Will you miss "The West Wing"?

Too close for comfort
"The West Wing" lost me when it became no longer possible, through no fault of its own, for me as an avid television viewer to take pleasure in imagining any kind of White House at all other than the one currently occupied, anything other than a place that had come to symbolize something deeply troubling and perverse. Imagine trying to watch "Hogan's Heroes" in, say, 1944, or, for that matter, for heaven's sake, "The Producers" around the same time. It just is not possible to gain the kind of distance on reality necessary to indulge in an imaginative construct bearing some slight resemblance to perhaps our dreams of what the White House -- a good White House, an interesting, engaged White House full of interesting, engaged people -- might be like. The actual West Wing just totally ruined the show for me.

Sorry, but there are limits. Anybody care to watch, say, a series set in a West Virginia coal mine? It's kinda like that.

-- Cary Tennis

I know it's limp -- but I'm still hooked!
There was a time -- maybe in the show's first or second season, back when the people from the Emmys still delivered truckloads of golden statues to Aaron Sorkin's shroom-filled room at the Four Seasons -- when it was cool to watch "The West Wing." No longer, of course; the cool cats who like their TV fast and smart long ago moved on to other shows. (I've heard "The O.C." will change your life.) The thing is, not me. Though I know the show long ago went limp -- oh, do I -- I'm still hooked. As far as I can tell, I've never missed a single episode in all seven seasons; indeed, on Sunday, the very day that NBC announced it was canceling the series, I caught up on the latest four episodes, a TiVo-aided marathon of mediocre drama, middling political intrigue and, afterward, a whole lot of guilt.

Why am I still watching? Oh, who knows; addiction's a difficult beast. Intellectually, I can see that the show's been almost completely dull since May 2003, when Sorkin penned his last episode. And if I were truly honest, I'd probably see its fall occurring before then. After all, even during Sorkin's prodigious tenure, the show looked to be going for some kind of record in jumping the shark: an assassination attempt in the first season; the first daughter's kidnapping in the fourth; a sudden, unexpected death to wrap up each of the first three seasons; and the occasional flare-ups of over-the-top pyrotechnics -- Martin Sheen yelling at God in Latin -- that made me embarrassed for Sorkin.

This is going to sound unbearably corny, but here goes. The truth is, watching "West Wing" is palliative; it calms me, bathes me in nostalgia and hope. (I told you it was corny.) Even now --- especially on the occasional episodes by Deborah Cahn, a writer whose style closely resembles Sorkin's; networks, give her a show! -- you can see glimpses of those magical early years, back when Sorkin was in his groove, and the show looked and sounded better than anything else on television (including "The Sopranos"). But watching "West Wing" now doesn't only prompt memories of earlier seasons -- it prompts memories of an earlier season in politics, those mirthful, merry '90s, when the worst thing we had to worry about in our president was a shameful weakness for a girl in a thong.

The show is a fiction, certainly. There isn't a politician in the world like Jed Bartlet, an exceedingly smart, (mostly) honest man with principles, who doesn't govern by politics, who takes counsel from the cooler, calmer heads on his staff, and even from his opponents. Today in politics, you won't find anyone half as good. And that's precisely why I watch: Some people might look at "The West Wing" under the Bush administration as a fantasy. I look at it as a blueprint. We should be so lucky to have a real White House like that. And maybe, one day, we will. Until then, it's nice to have it on TV.

-- Farhad Manjoo

When did you stop watching "The West Wing"? Or are you still loving it after all these years? Share your opinions by clicking below to post a letter.

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