Stuff that I have noticed #66: Political Palliative of “The West Wing”

Way back in 2002 – at a time that felt like the neo dark ages – because we had an unelected dumb ass Resident in the White House wreaking havoc on the planet – Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing was the Balm of Gilead, a palliative to the dis-ease ravaging our body politic. Oh how we loved that show! We still do. Elizabeth and I are on our fifth run via HBO. We’re almost like the kids who go to every screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and recite the dialogue and sing the lyrics with the actors.

From the embarrassment of the rolling disaster of what was then the worst administration in modern times – since eclipsed by the “Rump” gang – being reported on CNN or MSNBC, switching once a week to NBC for “President Bartlett” and his brilliant band of merry men and women working their tails off to make a better, smarter, safer and more enlightened nation, was emotionally healing and politically therapeutic for woebegone Democrats and most Independents. Intelligence, knowledge, focus on the work at hand as well as deep commitment to improving the lives of all inhabitants of the planet were celebrated and revered.

Not only was The West Wing one of the greatest series (of any kind) ever on TV it fulfilled a necessary requirement among the populace. It was a fictional antidote to an all too real political train-wreck. Sorkin and his team, even after he left the show, were able seamlessly to mix the most serious crises with high comedy. The show was a desperately needed cathartic.

I never thought I’d say or write a line like the following: From 2017 through 2020 we longed for the statesmanship of George Dubya Bush. Yet then we didn’t have a West Wing. We did have Scandal and Veep, a pair of entertaining, well made shows but both sadly lacking in inspirational content. Barbara Hall’s Madam Secretary with Téa Leoni was another show about a smart, dedicated public servant with integrity. It is excellent but not really about the POTUS.

What we did have for two seasons was David Guggenheim’s Designated Survivor. Alas that show was cancelled. Maybe a cable channel will revive it as CMT did with Nashville.

While Designated Survivor was not in the same league as West Wing it did have a POTUS (played whisperingly by Jack Bauer … I mean Kiefer Sutherland) with character, empathy and guts. Messieurs Guggenheim and Sutherland created a worthy successor to Sorkin/Sheen’s oval office occupant. While it’s no competitor to knock West Wing off the top of my all-time best list Designated Survivor was an honorable entrant to the parade of white house series.

It took me a while to get into the show. The first season was choppy and a tad confusing but with the first few episodes of season two, for me, it began to gel. The fifth episode entitled “Suckers” in this (second) season is when I truly fell in love with “President Kirkman”. If you missed it find it on line or on demand and watch. (All three seasons are available on Netflix.) President Kirkman displays the moral character and political fortitude (aka guts) that our country sorely needed during the dark years of he-who-will-not-be-named.

So we heartsick, politically sane folks had for two seasons another forty-four minute haven from the Orange Dumpster Fire and the desperately dire straits into which he plunged us.

While neither The West Wing nor Designated Survivor are likely to bestow any substantive political change in the world, they gave us a brief and welcome weekly surcease from the daily pain of our all too real political nightmares.

With Scranton Joe’s ascendancy to the oval sanity has returned and after three years the ship of state is – regardless of the bomb-throwers of he-who-will-not-be-named and his minions – beginning to float upright and make headway.

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