The West Wing -- Season 5
TV fans are a funny folk; we have a tendency to revere
certain writers and producers to the point where they become infallible. The
worst of this bares itself out when should the writer/producer not continue to
write for the show they helped create – and that show continues to produce new
episodes under the guidance of another producer – we completely dismiss the
show’s new voice. Perhaps I am describing you – I know I am describing me; it’s
one of my biggest faults when it comes to getting invested in a television show.
Perhaps I am not describing you, but it does seem that this does, to some
extent, describe the fan of the Aaron Sorkin-penned/produced seasons of “The
West Wing.”
What is easily one of the great television runs in modern
history, Sorkin’s first three seasons (and part of the fourth) of an idealized,
Capra-esque White House – and the staff that inhabited it – was always funny,
rapid-paced, capable of sparking great discussion, and highly dramatic. Season
one contains one of the great television theses on the death penalty (an
amazing fete in how Sorkin tones down his liberalism and considers the
hot-button topic from an array of points of view). Season two and three were so
packed with great episodes that I often go back and forth deciding which season
stands as my favorite. In season four, however, Sorkin would write and produce (let us not
forget about Thomas Schlamme who was just as important) his last season as his
differences with the production company (read: Sorkin had a tendency to go over
budget and take forever with his shoots) were getting so divisive that even
though Sorkin cited season four as “a return to form,” he and Schlamme decided
to split – leaving one of the best written shows in the history of television
in the hands of the more-producer-than-writer John Wells.