) which it accomplished in its first season on the air. By winning the Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series in its first four seasons it moved into a tie with Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law for most Emmy Awards won in that category. The West Wing currently ranks 8th all-time in number of Emmy Awards won by a series.

The actors who have won Emmys include:

  • Allison Janney — Best Supporting Actress (2000, 2001), Best Actress (2002, 2004)
  • Richard Schiff — Best Supporting Actor (2000)
  • Bradley Whitford — Best Supporting Actor (2001)
  • John Spencer — Best Supporting Actor (2002)
  • Stockard Channing — Best Supporting Actress (2002)

W.G. "Snuffy" Walden (thirtysomething) received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Main Title Theme Music, 2000.

Martin Sheen, the central character and the most acclaimed actor on the show, has yet to win an Emmy, though he did win a Golden Globe for Best Actor.

The show has won two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Broadcasters and home video releases

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to The West Wing.

Official websites

General

Fansites

Articles

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