Shark Bytes

How about when Kristen Chenoweth joined the show? Seriously? Her role in the White House was basically Make-Over Guru. I thought she was going to burst out into "Popular" at any second.

There are so many parallels between the last season and the recent primary and gubernatorial election in the US in 2008, I think the West Wing was downright intuitive if not outrightly prophetic. You have a minority candidate (Santos- Obama) Dem candidate and a senior citizen (Vinick-McCain) Republican for starters. Next, you have the race where it is seemingly the GOP's to win, but the margin throughout is too close to call; this was reflected in the show as well as in real life, up to September. Then approximately six weeks before the election on WW and real life, the crisis of epic proportions occurs - in WW, the nuclear accident in California, and in the US in real life, the economic disaster. On both 'occasions' if you will, the GOP candidates made comments immediately prior that came back to haunt both of them - Vinick saying Nuclear energy was safe, and McCain saying, "The principles of the economy are sound". Famous last words for both of them. To seal the deal, art imitates life imitates art - the character of Josh (Bradley Whitford), deputy chief of staff, was based on Rahm Emmanuel, an aide to Clinton. Rahm Emmanuel is now Obama's chief of staff. Josh became Santos' chief of staff on WW. I'm no conspiracy watcher/creator, but the parallels between this show and the 2008 primary and general election races were simply too striking for this viewer to ignore.

Seasons 1-4 are absolutely amazing. Some of the best writing on television ever. Fantastic actors.

Seasons 5-7 are a very, very different show. Not The West Wing we love.

Sorkin was the show. Schlamme gets too much credit (in general).

stupid left wing crap.

For me, the exit of Aaron Sorkin was the moment the motorcyle took to the air and cleared the shark infested waters. Truly sad. Seasons 1-4 are some of the best and smartest television you will ever see (yeah, a lot of liberal rubbish, but still it was good). For the most part, every season after that became more and more unwatchable. CJ as COS was ridiculous, Leo's heart attack, the whole Camp David nonsense and the post-Barlett presidential race were all boring story lines.

Set the stage for Hillary to run for President. Even though it was pathetic run.

Sorkin left. The show was done. period.

John wells tried, and while it may have been decent (at times) it was nowhere near the brilliance that Sorkin brought it to almost every single episode.

This show will become of the all time greats as more people watch it. I wrote it earlier, but the first four seasons are absolutely brilliant.

Sorkin used plot lines from Sports Night, and has used them again for Studio 60, but they worked perfectly for TWW.
Right cast, right writers, right director...everything worked the first four years.

After that:
Season 5 - disaster
Season 6 - becoming a different show, more successful.
season 7 - very different show, and pretty damn good. but not The West Wing.

Let me say this first. Of the ways to vote Sorkin/Schlamme leave & Zoe being kidnapped? they were one in the same! Sorkin purposely wrote the show into a corner of which he was the only one who knew how to write them out. The show slid from then on!

I stumbled onto this thread quite on accident, but I gotta comment... Jacobian? Shakesperian villian? benevolent dictatorship? First, it is just a show. Second, where are the examples of this? The only one that I can think of is the ordered assassination of that terrorist in like season 2 or 3. I found the depiction of the presidents' poltical opponents to be one of the best parts of this show. From Goodman, Alda, and Ainsley, to all the Republican Congressmen and Senators they are portrayed very fairly and USUALLY made their case for the conservative point of view, which sometimes won out. There was no anti-democratic principles espoused by this show, no examples of dictatorship or any other Orwellian propaghanda. Holy Crap! Because a show demonstrates a different side of the political spectrum, it's insidious and evil? That's whats wrong with the political system today. Both sides just villify the other, instead of realizing the shared goals of this great country. Conservatives are right on many issues, but so are liberals. It's not one or the other, it's a mix of what's appropriate for the times.

I thought WW was a great show the first four seasons. Obviously, with Sorkin and Schlamme leaving, the show was going to change. As a transition Season, Season #5 had its moments and did okay (I enjoyed "The Supremes" with Glenn Close, for example, and the Government "Shutdown"). I still wish, however, they had left John Goodman in office quite a bit longer than two episodes, and dealt with the political fallout and consequences of that more realistically. It seemed that they were afraid to move in a sharp, new direction of their own, and wanted to get things back to "normal."

The other problem I had was the characters,while all flawed, had a passion and cared about what they were doing. I agree with another post that they elected the wrong guy at the end of the show. Now THAT would have been a cool ending!! Throw Josh (by the end he'd become a completely arrogant jerk with no redeeming value whatsoever!) out on the street. Can you seriously see Josh Lyman as Chief of Staff? He couldn't shine Leo's shoes in that job! Donna, smart and beautiful as she is, could do way better and should know by then that she's wasting her time with him.

Vinnick's camp, however, had Patricia Richardson, who would be great in government, and Alan Alda, who was much more believable in looking "Presidential." Whereas, Vinnick had some true goals, Santos had a new "education plan." Give me a break!! Every bozo running for office has a new "education plan" so they can get elected by showing that "I care about your kids!"

Showing such a changing of the guard would have put the series on a new level. There's so much finger-pointing now and name calling, that everyone needs to stop and take a deep breath, and remember, the opposing sides need each other to keep the system honest. By ending it in such a way, I feel WW would have left more of a legacy about unification ("We're all in this together") rather than cliques ("Four more years of the same old stuff.")

Anyway, the series was indeed a noble attempt to look at our system of government. And how many people honestly would even try that today? Just my opinion.

So am I the only person who didn't like the dialogue on this show?

It never sounded like individuals from different backgrounds and with varied points of view speaking. It always sounded like one guy - the writer - letting us know how smart he is (I know Latin!).

For a monologue or first-person fiction, this would be fine. For a serial drama with an ensemble cast, not so much.

love the show. just finished watching season 7 straight through and altho it was fantastic, going back to compare with season 1 really gives a sense that it did jump.
the changes the characters are kinda sad if you compare them directly - in season 1, josh looks human and appears to interact much better with people than he did during the entire santos election campaign - what happened to him? cj also seems to have much more of a sense of humour and humility.
the thing that annoyed me in the last few seasons was the way they just chopped and changed characters without explanation. charlie was never replaced as the presidents aide, mcnally came and went and blonde Kate was completely unbelievable in her role.

How is Sam (Rob Lowe) leaving the show not on the list? I'm gonna have to add it. Seriously, Sam runs for Congress, presumably loses, and then is never heard from again. That's THE moment when I knew the show was over.

I have to agree that the show jumped the shark when Sorkin and Schlamme left. It seemed to lose all plot and purpose and became very disjointed and patchy -the show lost much of its aura and magic.

Season 5 was an absolute disaster. They botched Leo's character, created pointless conflict for the sake of conflict rather than for any significant storyline and reduced almost every character to a sick parody of what they once were. There were a few good episodes -President Bartlett and the Washington shutdown comes to mind -but they were the exception rather than the rule. Sorkin had a way of gentle moralizing when trying to make a point but the new management of the show took to self-righteously seking to shove their point of view on the audience.

The Mid-east peace summit and the conflict between Leo and the President sent the shark jumping so high that it might have been hit by a plane. They handled the whole sequence of events really badly and botched what would have probably been an interesting premise and plot had Sorkin still been in charge. Then they made CJ Chief of Staff and she became totally annoying and over the top in that role -which was probably the result of poor scripts and a lack of purpose among the show's producers than a reflection of CJ's character. This was followed by a cavalcade of annoying characters being introduced into the White House which made the show unbearable to watch.

Once the primaries started and once the Santos/Vinick election got underway, the show picked up again and some of the old magic returned to the series. In fact the whole election saga was gripping and intriguing. But sadly they still failed to get the episodes with the Bartlett White House right and they remained off-key and off-balance until the very end.

I won't weigh in on the political, but the show jumped when, in a show purportedly about reality some rather ridiculous unreal things started taking place. I'm aware of the need for artistic license to make things fit into a dramatic scheme (otherwise those CSI shows would be unwatchable). But up to a point. Like when they solved Mid East peace on the basketball court. There they are, passing it around and spitting out ideas at Camp David. And who? The Secretary of State, ambassadors? Nope, just them, "the Gang". Speechwriters, PR, Chief of Staff and I think that guy Charlie, an intern. Right, because that's what seasoned foreign diplomats would like to see when those nasty problems come up. Just like Beverly Hills 90210. Sanchez needs a VP. Who? A senator, a popular governor, somebody most would be familiar with, with a regional strategy in mind? No way, when the Chief of Staff that nobody's heard about and who just had a heart attack is available! He's one of "the Gang"(yay!). Or how about the Pres. stepping aside for the Republican Speaker of the House during a crisis and then coming back with not a hint of political fallout and everyone, including the GOP Speaker just thinking "Gee, what an honorable guy Bartlett is!" 'Cause Clinton did that with Gingrich and then the Repubs just forgot all about that impeachment thing! It's true, I swear! And people have already mentioned CJ. This kind of stuff was a massive misreading of the show's audience. People who would watch a political show like WW would be more likely to be informed about the stuff and less likely to fall for such childish manipulation. Yet we were all treated like we were stupid. Yes, this was one shark jump that trancended politics.