Posse Comitatus

Seriously that just has to be one of the best lines in tv ever, and delivered so perfectly too. This is why Sorkin is the best I guess!

I was glad to find that the second season of this show managed to tone down the excessive smaltz and smugness to get rid of the majority of the parts that were pretty unbearable in the first season. This is a tone that thankfully continues into the third season and, although the politics of all involved is pretty much liberal across the board, As a result we do of course get plots and directions that will engage those that share the politics with the makers but still those that disagree strongly will find little to interest them. This much is par for the course by now and it didn't bother me much in this third season, but for large sections I did find myself wishing that it had done something to step up its game in this season.

The plot was well set up for a more politically muddy season which would have added to the previous reduction in superiority. The decision to run in the election against a backdrop of politically charged actions due to the failure to disclose MS does provide plenty of tougher moments and it does drive a good two thirds of the season, but yet it never fully delivers. It goes for a third of the season with energy and urgency but doesn't build past this and sadly it sort of all fizzles out a little bit. It isn't that it doesn't have a conclusion or a meaning within the season, it is just that it is starts strong and gets softer whereas often with drama it works the other way so as to build and build. The show does explore the characters a bit in the midst of turbulent times, but it never challenges the viewer to like or dislike the character – their basic moulds and our views of them is never threatened and this adds to the slight feel that the drama is weaker than some of the dialogue and acting would suggest. Having characters drift out and seemingly be forgotten also made me feel like the plots involving them were sort of phased out rather than ended or being allowed to exist organically in the bigger picture.

The final handful of episodes are dramatic but the plots mostly seem to exist simply to create drama or to get everything to a point for next season – so again there isn't a satisfying build so much as a sudden rush to get all the pieces in place. It all still works as accessible melodramatic entertainment though and I enjoyed it as such, but just wanted more from it – more weight, more challenge and more in the characters; in short I hoped that the third season would continue to grow as the second had – not just reach a point and be happy with it.

The cast continue to do well and they benefit from the slick writing and glossy of the production. Everyone is good – or at least as good as the material wants. Sheen is typical of the whole cast – he can do troubled, he can do reflective, he can do kindly, he can do angry, he can do comical and so on; so whatever the dialogue that day needed, he was right there – it is not his fault that the days are quite separate and that his character, like that of others, isn't as smart or as developed as the gloss would have you believe. Again it works on a certain level – but I found myself thinking about what writers like those from The Wire etc would make of this show and only ever coming back with the answer of "more".

West Wing season 3 settles into a pattern a bit and as such it disappoints in terms of its ambition. The plots engage, the production is glossy and the performances are solid – in other words it does the job of melodramatic light entertainment and I enjoyed it as such despite wanting it to challenge me and push the characters and material. Of course it is still better than being smug and self-satisfied as it once was, but there is certainly still a lot of room to grow for this show.

Others here have vividly described what this episode is about, and if you're reading these reviews you most likely already know anyway, which is great because it relieves me of the need to describe it myself.

I would say that whilst most episodes are merely worth rating 10/10, several easily deserve 11/10. This one goes even further than that, and I would give 12/10 if I could.

My chief reason for this is the ending montage. OK, it's not QUITE as stirring as that of 'In Excelsis Deo', but it's pretty damn close. Maybe it's my Englishness driving my love for this. After all, the play IS by Shakespeare (sort of) and I agree with President Bartlet that the song they sing seems exactly right for the hallowed halls of a Cambridge college. Combine that with the emotions evoked by the scenes immediately preceding it, and it gets me every time.

Although, in fairness, at the conclusion of nearly every episode I'm left feeling "yeah, that's one of my favourite endings".

I feel like this third season of "The West Wing" has been a bit of a rollercoaster. As far as I know, a lot of the season's planned storylines were changed after the attack on 9/11, which made the season lean more heavily into the Islamic extremism factor and come up with entirely new countries to further the political accessibility of the show. It's almost weird to judge this season as a whole as it feels like it was put together after the fact. With that said, I still find that most of this season has been in the vein of the classic "West Wing" writing and I'm glad to see that Sorkin still has a lot of fresh ideas even after having done this for three seasons. This season could have gone in many different directions had everything been a little different, but instead, we ended up with something that feels like both one of the weirdest seasons of television, but also one of the most fulfilling. And it all comes together in a season finale that feels like it has to put the lit on a lot of different things that needs to be put out of the way so we can focus on the election storyline coming up in the next season. With all that on the table, I can't imagine a better outcome than this as this episode managed to bind a bow on the season with passion and knowledge, ending a season marked by tragedy in even more tragedy.

I was told to look out for this episode and its shock value, and I understand why. There's a lot going on here and it's difficult not to want to do something else as a lot of it is very tough. Bartlet has been faced with this choice of using the military to get rid of a known terrorist, who also happens to be the minister of defense of a foreign country. This puts a lot of pressure on Bartlet, but also the administration to tell him what the rights and wrongs of this is. It ended unexpectedly and emotionally satisfying.

This is one of those episodes where the stakes felt extraordinarily high. Not only is there a lot of life-and-death situations going on here, but the entire idea of this season was leveled after everything that went down on 9/11, giving the show a completely new sense of political pressure and responsibility that it has to stick with. They managed to pull all that together in a hard-hitting finale that doesn't spare any expense and pulls the trigger on more than a few occasions, even providing the death of another character that feels like it was bound to happen.

There are a lot of ideas floating around here, and the big contrast to the last season is almost unfathomable. With the last season, we saw someone go into a press room and having a moment of triumph, both over himself and the people in the room. Here, he's the smallest person ever and have just done something that he takes as a defeat. The idea of building these two finales up like that and then put everything on its head is an incredible way of raising the tension and I think Sorkin has expertly set the stage for Season 4.

This episode featured a lot of career-high performances for these exceptional actors. First of all, it was nice to see Lily Tomlin pop in for a short time. She's always a joy to see on the big screen. Martin Sheen doesn't have to prove that he's the best actor in this show, but he always finds ways to impress, and it seems like these finales are where he really shines. This episode featured some of his most subdued work, yet also some of his most explosive, and both at the same time. Only a master can achieve that, and he did.

"Posse Comitatus" is an episode that start off with everyone at their happiest but ends with everyone at their lowest through a series of tragedies. It features some of the highest stakes the show has ever had, and the tension is incredibly thick, setting up a lot of conflicts to be explored in Season 4.

Easily the most powerful episode regarding CJ...she was so happy! Sad episode, very sad. What makes this TV show as good as any cable TV show today...this show had it all...