'West Wing' changes in the script Click here for the article link BURBANK, Calif. - Wait and see. That's what Aaron Sorkin, creator of NBC's "The West Wing," is saying to critics of the show's May cliffhanger, a "Dynasty"-in-Moldavia affair that left many fans of the White House drama scratching their heads. Sorkin, famous for such 11th-hour impulses as deciding that fictional President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) should have multiple sclerosis (so that he could spend a day in bed watching TV), insists that this time is different. "That was the one moment in the entire season that I planned ahead, that wasn't written on the fly," Sorkin said Friday of the episode that ended with the president and his entourage ducking for cover as a gunman opened fire. Chatting over lunch on the Warner Bros. lot where the show is filmed, Sorkin acknowledged that some of the criticism had bothered him, but said he hoped that the first two episodes of next season - on which filming begins tomorrow - would make his motives a bit clearer. "You write something, you hope everybody likes it," he said. "Sometimes that doesn't happen . . . but one of the great things about television is you get to bat every week," he said. Writing action, he admitted, isn't his strong point, and "from time to time, when I have to deal with plot, it seems to slip out of my control." But the actual look of the finale he'd written surprised him when he saw it. "It was, frankly, as exciting a piece of film as I've ever been involved with," Sorkin later told reporters. Other than saying that the season premiere would open two minutes after the finale ended, he would give no details. Keeping continuity from season to season may be tricky. For instance, Alison Janney, who plays the press secretary, C.J., is a bit blonder than she was when the May finale was shot, Sorkin said, adding, "she may even be taller." Marlee Matlin, who had a recurring role last season and appeared in the finale, can't be in the first few episodes, Sorkin said, because "she's 14, 15 months pregnant right now." "If we see her, it won't be until a few episodes into the season," he said. One recurring character from last season, Josh's assistant, Donna (Janel Moloney), recurred so often - turning up in every episode - that she's been added as a series regular, Sorkin said, hedging on whether the obvious chemistry between the pair would be exploited further. Fellow executive producer Thomas Schlamme keeps reminding him that a Josh-and-Donna relationship should be saved - for the "fifth season," Sorkin joked. Sorkin, who last season shared with David E. Kelley ("Ally McBeal," "The Practice") the distinction of being the Two Most Overextended Men in Hollywood, said that ABC's cancellation of "Sports Night," however painful, had its up side. "It was like constantly feeling I was cheating on my girlfriend," he said of the schedule that often had him writing "Sports Night" episodes on the weekends. Right now, he has nothing in development beyond "West Wing," he said. "Writers should really be writing one thing. Right now. . .I'm six days ahead." Other "West Wing" crumbs dropped by Sorkin: Former Bush White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater and former Reagan-Bush speechwriter Peggy Noonan have signed on as consultants, a move Sorkin denies has anything to do with the possibility that the real-life White House might be occupied by a Republican come January. The two will receive, he said, the same instructions he gives to other staffers when he presents an issue: "Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you" thinks. Because the Bartlet White House operates in a not-quite-parallel universe, the "West Wing" president isn't facing election this November - but he is facing a new Congress, which will undoubtedly affect the show, Sorkin said. Whoever's elected, Schlamme, for one, will miss the Clintons: "This administration has been phenomenally friendly to us. . .we would like this administration to last as long as it could." As expected, Moira Kelly, who received top billing - just behind Rob Lowe - in last season's credits, only to virtually disappear from the show itself, will do just that this season. "She is a fantastic actress and a wonderful woman," said Sorkin, calling the situation Kelly found herself in "much more my fault than hers." While President Bartlet's staff will continue to address issues facing the real White House as well as issues of interest to Sorkin and his staff, there are limits, Sorkin said. "We can't declare war on Japan [and] we cannot eliminate organized crime," as much as he might want Bartlet's attorney general to target "the Soprano family in New Jersey."