Television Review: The West Wing S5E17: The Supremes

[Snowspinner]

Back in the day, The West Wing was a really cool show. Unlike <I>ER</I>, in this case the day was also in recent memory – only a year ago they were showing a perfectly solid episode that, of course, had been completely rewritten by Aaron Sorkin like every other episode of The West Wing in the first four seasons. (I lie only slightly – there are three episodes in the first four seasons that Sorkin wasn't a credited writer on.) After the fourth season, however, Aaron Sorkin moved on to better things, namely unemployment, and the show, quite frankly, started to suck majorly.

Which is why, when midway through this episode, a piece of dialogue actually made me laugh out loud, (It was the moment when Glenn Close was spelling out how she'd respond to questions from various Republicans during confirmation hearings) I immediately assumed that someone must have found something Sorkin had scribbled on a napkin a year or two ago. Maybe they were sorting through his trash can.

But then there was another. And another. And then Fiderer sprayed Josh with a bottle of water. What the fuck was going on? And another thing. Someone went back through the White House this episode and put the light bulbs, absent for the past 16 episodes, back into their sockets. I mean, it was still more shadowed than it used to be, but you could at least see the actor's faces. And, astonishingly, they were not contorted in a horrifying grimace at the thought of the crap they were being made to say.

Don't get me wrong. This episode doesn't hold a fucking candle to Sorkin at his best. The show still suffers from a catastrophe-of-the-week plotting that just grates. We've already, this season, had hurricanes, governmental shutdowns, and nuclear weapons. This week, we pick a Supreme Court justice. Actually, in the course of the episode, we manage to go to picking two Supreme Court justices. It's an overblown plot of the sort that dramas that are beginning to get desperate resort to.

But it works. Glenn Close plays the liberal justice, and she's wonderful. Hilarious. William Fitchner plays the conservative justice that they agree to appoint in order to get Close onto the court, in a plot that could never happen in the real world. He too is great. He gets a good scene with Charlie at one point that may be one of the best things ever done with that character. I mean, there are still problems. As I said, it's still no Sorkin. The obnoxious intern – Pierce – has still not been publicly executed. The lighting, while better, is still several times gloomier than it was under Sorkin and Schlamme. And Joshua Malina, who was actually not a bad character until someone made the idiotic decision to have him quit working for Bartlett and instead work for the Vice President, doesn't appear at all. But it's not a bad episode. It's really not. And, frankly, find me that many television shows that approach Sorkin at his worst, little yet his best.

Ultimately, that's the best thing I can say about this episode. Aaron Sorkin could have written it on a bad day. It's not high praise, but it's the best thing I've been able to say about The West Wing this season. And that's something.

The West Wing airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC.