So this is the third time I’ve written about “The West Wing.” It will also be the last. In the words of the great cliché-ster, “All good things must come to an end.” Sunday night, after seven years on the air, the Emmy-winning political drama showed its final episode.
The episode took place during the morning of the inauguration of the new fake president as Emilio Estevez’s dad handed over the reigns of power to that guy from NYPD Blue. No, not him. The other guy on NYPD Blue. Yeah, that’s the one.
Conspicuously missing from the episode was Tony Award winner Glenn Close. Close had played the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court in an earlier episode. When it came time to administer the oath of office, though, a blond body double stood in – with her face not-so-subtlely obscured by the TelePrompTer. I wasn’t taken in for a second; Glenn Close would never slouch like that.
After the inauguration, the White House domestic staff went to work cleaning out the Oval Office. Part of this task involved cleaning off the president’s desk, which had various personal items including a nameplate. Wait a minute. A nameplate? Is it that uncommon for people in the Oval Office to forget whose office they’re in that they need a nameplate to be reminded? Or is the nameplate to remind the president who he is? Even then, couldn’t he just look at the walls? More importantly, how many rhetorical questions is too much for any given paragraph? The mystery of the nameplate is just one of the many loose ends left unaddressed as the West Wing came to a close.
I suppose it must be hard to tie up all the loose ends on an ensemble drama because there are so many different characters. Still, though, it would have been nice to know how certain storylines played out.
Maybe we can see that if they do a spin-off series. Instead of watching Martin Sheen’s staff scurry about trying to solve foreign and domestic policy quandaries, perhaps we can watch his staff scurry about trying to get zoning permits for his presidential library. What’s that? You think I should quit my day job to become a television producer? Oh, you just want me to quit my day job. I see.
At one point Martin Sheen’s character was a given a gift. The gift goes unopened for most of the episode, though it is referred to several times. Finally, he opens the gift, shows it to his wife, and offers no explanatory sentiment.
I wasn’t really sure to whom that was directed, though. Pathetically devoted fans like myself would know what was in the box the second they saw it. Thus, it would seem pointless to drag that element out by referring to it without doing the full reveal. Meanwhile, casual viewers would follow along until the reveal only to receive no explanation as to the significance of the gift.
On the whole, the West Wing ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Many fans feel that the show had been going downhill since the departure of series creator Aaron Sorkin at the end of the fourth season. Certainly the ratings have been in decline.
Sorkin made a cameo in the final episode even though he hadn’t worked on the show in five years. I didn’t read the credits for his role, but I imagine it read something along the lines of: “Random guy in the middle of a random shot that seemed to have no place or purpose within the context of the scene.”
I am sure many of my readers would have preferred that the real president left office Sunday night. A lady-friend of mine recently expressed her displeasure that President Bush wouldn’t leave office until 2008. I say to her and such readers: Look on the bright side. You have more than two whole years to practice saying the words “President John McCain.”
Anyway, now that the West Wing isn’t on television anymore, I’ve got more free time in my Sunday night schedule. So you should call me or something. We’ll hang out. Grab a beer. Whatever. Maybe watch a little West Wing on DVD? Okay, maybe not.