'West Wing' Writers' Novel Way of Picking the President
If you haven't seen last night's episode of The West Wing and plan to, stop reading now.
As this article from the New York Times reveals, the victory of Democrat Matt Santos last night was not the original plan for the show. All the work to make Arnold Vinick a sympathetic Republican was intended to lead to his victory, but the writers decided after John Spencer died that having Santos lose both his running mate and the election would be too sad.
I have to wonder if we've seen the last of Vinick. I've been hoping that Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) would be named Vice President, or that they'd go out on a limb and get Santos some foreign policy expertise by picking a woman, Nancy McNally. While both of those are possible, after a 272-266 victory of the sort that had Democrats hoping in 2000 that Bush would govern from the center, perhaps Santos will give us a fictional unity government by elevating Vinick to his VP?
In any case, I expect next week's episode, Leo's funeral, to be quite the tearjerker. It seems fitting that a show I'll miss so much is holding a funeral near its conclusion.
Speaking of which, does anyone else watch Will & Grace anymore? It's ending in less than a month and it, too, has taken a funereal turn, with Will's father dying in the wake of an argument between the two of them, leaving only three episodes to resolve Will's issues, handle Grace's pregnancy, and give us some idea of the futures of the main quartet.
Am I the only one who finds watching the end of a television series so intellectually tiring?
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1 comment:
So I watched that episode tonight. It was really depressing, to the point I did not care if Santos won. I feel I have watched Leo for several years and more connected to him.
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