There was this one day in 2000 where I kind of lost it. Bush was looking like he was going to emerge victorious from the Florida clusterfuck, and the Republicans had won back both houses of Congress. I wasn’t ...

+Bartlet: "Well, Oliver, it really boils down to this: I'm gonna tell you a story, and then I'm gonna need you to tell me whether or not I've engaged 16 people in a massive criminal conspiracy to ...

I was visiting a friend last weekend who was watching Sports Night for the first time. He was just getting to the part where Dan and Rebecca begin their courtship—my favorite part of the show—so I offered to ...

Family on The West Wing has always been a tricky subject. In season one, we saw Leo’s wife finally end their marriage because Leo was putting his job first. Toby still keeps in touch with his ex-wife if only ...

I take the State Of The Union address for granted. It’s such a weird little tradition held over from another era. Once a year, the President addresses Congress, and does so specifically inside Congress. It’s a big deal ...

This week’s double whammy of administrative collapse started with arguably the most comedically impressive series of scenes thus far. “The Leadership Breakfast” finds CJ and her team spending (a mere) seven-and-a-half hours arranging seating assignments for a bipartisan meet-up ...

The West Wing takes a long time to tell simple stories. Taken purely on their final few scenes, “Galileo” and “Noël” are quite easy to digest: People are smart, and friends are great.

For the first half of “Galileo ...

These two West Wing episodes reminded me of something, but it'll take just a bit of set-up. I'm not really a fan of huge wind-up TV recaps, but I feel compelled to tell this story, so please bear ...

When I first started watching The West Wing, I paid attention to every little plot detail. "This guy was trying to talk to this other guy before another guy had the chance to speak to a stray guy about an ...

As morbid a thought as this is, I love episodes of television just after something tragic or painful occurs. It's simple human nature to actively avoid having harsh thoughts, so often characters (and, really, people) unhealthily fixate on something ...

"How could you stop?"

That's the question I was asked after stopping last summer's TV Club Classic coverage of The West Wing with the season one finale. Asked by everybody. A malnourished, palefaced creep had given a signal ...

In concluding his speech with "decisions are made by those who show up," President Bartlet perfectly encapsulates what season one of The West Wing was all about. Forget the drama. Forget the intricacies of the policies the characters debate. Forget ...

"Let Bartlet Be Bartlet"
When losing is a daily occurrence, you just sort of accept it, no less than you accept what time your alarm goes off or what website you visit first when you get into work. Routine. And ...

"The White House Pro-Am"

On my flight to Montreal last week, a guy seated in the row next to me noticed me pull out my West Wing DVDs, like the exact second I dug them out of my bag. "What ...

"Celestial Navigation"
While "Take This Sabbath Day" contained no "Previously on The West Wing" segment, this one had a strange one: A run-down of simply the names of each character, presumably again for the benefit of those who hadn't ...

"Take Out The Trash Day"
The staffers talk a lot about sex in this episode. Or rather, as Sam puts it, "everything but." (It's in the context of a bill being proposed in Congress to hire 100,000 new ...

Wow, that was a lot of drama.

For the first time thus far, The West Wing is soaking with a sense of real urgency, on just about every level. And this natural episode pairing started so innocently: It was just ...

"Enemies"
If there's one common thread I'm noticing about The West Wing, it's that, deep down, everyone working together genuinely likes each other. There wouldn't be much of a show were that not the case—Josh ...

"Mr. Willis Of Ohio"
Who lives in America? What are all these people like? What do they all have in common? And, most importantly, what do they want? When The West Wing devotes an episode to a budget surplus, we ...

Random viewing note to kick things off:
I am finding it very, very, very hard to watch this show and take detailed notes. Bottom line: I'm lovin' The West Wing, and each episode is engrossing me more and more ...