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Episode Three Reviewed by Anonymous October 6, 1999
The West Wing is really heating up and it's doing so with the help of a much more provocative story line. Finally. This week, the depth of the characters begins to emerge and some very compelling and realistic dynamics come into play. A debate between the President and his national security team -- while far from a history lesson -- highlights some of the struggles encountered by a first-time commander in chief. Most enlightening, however, is an exploration of the relationship between the press and the press secretary, which, in this third episode, finally receives its due attention. Given that so much of the show revolves around the press office, it's about time. This week, the President must decide on the appropriate retaliation for the attack on a U.S. military plane in which his personal physician is killed. The discussion among the President and his advisors (unfortunately reminiscent of West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin's movie version in The American President), highlights the human dimension of the characters and reinforces one of the show's consistent themes: that Presidents and cabinet secretaries are people too. If nothing else, viewers can hopefully see that there are some very genuine and basic kitchen-table type debates taking place among the small handful of people who end up dictating history and that, for this reason, we should all care a lot about who is sitting around that table. Of course Sheen's President, as usual, overly dramatizes his rage about the crisis-du-jour, and it's unlikely to me that a president would ever be so personally offensive to his national security team when rejecting their advice -- particularly when he chooses to follow that same advice one hour later. Unfortunately, in this Situation Room scene NBC takes the irresponsible liberty of creating a president who needs a cigarette in a moment of high stress. Now come on. Is this supposed to be realistic? First, the West Wing is non-smoking (not to say that there haven't been some senior staff known to have a puff or two . . . ) but, second, does anyone actually believe there would ever be a smoker in office anytime in the future? Given the anti-smoking trends in Washington, I doubt it. And to have the President, even a fictional President, portrayed as a smoker is utterly irresponsible given that he is the person most admired and emulated by kids. West Wing is prime-time viewing after all. Ironically, this is the type of responsibility the real White House is trying to compel the networks to achieve. For me, this goes down as the lowest point in West Wing thus far, and a sign that Hollywood writers are either too lazy or too out-of-touch with the climate in Washington to come up with a realistic crutch. Like a president standing in a corner pretending to hit golf balls. . . . The most insightful aspect of the plot was an examination of the relationship between the press and the press secretary. When the Deputy Communications Director finds himself developing a relationship with a call girl, the press secretary insists she ought to have been first to know. Her premise is that she doesn't care what the relationship is, only what it looks like. What ensues is a very realistic chess game with the press. The story doesn't break publicly because the first reporter to get the story holds it at the press secretary's urging - and knowing this gesture of goodwill someday will be repaid. Almost immediately, the press secretary delivers to him a worthy leak about a breaking news development. Herein lies the symbiotic relationship between the press and those inside the White House. This sort of you-scratch-my-back moment brings a dose of reality to the West Wing. The only problem is, the game never ends and you can never put out all the fires. A prediction: the call-girl story is definitely going to blow. |
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