Death or Rebirth: TWW Denouement

Shout out to the lovely Amanda P. We miss her like she left yesterday. [Ha. OK, I just read that? And it totally sounds like I meant that we don't miss her that much, cause it's like she was just here yesterday. No, no. I meant, you know. We miss her. Shut up.] Peeps, seriously, get your ass out here for a visit.

So, Amanda suggested in comments below that I peruse the Slate article that ran recently about my beloved West Wing – which I had just read when I saw her note; great minds and all that. Now, for those of you who don’t pay attention to TV news (I know there’s a couple of you out there), NBC officially announced that this is the last season for TWW, and the last episode will run May 14th. This is not surprising, my friends. The show’s been on its last legs for a while now -- moving it to Sunday nights was really the nail in the coffin -- and although this season is, in my opinion, the best of the Wells’ years, it’s not enough to justify another year. They moved up the election in the world of the show by a year, thereby insuring that the Barlet team would be gone after this season. At that point, I knew I was done after this season. No more Barlet, no more Toby, no more Charlie, no more Abby, nor more CJ, and *sigh* no more Leo.

Well, we know now that there can be no more Leo anyway, since we lost John Spencer in December. They’ll be dealing with the death of Leo in the same episodes that the election plays out, which should make for some very compelling television.

But that also brings us to why the suggestion brought forth in the Slate article is a nonstarter -- at least in respect to this show. They bring up the idea that eventually we’ll see television shows produced solely for subscribers, and they play out the math of having the 8 million still watching TWW cough up 2 bucks per episode, and that finances the production costs. It’s an interesting approach, and I can see that in order for that to happen, they’ll have to use a show with a proven audience (with an older, more disposable-income-spending core) as the pilot. But this isn’t the show for that. We’re done after May 14th, especially now that we have such a strong bookend in the death of Leo. The writers are ending the series with the upcoming episodes, wrapping up characters, showing where our favorites end up. There’s just no where to go from there.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, what about whoever wins? They’ll have a White House to explore.” As much as I enjoy Alan Alda and, at times, Jimmy Smits, the characters created by Aaron Sorkin are the core of the show, and with them gone, there is no West Wing with which to continue.