"Sorkin's Show Surpasses Expectations"

by Douglas Durden of Richmond Times - Dispatch

Before the premiere of NBC's "The West Wing" in September, TV critics were worried that viewers might now be too cynical about politics to care about a president and his staff.  (TV critics, I'm sure you understand, love nothing better than to decided what viewers will think before viewers have a chance to think it.)

Turns out we didn't need to worry.

"The West Wing," which airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday on Channel 12, is one of fall's better-received shows.  And if there's on thing the series isn't, it's cynical.

To a man and a woman working in the White House's West Wing, the president andhis staff are devoted to doing their best.  And it's a huge staff, by TV standards - eight to 10 regulars, with routine appearances by several secondary characters -- all talking non-stop about their jobs, their personal lives (or lack of), and their passion for politics.  It's as if the glib, over-articulate characters from ABC's "Sports Night" went to work for "The American President," a popular 1995 feature film starring Michael Douglas as the chief executive.

Which is exactly the case, since both the above come from writer Aaron Sorkin.  With "The West Wing," he's teamed with producer John Wells of NBC's "ER" and expert in juggling multiple cast members with multiple story lines.

"Generally, it's a battle between doing well vs. doing good.  The high road doesn't always win," said Sorbin, talking to the press not far from the elaborate set of his first series for NBC.

Like the setting for Sorkin's "Sports Night," this is a large stage of well-appointed rooms flowing into the next for the busy cameras that follow characters from one end of the West Wing to the other.

Said to be roughly the same size as the real West Wing, this is a fully active set where every inch below the nonexistent ceiling is filmable.

So detailed is the set that even the photographs hanging on the walls, which can't even be seen on your average TV set, have Martine Sheen's face superimposed over the real president.

Also present at the recent press event at Warner Bros. studios were cast members, most of them dressed for work in conservative suits and ties: Rob Lowe, Moira Kelly, Bradley Whitford, John Spencer, Richard Schiff, Allison Janney, Dule Hill, and [Martin] Sheen.

That's at least one more actor/character than Sorkin thought he would be writing for since, initially, the president wasn't going to be included.

"Originally, I wasn't going to have the president at all.  I wanted it to be about the senior staffers," Sorkin said.

"I then felt that it would get hokey; we would constantly be missing the president.  It would be like the next-door neighbor in 'Home Improvement.' Then, it was just going to be every third episode.

But after Sorkin and Wells watched Sheen's dailies, they knew they were on to something with the character of President Josiah Barlet, New Hampshire Democrat who likes to talk about ideas and ideals.

Sheen has now become the show's heart.  What his character thinks and wants become the catalyst for the rest of the characters.  He gets the series' show-stopping speeches, he's likable, and now we know he has a problem: multiple sclerosis, a fact introduced in a recent episode.

"It wasn't there because I wanted to explore MS>  It's there because it happened in that episode," said Sorkin, a playwright before he became a TV producer.  "Now it's part of the show's bio."

So exactly why did Sorkin give the president a problematical, but not life-threatening, illness? It seems he wanted the president to discover soap operas, and he wanted to show that the president's wife, play by Stockhard Channing, is a doctor.  So the president had to be sick in bed.  

Here's the secret to Sorkin's plots.  Not even he knows what's going to happen.

"When I was writing the plot, I didn't know what was going to happen in episode two, much less episode 12."

Sorkin, who writes the scripts for "The West Wing" during the week, and "Sports Night" on the weekends, obviously works on deadline.  He says his goal for his large cast is to "get the ball into everyone's hands."

The goal has worked surprisingly well for most cast members.  Even with so many characters to focus on, certain actors have broken out of the pack, including Whitford (a ringer for Kevin Dobson of "Knots Landing" fame) as Josh Lyman, deputy chief of Staff; Janney as Press Secretary C.J. Gregg; Schiff as Toby Ziegler, devoted communications director; and Spencer as Leo McGarry, the president's chief of staff.

"We're blessed with beautiful words and a lot of them," said Spencer, first introduced to TV audiences in 1990 as "L.A. Law's" Tommy Mullaney.

"We all look forward to the episodes where we have a lot to do.  Then we look forward to an episode when we don't," added Spencer explaining that, on "L.A. Law," it was considered a heavy plot line if he worked two or three days a week.  "Here, because we're all in the West Wing, we're always there."

(Lowe, considered the series' major name before it premiered, is reportedly less than thrilled with his amount of air time.  When asked, he responded: "Some weeks are big weeks, some weeks aren't.  I enjoy being on the show."  Then he made sure he left in a hurry following the formal press conference.)

Spencer has been particularly busy in the last several episodes because it was discovered that his character had been treated for alcohol and drug problems, a fact that threatened to cost him his job.

But Sorkin says not to worry that his series will turn into a disease of the week arena.

"Something pretty sever would have to happen to make me stop writing chatty and glib," said Sorkin, every bit as chatty and glib as his characters.