Well, it had to happen eventually. The West Wing – one of the best TV shows produced in the last ten years – has finally been axed. It will finish at the end of the seventh series with a new president being sworn in.
The show first aired in 1999 and immediately shone. The dialogue was fast and intelligent, the characters fully rounded, and both interacted with one another wittily and coherently. Each episode of the first series tackled a different looming social topic and brilliantly disclosed not only the different sides to each argument but also how decisions are made at the highest level of government.
It had the same sort of impact as classic TV series Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister had in the UK in 1980s: Margaret Thatcher famously said she watched it to find out how the government worked underneath her. Those two shows – stretching to five series but having far fewer episodes than The West Wing – were about civil servants while The West Wing is about the communications staff, demonstrating how important the media is to modern Western government.
As soon as it aired, it was a revelation. Even though at times the dialogue almost parodied itself with its relentless pace and tangent-jumping, the overall feel was of highly intelligent people dealing with issues head-on and as best they could.
Idiocy and duplicity – lovely
It was also brave enough to show the anger, frustration, idiocy and duplicity of politics – and why they are an essential part of the mix. For a US show, it also largely avoided an excess of the saccharine sub-plots and endings that for some reason Americans have a genetic disposition to.
Series Two was just as good. The plots faltered occasionally but it was still snappy, the cast of characters were very real and you really grew to care about them. More impressively, you understood their complex personas – something that can only be achieved through consistent and intelligent writing combined with sympathetic performances.
But it was the writing that both made and broke The West Wing. The series was created by Aaron Sorkin, a talented writer often asked to sharpen Hollywood scripts. He wrote a large number of the episodes, although was also smart enough to allow others loose on scripts, keeping it fresh.
Thanks to Sorkin, the West Wing still fizzled into series four – quite an achievement. The third series also first aired at a time when US citizens were panicked by the events of 11 September 2001. Here was a programme giving insights into how the White House dealt with big problems and the country was hooked.
The enormous success led ultimately to its downfall though – as these things always do. Suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the show. The sheer amount of money it was making distorted the entire show. And the programme itself became political. People started seeing criticism of the actual US administration in the script. Real lobbyists started lobbying cast members in the hope of getting an airing of their particular issue on the show.
Money – the root of all evil
Things came to a head when actor Rob Lowe, who played key character Sam Seaborne, got miffed at the other actors' pay rises. Lowe and Martin Sheen – the actor playing the president – were the big names brought in at the start of the show.
Between May-July 2002 in contract negotiations for the next series, Sheen saw his pay treble to $300,000 an episode. The other cast members staged a walk out to get their pay increased, which they did when it was doubled to $70,000 an episode. But Lowe, who was on $75,000 an episode was not given a promised rise and so he walked out. NBC leaked stories to the press to look as if it was Lowe being greedy when in fact NBC was raking in millions from the show.
The deathknell came though when Aaron Sorkin walked out on his baby at the end of the fourth series, along with executive producer Thomas Schlamme. They have never said why. Perhaps they will now.
West Wing series five had a completely different style and pace and the dialogue wasn't as good and it quickly started falling apart. The intelligent logic and coherence that gave the series its credibility was thrown out the window in favour of drama.
It was clearly time to kill the series but as is the tradition in the US, there were still millions to be milked out of it and so it continued and continued and continued, getting more and more awful – think Friends.
Part of the actor's pay rise deal back in 2002 had been that they would stay on until the end of the seventh series, so NBC dragged the show out as long as it could. New actors were brought in but only demonstrated the network's desperation – they were almost all young, attractive women who carried no gravitas and were completely unbelievable as advisers to the president of the United States.
The final blow
The storylines, acting and dialogue of series six were so flaccid that it was widely predicted that NBC would kill the show. But in March 2005, NBC decided to drag it out for one more series.
In December, the show was struck once more when actor John Spencer, who played chief of staff Leo McGarry but who has been downplayed in the series, died from a heart attack aged 58.
But then the final killer – ratings. The show was moved to Sundays in the US, so even fewer people watched it. In the end, it just wasn't profitable enough any more. Thank god because another series could well tarnished the reputation of this once-great show forever.
There will be a special end episode and NBC are reportedly trying to buy Rob Lowe back for it. If they have any sense they will also buy in Aaron Sorkin, although Sorkin may not be so keen. Anyway, it will at least give NBC the chance to do that other strange American tradition – get all het and hyped-up about the final episode of a series they had long-since stopped watching.
As it stands, The West Wing is one of the most enjoyable, intelligent and life-enhancing TV shows of recent years. It is already a classic and should, with luck, serve as a template to future shows – hopefully making the point that a sharp, coherent plot and dialogue are 100 times more important than good-looking lead actresses.
Don't hold your breath though. And don't buy beyond series four. Just pretend five, six and seven never existed.
The West Wing is dead. Long live The West Wing.