If you've never seen The West Wing before, I'd recommend watching at least the pilot episode before reading the content after the jump. Amid the various tangents and sidetracks I manage to cram into the following essay, there's spoilers galore (for the pilot episode only). While I talk a little about the show's seven year run, these comments are in the broadest strokes possible. So the discussion begins after I make a sudden arboreal stop.
"I am the Lord your God, thou shalt worship no other God before me." - Jed Bartlett, President of the United States
There was little doubt (in my head) that the Narratives Anonymous project would start here. I'm not an insanely political thinker because too often the narratives within real politics skew towards the negative, with one candidate standing against his (or her) opponent instead of standing for a particular cause -- an attitude that's as reductive as it is commonly held. Then there's all that money to deal with. Any amount of money over what I make in a calender year tends to sound like a fiction, and the federal, state and local budgets/deficits range from the millions to the trillions. I'm not sure a plebeian such as myself is meant to understand such large numbers; or where to allocate them or from whom to take them and how much a governing body should ask from the governed people. But the The West Wing is not about real American politics. It's a love letter. A dreamscape. This is the kind of government we'd like to believe we have, whose participants and adherents are (usually) behaving in a way that is both in the best interest of the country and to the betterment of one another. Aaron Sorkin, creator and head writer (for the first few seasons, anyway) is trying to dramatize the struggles of governing a country as broadly defined as America is, a country which is as arrogant and stubborn and powerful and dangerous and (so the show tells us, so we'd like to believe) capable of such greatness, such nobility and charity, as seen through the people who spend everyday with (supposedly) the country's best interests in mind. The America depicted in this show is a country that has earned it's position among the pantheon of great nations and empires. Something the rest of the world (or at least the Cubans, in this episode) wish to be a part of. And yet, for a show with that much swagger in its logline premise, for most of its run it's surprisingly claustrophobic. There's rarely a scene, sequence or character with a perspective outside the beltway, and when there is, they're probably talking to someone in the main cast.
I'm getting ahead of myself. There will be time for a retrospective later.
For an hour long drama, minus commercials, a single episode runs between 42 and 43 minutes of programming, and for a pilot, I'm still shocked (or should that be surprised? Impressed? Intimidated? If there were a word that captured all four I'd have just used it and moved on by now) how much plot Sorkin and (longtime series director) Thomas Schlamme fit into such little screen time. It's a standout, because this episode, this series, isn't marked for being particular plot heavy. Crises arise, voices are raised, banter ensues, and by the end of the episode, all that tension is simply put to bed, not with car chases or gunfights or smoke monsters, just level headed people rationally explaining their decision making process. This sounds boring, but when viewed, when experienced, it electrifies. I'm not sure why, but civil discourse has never been and may never again be this awesome.
Before the story begins, Josh Lyman goes on live TV and shows off his acerbic wit against a representative of the religious right (we don't actually know if Mary Marsh classifies herself a Republican, but she's definitely a conservative and apparently doesn't like Jews) to diminishing returns. The line, which Josh watches later over and over again on a loop, "Lady, the God you pray to is too busy being indicted for tax fraud!" seems a little flaccid. Maybe the political landscape has shifted so broadly in the last decade, because the crap currently spewing out of the talking heads on the ye ole 24 hour news cycle doesn't bother with witticisms or pithy jibs. Nowadays, they go for the balls. Or maybe, the parallel universe in which The West Wing takes place just has smarter people in it, people with a higher moral code as it pertains to respecting the belief system of others. But... that also feels like a stretch. It's not like he called her a twatslap, nawmsayn? The only way I can read this comes back to a paradigm of narrative conflict. Josh is in the red because he ruffled the wrong features. I don't think it's what he said that matters. Maybe the episode would have played better without the aforementioned looping of his verbal foible. All that really matters to access the character and the world is that the things said here matter. Public opinion matters. And your opponents, no matter how narrowminded and unpleasant they may appear to be (like Mary Marsh), they should be treated with respect, even if they can't (or simply won't) show respect in return.
And in this basic conceit, Josh fails.
Before the story begins, Josh Lyman goes on live TV and shows off his acerbic wit against a representative of the religious right (we don't actually know if Mary Marsh classifies herself a Republican, but she's definitely a conservative and apparently doesn't like Jews) to diminishing returns. The line, which Josh watches later over and over again on a loop, "Lady, the God you pray to is too busy being indicted for tax fraud!" seems a little flaccid. Maybe the political landscape has shifted so broadly in the last decade, because the crap currently spewing out of the talking heads on the ye ole 24 hour news cycle doesn't bother with witticisms or pithy jibs. Nowadays, they go for the balls. Or maybe, the parallel universe in which The West Wing takes place just has smarter people in it, people with a higher moral code as it pertains to respecting the belief system of others. But... that also feels like a stretch. It's not like he called her a twatslap, nawmsayn? The only way I can read this comes back to a paradigm of narrative conflict. Josh is in the red because he ruffled the wrong features. I don't think it's what he said that matters. Maybe the episode would have played better without the aforementioned looping of his verbal foible. All that really matters to access the character and the world is that the things said here matter. Public opinion matters. And your opponents, no matter how narrowminded and unpleasant they may appear to be (like Mary Marsh), they should be treated with respect, even if they can't (or simply won't) show respect in return.
And in this basic conceit, Josh fails.
But his failure of judgement isn't the only one the show features. I'm a fan of parallelism and unified structure, which is hurdle most television rarely aspire to. Josh's predicament is singular, and he may feel like his humiliation and shame are singular only to him, but he'd be wrong. Josh's boss Leo McGarry is tripping over himself trying to correct a crossword puzzle in a nationally circulated newspaper. Press Secretary CJ Craig tries flirting with a man at gym only to fall off the treadmill after a momentary distraction. Sam Seaborn humiliates himself in front of Mallory O'Brian because he doesn't realize she's Leo's daughter. And last but not least, the President himself rides his bike into a tree.
I'm not sure if we can count Bartlet's bike accident as a plot line of its own because it doesn't build towards any revelation about him, his character(aside from him being a klutz and maybe a bit of geek), his staff or his staff's character. As a storytelling device, the accident drives the cold open, showing what each character is doing when they receive the news and gives each one an ancillary character to play off of (except Josh, who slept in his office that night). After the credits, however, it plays more like the joke that keeps on giving. There's not a reference or side comment concerning his crash that's not played for laughs, some of those laughs are intended for the audience inside the show, some intended for us, the audience watching. But whenever the characters have talked out Josh's impending termination or the importance of catering to religious leaders they'd rather not cater to, when they're not worrying the Cubans, or just plain making shit up about the origin of the conference table in the Roosevelt room, there's a callback to, oh yeah, the president's a klutz and maybe a bit of a geek.
This is a show that likes to juggle several balls at once, and I think this enhances the perceived speed of dialog readings. Yes, they talk fast, but not that fast. I think the jump from one topic to the next without a pause or moment of reflection catches you off guard, at least until you develop a sense of Sorkin's cadence in writing. He uses the same parallelism in his dialog as he does with his character arcs. In their first real scene together, Josh and Toby both use the phrase "don't get cute with Mary Marsh," within seconds of each other. Sorkinites will recognize this playfulness readily, as Sorkin used the same tactics on A Few Good Men, The American President and Sports Night; he'd use it again on Studio 60, and I'd lay even odds there will be similar bantering in The Social Network when it drops. Much has been written, and much will be written, about just how much talking these people do. There's talkies everywhere on TV, from Star Trek to CSI to Jersey Shore (at least, I *think* they're talking on Jersey Shore, though half the time it sounds like the fake language used by the Sims or people who play WoW) but these characters never take the time to think about what they're saying, or at least they never appear to. Again we come to the perception that the world The West Wing takes place in is a world of above average intelligence where its people can think with one hand and talk with another. They can also walk the corridors of their office while doing all that talking and thinking. Add in a few wacky over-the-top gestures and few references to arcane American history and you have an Emmy winning series on your hands.
We've got Josh in the foreground and the Bartlet in back (Martin Sheen doesn't appear until late in the last act) but a fair amount of time is spent on Sam, whose storyline isn't much of a story until about halfway through the episode. This represents a storytelling slight-of-hand by opening the episode, and the series, focused on Sam having a conversation about Josh. We're basically being told to pay attention to everything, and our investment about a minute into the episode, into the series, is on Sam because he's on the screen, but also on Josh, who we haven't even met yet. And Sam's about to be sidelined by a hottie across the room. Now I'm not sure how many professional escorts pick up guys at bars with the intention of bedding them and not asking for a fiver. In the very first scene, this mysterious woman (who looks an awful lot like Cuddy from another show altogether) is all about Sam. We don't see them flirt, we don't see who approaches who, or upon who's suggestion they retire to Cuddy's apartment for the evening. What is clear is that Sam only notices Cuddy because Cuddy is noticing Sam. Which has me think that Cuddy's the seductress here, and Sam her obvious prey. And yet she's not on the clock, as it were. And when Sam finds out about the bike accident, Cuddy's pretty stoned and accidentally swaps pagers. When Sam responds to a page at about the halfway point and a sultry woman says "Kashmir Escort Services," Sam has no choice but to confront the awkward. There's a lengthy, uncomfortable scene later where Sam and Cuddy discuss what differences (if any) exist between hooking, prostituting, a high class call girl, and a one night stand. Actually, the scene only lasts a minute, give or take, and has Cuddy pretty much admitting she has sex with wealthy men in exchange for cash. Sam's the one who tries to paint her night job into a corner with better lighting, but Cuddy has none of it. She's a hooker, and says so. I don't know if we can read Lisa Edlestein's expression at this admission as proud or ashamed, and I think the choice to play it so middle-of-the-road was deliberate.
There's obvious parallelism between Sam and Josh's story here. Because the things these people say and do matter, if anyone found out what Sam did, even though he didn't solicit anything from Cuddy that she wasn't ready to give Sam for free, it would be bad news for Sam, bad news for the administration, and probably not very good for Cuddy's aspirations for a law degree (not to mention, one supposes, a chance to work as a lawyer). And Sam's very aware of the hot water Josh is in. The two characters share the briefest exchange. "Is that the same suit you wore yesterday?" "Yeah... You?" "Yeah." And scene. They're in different suits, different situations, but the same damn place. Where Josh's plight is largely played for pathos, allowing each character their moment to reflect on Josh's bad judgement, Sam's meltdown is much more private, and as such, played for humor. Because none of the main cast knows what he was up to last night, since Sam was barely aware of what he was up to, he just charges through the day doing his best to keep up with the workload. Then a white house staffer dumps Leo McGarry's daughter's 4th grade class into Sam's lap and asks him to give a tour. A lesser man would have been swiftly briefed on some White House jargon, but not Sam Seaborn. He goes into that room, head held high, and simply blithers. First, he talks about himself, his role as Deputy Communications Director, telling jokes that likely fall flat amongst his peers, but he's slinging them at nine year olds. Their teacher asks about some history, so Sam starts filling in his personal backstory. By the time the teacher insists on, specifically this time, White House history, it's clear Sam's well out of his depth. His tree is a misconception. He had every reason to believe that Leo McGarry's daughter was a student in that classroom, mostly because he probably didn't think things through very thoroughly. President Bartlet, after all, has grandchildren already, and one would expect Sam to realize that Leo and Bartlet are contemporaries, for the most part, where Sam and Josh represent the next generation of politicos. So it's a small stretch to believe Sam believes Leo McGarry, a character likely in his late fifties or early sixties, has a nine year old daughter. I guess stranger things have happened, both in life and on TV, and without that conceit, we don't get the brilliant scene where Sam's deeply guarded personal life is spewed, vomit-style, at the teacher, Miss O'Brian, who actually is Leo McGarry's daughter. "This is bad on so many levels," he says, but with a laugh and a smile that seems to be the only emotion he can access aside from screaming and crying.
There's a lot going on here I haven't even mentioned yet, and don't have a lot more room for. Josh's ex-girlfriend Mandy is town, working for Senator Lloyd Russell (as well as dating him, apparently, which is gross, because Mandy is one of the most ANNOYING CHARACTERS ON TELEVISION EVER). I'm sure Moira Kelly (who "plays" Mandy) is an endearing and compassionate person deserving of our respect as a fellow human being. But I'm wondering if she single handedly got Law & Order, Heroes, and Numb3rs all canceled just by showing up for work on time. I'm not sure why she's around all season, but I'll try to minimize my hatred of Mandy (who is NOT the same person as Moira... I hope) to a few lines or less per essay, or I'll just do what the show does and completely forget she exists before the end of this season. There's also Cubans en route to Key West, and on the show that's apparently a rare occurrence and a big deal for the White House staffers to deal with.
The climax of the episode is a scene I lovingly refer to as the "Tea Summit," which probably takes its name for more modern meetings of culturally relevant figures (who drank beer). The religious right is represented by two horrible, small minded and spiteful trolls and one moderate who barely gets a few lines, and the whole reason they're there is for Bartlet to saunter in, declare himself the One True God and boot their collective asses to the curb. And why? Apparently, his granddaughter told a magazine that she believed in a woman's right to choose, and among conservatives this is not only damnable behavior, but also a damnable position to take, even if you're twelve years old. It's an image we only receive through dialog, but it's a haunting one: a member of the fringe group "Lambs of God" sent little Annie Bartlet (which is probably not her last name, but I'll use it for simplicity's sake) a Raggedy Ann Doll with a knife through its throat. You can bet the Secret Service is paying the sender a visit around the same time the tea summit takes place. It's odd to me that Josh's behavior was admonished throughout the episode, because he's not supposed to lump all Christians into the same category and treat all Christians with equal disdain. There are moderates, Toby (or maybe Leo) explains, and the administration would like to buddy-up with them so long as those fringey fanatics and extremists keep a minimum safe distance. And yet here we have the President doing exactly the same thing Josh did, telling Mary Marsh, John Van Dyke and Allen Caldwell that if they'd don't admonish the Lambs, they have no business being physically within the White House.
But it was awkward long before the President told these religious standard-bearers to "get their fat asses" outside where they belong, when Mary Marsh made a comment that Toby inferred as anti-semitic. Her disgust with East Coast elitism is a common one in the GOP and the conservative right, whose base supposedly represents the core values of heartland America, whereas the big cities and cultural centers are littered with prostitutes and pornographers, and oh yeah, Jews. Probably adherents to all kinds of non-Christian based religious, too. I'd like to blame my tiredness and eagerness to humanize the enemy in my advocating for Mary Marsh's point of view. She's not nearly as wrong as Toby makes her out to be, but I think the message is clear. It's only offensive if it attacks my belief systems. Take any bully on any playground you want: they love to dish it out but hate the taste of their own medicine (it's late and I'm okay with a mixed metaphor now and again). But Mary Marsh has neither the solemnity nor the grace, nor either the empathy Josh displayed when he apologized. It's easy to hate the villains when they're so villainy.
Everything comes full circle, which is a key component in a well told story (I'm looking at you, True Blood season 3), with Bartlet's final thoughts on the day referencing the Cuban survivors now being looked after by the Red Cross. Here's one of many classic Bartlet moments, where he goes off on a tangent about a girl who found a fully formed rosary in a tomato. Where the conventional wisdom places the title of very impressive on the girl, Bartlet's granddaughter places the same title on the tomato, with Bartlet smiling either in agreement or admiration of his trademark wit surviving to a third generation. He trails off with the comment, "I'm not sure what made me think of that." Bartlet knows. Maybe not in the moment, but he knows. Because the Cubans survived a storm, an ocean crossing, and Lord knows what else in pursuit of the same America Bartlet loves so much. "Talk about impressive."
Right there with ya, Jed.
So, how'd I do? What'd I miss? What was I completely wrong about slash completely near close to being right about? Who's planning on revisiting this show with me over the next 20 some odd weeks (or longer, if I write up more than just season 1, and if we assume I'll write about one episode a week, which I may or may not increase, depending)? If you'd like to join in the discussion, feel free to write a comment in the space below.
Next week, "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc," with more Sam & Cuddy, and because she didn't do much this week, more CJ Craig.
But it was awkward long before the President told these religious standard-bearers to "get their fat asses" outside where they belong, when Mary Marsh made a comment that Toby inferred as anti-semitic. Her disgust with East Coast elitism is a common one in the GOP and the conservative right, whose base supposedly represents the core values of heartland America, whereas the big cities and cultural centers are littered with prostitutes and pornographers, and oh yeah, Jews. Probably adherents to all kinds of non-Christian based religious, too. I'd like to blame my tiredness and eagerness to humanize the enemy in my advocating for Mary Marsh's point of view. She's not nearly as wrong as Toby makes her out to be, but I think the message is clear. It's only offensive if it attacks my belief systems. Take any bully on any playground you want: they love to dish it out but hate the taste of their own medicine (it's late and I'm okay with a mixed metaphor now and again). But Mary Marsh has neither the solemnity nor the grace, nor either the empathy Josh displayed when he apologized. It's easy to hate the villains when they're so villainy.
Everything comes full circle, which is a key component in a well told story (I'm looking at you, True Blood season 3), with Bartlet's final thoughts on the day referencing the Cuban survivors now being looked after by the Red Cross. Here's one of many classic Bartlet moments, where he goes off on a tangent about a girl who found a fully formed rosary in a tomato. Where the conventional wisdom places the title of very impressive on the girl, Bartlet's granddaughter places the same title on the tomato, with Bartlet smiling either in agreement or admiration of his trademark wit surviving to a third generation. He trails off with the comment, "I'm not sure what made me think of that." Bartlet knows. Maybe not in the moment, but he knows. Because the Cubans survived a storm, an ocean crossing, and Lord knows what else in pursuit of the same America Bartlet loves so much. "Talk about impressive."
Right there with ya, Jed.
So, how'd I do? What'd I miss? What was I completely wrong about slash completely near close to being right about? Who's planning on revisiting this show with me over the next 20 some odd weeks (or longer, if I write up more than just season 1, and if we assume I'll write about one episode a week, which I may or may not increase, depending)? If you'd like to join in the discussion, feel free to write a comment in the space below.
Next week, "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc," with more Sam & Cuddy, and because she didn't do much this week, more CJ Craig.
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