New opponents to besiege ‘West Wing’

Producer/writer Aaron Sorkin says the premise of the show won’t change just because Clinton’s out and Bush is in the White House. But there’s opposition in Josiah Bartlet’s future.

By ERIC DEGGANS

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 6, 2001

For this critic, it was a revelation like a light bulb flicking on.

The realization hit while watching a recent West Wing episode dubbed "The Leadership Breakfast," in which idealistic yet cantankerous Democratic White House communications director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) gets outfoxed by the new chief of staff of the Republican House majority leader (Sports Night alum Felcity Huffman).

A-ha! I thought. This is how they'll deal with a Bush presidency and the ascendancy of right wing politics in the real world. The Republicans finally get some power.

That simplistic thinking was dashed to bits during a recent conversation with creator/writer Aaron Sorkin, who was calling from the show's Burbank production office at 8:30 a.m. on a recent Monday, despite winning a Golden Globe award for best TV drama the night before.

"It really isn't about ... the new Bush White House. ... It's about opposition," he says. "You're going to see opposition on the show, and you're going to see them making strong, compelling arguments. In our parallel West Wing universe, which is two years off from the actual universe, Bartlet's going to need to start running for re-election. And he's facing all kinds of opposition -- including, by the way, opposition to his left."

Some of that friction comes from St. Elsewhere veteran Ed Begley Jr., playing a Ralph Nader-style left-wing politician who challenges President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) to be more liberal. But the fireworks start Wednesday courtesy of Stockard Channing's recurring First Lady, who skewers the president for overlooking issues she's championed when he makes his State of the Union speech.

Which is a good thing. Because The West Wing lately has seemed a little lost in its own success, nabbing awards and accolades (most recently, three Screen Actors Guild award nominations, including one for best ensemble) while offering episodes that, at times, fall short of the series' own high standards.

It's an important time for the show, which faces renewed competition from Fox's Temptation Island for key viewers during an all-important February "sweeps" ratings period.

And with some of the series' most intriguing characters rarely seen on-screen -- including Tim Matheson's Machiavellian vice president and John Larroquette's excitable White House counsel -- Sorkin faces the added challenge of working some of TV's most accomplished guest stars in with his crack ensemble cast.

"We have eight regulars. To use a basketball phrase, getting them all their minutes is hard enough as it is," he notes. "Believe me, it's a pleasure, but there are a lot of mouths to feed."

Besides a two-parter on Bartlet's State of the Union speech (which also features Marlee Matlin's return as consultant Joey Lucas), the show's sweeps lineup includes a Feb. 21 episode with former Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman co-star Mary Kay Place as a surgeon general who suggests marijuana isn't as harmful as cocaine or heroin.

Viewers also get to meet Bartlet's middle daughter -- he has three -- who crosses her father on the issue of the surgeon general's comments. To make sure fans feel included, NBC has also encouraged Web surfers to vote for their favorite episode among 10 listed at http://www.NBCi.com; the two winners will air Feb. 25 (also a clever way to hype two reruns airing on a Sunday night).

"I'll go on (the fan Web sites) every once and a while, just to hear what people are saying," Sorkin admits. "It's fascinating, ... but a little dangerous. Sometimes you start to live and die by what they're saying -- when they don't like something, you want to kill yourself."

The salt-and-pepper-haired Sorkin still resists observations that Bartlet's White House is an idealized Clinton regime, saying many of the show's real-world parallels came about by accident.

"I guess I write a script about five weeks before it's on television," he says. "Sometimes in those five weeks, an event will happen almost exactly like what we just did, and it will look like we stole it."

He cites recent storylines on an India/Pakistan conflict that broke out for real days before the show aired and an episode centered on an assassinated Third World leader that aired as a repeat the day the Congo's leader was executed.

Sorkin's greatest agony comes when great political stories break out in real life -- and no story brought more torment than the turmoil over the Florida elections recount.

"It was one of the great political stories ever, (but) when there's a great story in real life, it means it's a story I can't tell on the show," he says. "So with every day that was going by, I was thinking, "Stop it already! Stop it! You're taking all the good stories."'

The show has always managed to surprise in small ways; getting press secretary C.J. Cregg (Alison Janney) to lip synch British jazz/hip hop guitarist Ronnie Jordan's The Jackal during an office party was the height of hip, obscure reference.

But there's an undercurrent of schmaltz that at times threatens to overwhelm the proceedings. Critics have gone after the character of Republican lawyer Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter, who also returns this month), a tough-talking caricature given to windy lectures on responsibility and liberal excess.

All this while more intriguing storylines -- from the interracial romance between aide Charlie Young and presidential daughter Zoey Bartlet to the president's hidden struggle with multiple sclerosis -- remain underdeveloped or undone.

"I try to write as well as I can, and sometimes I don't write as well as other times," says Sorkin, who authored the films A Few Good Men and The American President before moving to TV with Sports Night and The West Wing.

And don't worry about all the awards turning his head much.

"My reaction, generally, after we win an Emmy or Golden Globe, is a minute or two of euphoria before I think -- "God, now we have to be as good as people just said we were,"' Sorkin adds, laughing. "Believe me, we worry about everything here."

At a glance

“The West Wing” airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday on WFLA-Ch. 8. Rating: TV-PG.

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