"The West Wing," Year Three

Moderate spoilers ahead.

Well, the early phase of the Bartlett administration is over. Season three has made some adjustments, and feels more like the television dramas of the last decade - more serialized, featuring thornier conflicts and imperfect characters, with no clean and tidy resolutions. Starry-eyed idealism has largely been replaced with more cynical politicking as Jed Bartlett's re-election campaign is in full swing. His staff is screwing up more often and facing harder challenges. Bartlett himself is clashing more frequently with them. Josh and Sam are still arrogant jerks from time to time, but there are more repercussions for their behavior.

The third season started out pretty shaky, with all the flashback episodes I wasn't very interested in, and the scandal over the President's multiple sclerosis secret taking up so much of the narrative. As much as I enjoy Martin Sheen as President Bartlett, I like "The West Wing" much better as an ensemble show, and the first part of the season is awfully Bartlett-heavy. It's not that I'm opposed to learning more about Bartlett's past and psychology, but it comes at the expense of everyone else around him. I'd have loved to get more of Sam's background, or CJ's. Charlie is easily the most underutilized of the regulars, and only gets something substantive to do at the very end of the season. When we do see more of the staff, the humor is dialed way, way down, and there are several episodes that are very issue-focused, and don't make the best use of the characters as characters. Instead they sometimes feel like mouthpieces for political views that are randomly assigned. CJ is against affirmative action in one installment, and this is conveniently never mentioned again.

Still, Sorkin is at his best here, holding his characters to account for their mistakes, setting up higher stakes, presenting compelling moral dilemmas, and getting the audience invested in larger themes and issues. The season finale, unlike previous years, feels like less of a stunt and more of an organic endpoint to several ongoing storylines that have been properly developed over the course of the season, CJ's romance with Mark Harmon notwithstanding. Bartlett feels more humanized and less infallible, which is preferable to having him on a pedestal. I miss some of the cozy camaraderie of the earlier seasons, but I also appreciate the more realistic depiction of a political system that is constantly getting bogged down by special interests, bad faith actions, and plain, old fashioned political maneuvering. One of my favorite moments of the season is watching Sam getting totally outplayed by a rival working for the opposition.

There aren't many prominent new characters this season. Josh's newest love interest is women's rights lobbyist Amy Gardner (Mary-Louise Parker), and I hope that she stays around for the long haul. She's by far the most interesting and personable of all of Josh's love interests so far, and Parker has a fantastic onscreen dynamic with Bradley Whitford. I wonder if Mandy would still be around if Parker had been given her role at the start. And we need more Ainsley, who only makes a handful of special appearances. And more Abby Bartlett. I'm even warming up to Donna more, now that she's not always orbiting Josh.

The show's success is also clearly having an impact, with a mediocre special dedicated to real life White House staffers, with the participation of Presidents Ford, Carter, and Clinton, and a post 9/11 bottle episode that didn't really work. It was a valiant effort at a mature response to still-unfolding events (at the time the show was originally aired), but it didn't work. The self-importance of "The West Wing" has never been more pronounced, with guest stars like Lily Tomlin, getting bigger, and Sorkin clearly addressing criticisms of the show's first two seasons in various forms.

I admit I nearly gave up on "The West Wing" entirely after the first few episodes of this season. The twenty-plus episode seasons are starting to wear on me, and the filler hasn't been great. However, I thought the show recovered nicely toward the back half, and I'm looking forward to the presidential election and the further events in the show's universe next season.
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