Good Omens (and Bad Ones)

Of Kerry and the Sox (Keith Olbermann)

Last night's rout of the Yankees was a thing of beauty. At one point the announcer said, "I've never seen that look of desperation on Derek Jeter's face." As one who has loathed Jeter since the '90s, I took a peculiar joy in watching his winning smile transformed into a pained grimace.

It's been a good year for Massachusetts. The Patriots won the Super Bowl and haven't lost a game in a year. The Red Sox pulled off the greatest comeback in sports history, giving America four straight nights of thrilling, riveting baseball action. And John Kerry is about to become the President of the United States, right? Pundits haven't been able to resist linking Kerry with the Sox; both looked to be out of it before pulling off a series of three stunning victories. Last night the Sox won their game 7; it's hard not to believe that, less than two weeks hence, after winning three debates, Kerry will pull off his own defeat of the Evil Empire.

Meanwhile, in the world of fake politics, the premiere of The West Wing started out with an obvious reference to Bush's rush to war--Bartlet shouting that he wouldn't use an attack on Americans as an excuse to attack countries we happen not to like--and barreled downhill from there. Clumsiness and cheapness abounded. Josh and Donna's operating room encounters, while cute, were shunted away from the rest of the plot, and seemed to have been stripped down; I suspect that there are ten more minutes of footage on the cutting room floor that would have explained the sudden disappearance of Donna's paramour from Gaza and actually put Josh in the same room with Donna's mother, where she might question his willingness to fly halfway around the world to be at her side. Instead, Mr. Gaza asked what we've all been dying to ask about Josh's feelings for Donna before Josh was chosen to enter the operating room and the paramour floated into the ether.

As for the parts of the show I don't obsess over, what is the idea with Leo's character? This bout of jealousy, blown up by the fact that he was left behind for the big outing at Camp David, feels like a high school feud writ large. Are we supposed to feel bad for Leo? He's been more and more of a jerk in the last two seasons; why would we be sad to see Bartlet learning to do without him?

I'll say this for the show: It returns Bartlet to his place as paragon of virtue, taking unpopular positions when he knows he's right, and it's inspiring to see him questing after peace. Whether it will blow up in his face remains to be seen; by dumping eight straight new episodes, NBC is letting us find out sooner rather than later, a generous move that I'm betting will be followed by a two-month midseason hiatus after the obligatory Christmas episode.

The preview for the upcoming episodes does beg a few questions, though: How many times can Toby resign--and if he actually leaves the White House, will he leave the show, or work for one of the candidates? Can jealousy cause a heart attack? (What other explanation is there for the scene where Leo clutches his chest in what appears to be the woods around Camp David?) What will become of the White House plot lines within what looks like an all-out campaign season as Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits dive into the already VP-filled waters? How is Will Bailey going to handle this? Will he be pitted against Toby in the primary campaign?

Most of all, though, it begs: How can these scenes lead to a resurrected show? I'm afraid the answer to that one remains unclear.