by Deborah Lipp
Professor Spouse and I watch a lot of TV. This is absolutely ridiculous, because our first “OhMyGodWhoIsThisWoman” conversation was about movies. But the fact is, the Professor and I rarely watch movies in the evenings, largely because she is a Professor. She comes home from school either fried, or needing to grade, or both. These conditions aren’t conducive to paying attention to a movie, so we turn on the TV.
Lately, we default to the news, and, while Rachel Maddow is a television hero, sometimes the vileness of the current Presidential race is too much for our brains to process. We often watch great TV, which can be challenging and dark. What do we do when we just can’t face the challenge? The West Wing.
If you aren’t familiar with it, The West Wing was a political drama that ran on NBC from 1999 to 2006, following the presidency of Democrat Jedidiah “Jed” Bartlett (Martin Sheen) and his staff through two terms...
Created by Aaron Sorkin, it won a staggering 24 Emmy awards, including an historic 4 wins for Outstanding Drama Series, as well as acting awards for Allison Janney, Alan Alda, Stockard Channing, and John Spencer (among others) and a Golden Globe for Martin Sheen.
There’s something about watching network television that is strangely soothing. The West Wing is great television, make no mistake. It’s full of trademark Sorkin rapid-fire dialogue and snark, it’s clever, and it’s innovative. But you’ll never mistake it for something made for HBO or AMC. It follows traditional television beats and rhythms, and so it can be blazingly smart, and genuinely moving, without being challenging.
At the same time, it’s politically astute and intelligently liberal. Just as Facebook is always passing around one particular scene from Sorkin’s later show, The Newsroom, it’s hard to discuss gun control without someone quoting West Wing...
...and if you want to slam a Bible-thumper, West Wing is your go to as well.
From the second season forward, the show always incorporated smart, thoughtful members of the opposition: Republicans of integrity, played by such people as Alan Alda, John Goodman, and Matthew Perry. In fact, that’s the hallmark of the show—almost everyone is fundamentally sincere. Sure, they care about getting elected and about the cutthroat world of Washington, but they also care about issues. They believe in what they do.
If politics is getting you down, if the toxic noise of Donald Trump, and the spin machines, and the journalism-as-horse-race-reporting is making your heart ache, I recommend you Netflix an episode of West Wing and watch people of conscience debate issues of importance as if it’s the issues that matter.