The West Wing at 25: changing the game

Aaron Sorkin's high-minded political drama made its debut 25 years ago today, and, though it has flaws and critics, it revolutionised the way TV portrayed politics

Now, on NBC…

Twenty-five years ago, at 9.00 pm on Wednesday 22 September 1999, the first episode of a new political drama created by Aaron Sorkin was broadcast on NBC. The West Wing examined politics and public life through the team of senior officials working for a fictional Democratic president of the United States, and arrived amid considerable anticipation. Sorkin, a 38-year-old writer and showrunner, had made his name with the Broadway play and feature film adaptation A Few Good Men, a tense, literate, sparky courtroom drama before penning Malice (1993) and The American President (1995). He had then turned his attention to the small screen, and in 1998 had created Sports Night, a comedy drama about the cast and crew of a sports news programme starring Josh Charles, Peter Crause and Felicity Huffman. Audience figures had been disappointing but critics had praised Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue, the relationships between the characters and the use of “walk and talk”, with conversations taking place as actors moved from one scene to another.

The primary director of The West Wing was Thomas Schlamme, who had worked with Sorkin on Sports Night as well as directing episodes of The Wonder Years, Chicago Hope, Friends, Spin City, ER and Ally McBeal. Making a trio of executive producers was John Wells, who had been showrunner of ER as it dominated the television drama landscape of the mid-1990s. The Hollywood Reporter summed up the power of this combination in its review of the first episode: “it probably shouldn’t be any surprise that this new show is packed with brilliant dialogue, nonstop action and well-drawn characters”.

An impressive ensemble cast had been assembled. Sorkin had intended it to focus on Rob Lowe, playing White House deputy director of communications Sam Seaborn. Lowe was 35, his Brat Pack days distant by then, and he had been sober for almost a decade after widely reported excesses as a young actor. But he would have to fight for attention: joining him were accomplished stage actress Allison Janney as C.J. Cregg, the White House press secretary, the intense and focused director-turned-actor Richard Schiff as Seaborn’s boss Toby Ziegler, John Spencer, who had played one of the lead roles in LA Law, as chief of staff Leo McGarry, and long-time Sorkin associate Bradley Whitford as McGarry’s deputy, Joshua Lyman. Appearing only at the end of the first episode was Martin Sheen as President Josiah Bartlet, a Nobel Laureate in economics and former governor of New Hampshire.

Sorkin’s initial idea had been not to feature the president at all, but to focus on the individual members of his staff, showing how they interacted with each other and the ways in which they developed policy, advised the president and reacted to events. He eventually changed his mind. “Then I felt that would become hokey,” he concluded. “We’ll constantly be just missing the president. As he walks around the corner, we’ll see the back of his head.” So he created the role of Bartlet and cast Sheen, with whom he had worked on The American President, initially for four episodes. Alan Alda, Jason Robards and Sidney Poitier had also been considered but Sheen’s dailies were compelling and he was quickly signed.

A hit, a very palpable hit

The West Wing dazzled. Television had never quite found a way to tackle politics head on before, at least not in America: Spin City (1996-2002) had essentially been a sitcom starring Michael J. Fox as deputy mayor of New York, following in the light-hearted tradition 1985’s Hail to the Chief and mockumentary Tanner ’88. In general, howvere, the small screen had preferred other subjects, like medicine or organised crime, and had left the field of politics to cinema. In Britain, there was a longer tradition of brilliant, penetrating satire, like Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, more broad-brush lampoon such as The New Statesman and earnest, straight-faced drama—First Among Equals (1986), A Very British Coup (1988) and The Politician’s Wife (1995). Bringing all the strands together had been Michael Dobbs’s outrageously entertaining House of Cards (1990), a spiky, sly, slightly camp thriller dominated by Ian Richardson as modern Machiavel Francis Urquhart. (I wrote about the series a couple of years ago.)

A first-rate cast and scintillating screenwriting helped, but The West Wing’s real secret weapon was a slightly nerdish, high-minded honesty about its purpose. This was a drama about politics, and that meant not just the machinations and backstabbing of careerists and manipulators, but the exchange of ideas and the flow of debate. The first episode tackled evangelical Christian conservatism, culminating in Martin Sheen’s President Bartlet appearing almost deus ex machina and savaging a group of religious activists who have been meeting Toby and Josh. Bartlet is imperious, initially warm and conciliatory then turning on his opponents with controlled fury before dismissing them from the room. It made you want to cheer: this was politics the way you hoped it really could be, with charismatic leaders of high principle brandishing masterful sentences to devastating effect.

The rest, of course, is history. The West Wing was an enormous popular and critical success, hailed as high-class entertainment and ground-breaking drama. The first season won a record-breaking nine Emmy awards and it was recognised as an ensemble cast and crew at the top of their game. It rolled on for seven seasons and 154 episodes and is still a cultural touchstone. Sorkin left at the end of season four, having written or co-written 85 of the first 88 episodes, after which critics felt the quality began to wane and ratings slipped, but the key affluent demographic—households with an income over $70,000, crucial for advertisers—remained loyal. The West Wing drew to a close on 14 May 2006 with episode 154, “Tomorrow”.

Thinking about The West Wing

Two decades later, there are (at least) two schools of thought about The West Wing. One hails its earnest approach to politics, its portrayal of what decision-making at the heart of the American government is like (real-life White House veterans attested to its authentic “feel”) and its idealism, as well as the fact that it was simply brilliantly written and finely acted drama. Another, without necessarily disputing the facts, draws a different conclusion: that it represented impossible liberal wish-fulfilment, a world in which progressive politicians were uniquely and eternally virtuous. As critic Heather Havrilesky summed it up:

What rock did these morally pure creatures crawl out from under and, more important, how do you go from innocent millipede to White House staffer without becoming soiled or disillusioned by the dirty realities of politics along the way?

Some conservatives found the show particularly objectionable, as it reinforced stereotypes many already held about their opponents as smug and self-righteous. Joyce Millman in Salon described it as both sermon and apologia.

‘West Wing’ lets Democrats feel good about themselves, their party and the positive accomplishments of the past eight years by offering up a wholesome Clinton surrogate Democratic president. If ‘West Wing’ were a bumper sticker, it would say, ‘Don’t blame me, I voted for Martin Sheen.’

I will be clear right away: I am a right-winger and believe in a healthy dose in cynicism in how treat politics, but I also loved The West Wing. I didn’t treat it as a documentary or even an object lesson in how politics should be, so much as a portrayal of what politics could be, from a certain perspective. To judge the show now, 25 years on, I think we need context and consideration.

O tempora, o mores

Timing is everything. When The West Wing first aired, Bill Clinton was approaching the final year of his two-term presidency. For all the travails of his personal conduct, his approval ratings remained buoyant, never below 40 per cent and sometimes soaring past 60 per cent. He retained a net positive rating for most of his eight years in office, and by the time of The West Wing’s debut had the backing of nearly two-thirds of the electorate. Clinton presided over the longest sustained economic boom in the nation’s history, expanded health insurance for children and achieved significant welfare reform. In 1998, the federal government had a budget surplus for the first time since the 1960s, and the national debt fell from 47.9 per cent of GDP in 1993 to 31.5 per cent in 2001. Unemployment was reduced to four per cent, and median household income increased by 10 per cent.

With Clinton required to leave office in January 2001 under the terms of the Twenty-Second Amendment, the Democratic Party’s nomination for president was a forgone conclusion for Vice-President Al Gore. Bill Bradley, former senator for New Jersey, initially challenged Gore from the liberal left, and picked up eye-catching endorsements from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, former NYC mayor Ed Koch and Robert Reich, secretary of labor in Clinton’s first term, but he could make no impact on Gore’s standing in the primaries. In March 2000, having lost the first 20 primaries and caucuses, Bradley withdrew and endorsed the vice-president. At the party’s convention in August, Gore chose Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut as his running mate, the first Jewish candidate to be on a major party’s ticket in American history. Democrats had no reason to expect they could not continue their occupancy of the White House, with Gore as a pseudo-Clinton third term.

The early front runner for the Republican nomination was Governor George W. Bush of Texas, son of President George H.W. Bush whom Clinton had defeated eight years before. He benefited from name recognition and immaculate political connections, and could point to a successful tenure running his state since 1995: education funding increased, school standards rose and Texas became America’s leading producer of wind power. Having established an exploratory committee in March 1999, he began campaigning for the nomination formally in June, stressing a platform of “compassionate conservatism” and appealing especially to normally Democratic-inclined Hispanic voters.

Bush also snatched an early lead in campaign finance terms: within 18 days of entering the race, he raised $36.2 million, while his closest competitor, former secretary of labor Elizabeth Dole, had only received $3.5 million. In theory, the Republican Party had a crowded field, with Bush competing against Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, Rep. John Kasich of Ohio, palaeoconservative Pat Buchanan, former governor of Tennessee Lamar Alexander, former vice-president Dan Quayle, Elizabeth Dole, publishing magnate Steve Forbes and conservative Christian activist Gary Bauer. They would be joined by Senator John McCain of Arizona and radio host and Reagan-era official Alan Keyes. Despite some high-profile stumbles, however, and a strong challenge from McCain, by April 2000 Bush had effectively won the nomination. Shortly before the Republican National Convention, he surprised the media by choosing the head of his vice-presidential search committee, former secretary of defense Dick Cheney, to be his running mate.

Approaching election day on 7 November, the opinion polls pointed to a close result. In the end, it would all come down to Florida: by the morning of 8 November, Bush had won 246 votes in the Electoral College with Gore ahead on 250—270 was the winning post—but Florida represented 25 votes and the candidates were separated by only a few thousand, then a few hundred, votes. A series of legal arguments over recounts lasted a month until the Supreme Court ruled by five to four on 12 December that the counting should stop, with Bush in the lead by an incredible 537 votes in a state of 16 million people. That gave the Republican candidate 271 Electoral College votes and the presidency, though in the end he was 500,000 votes behind Gore nationwide.

George W. Bush’s victory was a profoundly traumatic event for Democrats. In a sense that was understandable, as the Gore/Lieberman ticket had won more votes, but politicians compete in the system which prevails, and the Electoral College, combined with the Supreme Court, helped Bush to the White House. The controversial circumstances of the election left liberals not just dismayed but with a sense of unfairness, that they had been cheated, and gave some cause to regard Bush’s presidency as illegitimate. That kind of perception intensified after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as the conduct of the war became more divisive and polarising. After soaring to an almost-unbelievable 90 per cent in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks, Bush’s approval rating steadily declined and, although he was narrowly re-elected over Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts in 2004 (the last time a Republican candidate has won the popular vote), his support slipped into negative figures in 2005 and would never recover.

A liberal security blanket?

Against this backdrop, The West Wing was, for some liberal and progressive voters, a kind of alternative reality. Martin Sheen’s Jed Bartlet, not reality’s Al Gore, was a Clinton third term, with a formidably intellectual, charismatic and principled president leading a team of brilliant if flawed idealists. Bartlet’s vice-president, John Hoynes, played by Tim Matheson, supposedly drew inspiration from Lyndon Johnson, but was there a passing dig at President Bush in the portrayal of the alcoholic Texan politician, a brawling pragmatist to Bartlet’s sometimes-troublesome nobility?

The show had its admirers on the right, however. Mackubin T. Owens, then professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval College, wrote an article in 2001 entitled Real Liberals versus The West Wing, in which he argued that the underlying adherence to principle of the Bartlet administration was not simply a left-wing ideal.

The orientation of the show is certainly liberal… although his administration is reliably liberal, President Bartlet possesses virtues even a conservative could admire. He obeys the Constitution and the law. He is devoted to his wife and daughter. Being unfaithful to his wife would never cross his mind. He is no wimp when it comes to foreign policy—no quid pro quo for him.

Those words are resonant when one looks at the Republican Party today. It is, though, an important point. Owens allows that The West Wing had a tendency to take a liberal world view as a given:

Liberal opinion on issues such as environmentalism, economic policy, and racial quotas, about which reasonable people may disagree, are treated as settled fact on “The West Wing” while conservative positions are frequently caricatured… the main characters… have their work cut out for them because in this morality play, the forces of evil really are evil. Indeed, the Republicans, especially those associated in some way with the “religious right,” are positively reptilian.

That is true, and could easily annoy and even outrage conservatives. But it seems oddly self-defeating then to say that any virtues exhibited by the liberal characters are somehow either the exclusive property of the left, or are somehow vices.

If you set aside policy for a moment, The West Wing shows public servants who are dedicated to the common good, experienced, intelligent, diligent, generous and often eloquent. There is nothing inherent in that notion that a conservative should find noxious.

Excellence is not an act, it is a habit

The more important point is that this is drama. And it was exceptionally good and well-made drama. Sorkin is a master of dialogue, and can embrace the whole spectrum from machine-gun, wisecracking wit to heart-rending tragedy. Watch John Larroquette as White House counsel Lionel Tribbey rage and rant first at Leo then at the president over the appointment of young Republican Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter) to his office, or the surreal dive down a Gilbert and Sullivan rabbit hole as Sam (“recording secretary of the Princeton Gilbert and Sullivan Society”), Josh and C.J. show solidarity with the new lawyer. Sorkin understands that life is often absurd and revels in it.

But then watch President Bartlet deliver a sombre but inspirational speech on America’s place in the world and pay tribute to young students killed that day in a bombing at a university. Sheen’s delivery is immaculate but Sorkin’s script captures perfectly the rhythm and language of political oratory. Any presidential speechwriter would have done an outstanding day’s work to craft Bartlet’s remarks and it is a hugely powerful and moving scene. But Sorkin still has one more card to play, his understanding of the strange nature of politics and its practioners, as Sam watches the president while standing with Bartlet’s campaign manager Bruno Gianelli (Ron Silver).

“When did you write that last part?” Bruno asks Sam quietly.
“In the car.”
“Freak.”

Everything is packed into that one word, “freak”. Admiration, respect, acknowledgement, but also the sense that talent, for speechwriting or anything else, can be a natural instinct to its possessor but unfathomable to anyone else.

I described The West Wing earlier as an ensemble piece, but we really do have to remember how true that is. The showrunners created a universe of extraordinary depth and texture, with so many characters intertwined and so many back stories. Ten years ago, The Atlantic published A Definitive Ranking of Every Character on The West Wing, and the authors had to limit themselves to 114 roles. The interplay between characters was a rich source of drama, comedy and sometimes romance: President Bartlet and his secretary Mrs (Dolores) Landingham, Sam and Josh, Toby and Josh, C.J. and White House correspondent for The Washington Post Danny Concannon (Timothy Busfield).

(For me, because I am that I am, there will forever be a treasured place in my heart for Josh’s relationship with his senior assistant Donna Moss (Janel Moloney). It had everything from semi-spoken, semi-thwarted romance through deep bonds of affection to crackling, razor-sharp mockery. Whitford and Moloney were never less than brilliant. But this is everything:

Donna explains to Josh that she had broken up with her boyfriend because she had been in hospital following a car accident and he had stopped on his way to see her to have a beer with his friends. She had initially told Josh she slipped on the ice to explain away her injury and the effect on him is profound.

“I told you I slipped on the ice on the front walk?”
“Yeah, you know why? ’Cause you didn’t put down the kitty litter.”
“I was actually in a car accident.”
“You were in a car accident?”
“It was—”
“Seriously, you were in an accident?”
“It was no big deal.”

Josh clearly disagrees. But if your heart was not already broken, Donna admits the failing of her then-partner.

“You’re gonna make fun of him now, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“’Cause that’s why I didn’t tell you this in the first place.”
“I’m not gonna make fun of him.”
“Good.”
“But just what kind of a dumpkiss were you…”
“He was supposed to meet some of his friends. He stopped on the way to tell them that he couldn’t.”
“And had a beer?”
“Does this make you feel superior? Yes, you are better than my old boyfriend.”
“I’m just sayin’, if you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for a beer.”
“If you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for red lights.”

With that Donna walks out. I wouldn’t stop for red lights.)

Some have argued that The West Wing has not aged well. It is certainly an overwhelmingly white cast, and initially Dulé Hill’s character Charlie Young, a personal assistant to the president, had the feel of tokenism (although he was developed brilliantly and became central to the ensemble). There have also always been accusations that Aaron Sorkin underwrites female characters, “creating one-dimensional female characters in male-dominated settings”. Recently he acknowledged the force the criticism.

I hear the criticism. I hear it and I don’t want to argue with you. I don’t want to defend it. I’ll do better.

It is a fair observation, tempered but not contradicted by the characters of C.J., Donna, Mrs Landingham, Ainsley, Margaret Hooper (NiCole Robinson), Amy Gardner (Mary-Louise Parker), Debbie Fiderer (Lily Tomlin), Dr Nancy McNally (Anne Deavere Smith), Commander Kate Harper (Mary McCormack) and others. It’s also fair that Sorkin’s fascination with workplace relationships sometimes undermine the independence and agency of his female characters.

It is a flaw, but it is a flaw magnified by the lens of today on a show which first aired a quarter of a century ago. The pace of social and cultural change since The West Wing has been headlong and relentless. Could Sorkin have written his female characters better? Yes. Did he write characters better than almost anyone in television? Also yes.

If American television had rarely tackled politics before The West Wing, that would change: Commander in Chief (2005-06), The Good Wife (2009-16), Boss (2011-12), Scandal (2012-18), an adaptation of House of Cards (2013-18), Madam Secretary (2014-19), Designated Survivor (2016-18, 2019), The Diplomat (2023-)… It was as if floodgates had opened. Sorkin, Schlamme and Wells showed that politics was as rich a seam as any for long-running drama, if not richer. Simply, television today would not look like it does without The West Wing.

I appreciate the influence of The West Wing and respect its importance. But that’s not why I love it. I love The West Wing because I’m fascinated by politics and the show was a convincing portrayal of what it might be like to work, live and love at the summit of American government. I love it because it’s clever and funny, articulate on policy as well as ethical and moral issues, and persuasively complex and intricate in its depiction of the separation of powers. I love it because a formidable cast delivered outstanding performances to match the quality of the writing. I love it because Sorkin and his team showed they could do anything, from screwball comedy to unutterable tragedy and loss. And in the end I love it because it did all of these things, in a way that very few television shows could match.

At 25, The West Wing’s place in television history is assured. Inevitably it reflects its time and circumstances, and it would not be made today in the way it was in 1999. But then, The Rockford Files, which first aired 25 years before The West Wing, would not have been made in 1999. Times, tastes and norms change, for better and worse. The political milieu of 2024 is unrecognisable from those last, pre-9/11 days of economic prosperity in the Clinton administration. Someone coming to The West Wing fresh today would find it strange and unfamiliar, a period piece with less immediate resonance. But they would still find first-rate, intelligent, articulate, compelling drama. I have not doubt we’ll be doing this again in another 25 years. And that judgement will still stand.