Written by John Wells
Directed by Alex Graves
“I know what you want to hear…”
How does one go about making a West Wing episode slightly different from the norm?
Well, you take a topic that hasn’t previously been explored: the in-the-trenches muck of running for President from the ground up. You decide you’re going to showcase the mundane, inane, exhausting heave-ho of a start up campaign.
You then assign the script to show runner John Wells, who has the inspired idea of doing Rashomon, West Wing style. You conceive a one act play in three and a bit acts, and you give one apiece to each of your staring players.
Then you tell director Alex Graves to shoot it in a style unlike anything done before on the series: filmed in stark, icy blues and greys, never actually warming up the colour scheme. Filming long, aching silences: on the road, inside hotel rooms and stadiums, and between people aching to tell each other how they feel. That scene where Donna opens Josh’s hotel room door — echoing the same action way back in season one’s 20 Hours in L.A. — sums up so much of the situation between them, both good and bad. It was heartbreaking.
Finally, you ingeniously put it all together and tell of story of how different people campaign, from three different sides, and you examine the nature of courage, honesty, slick style and brinkmanship in politics. You showcase your characters in busy mode, then give them dark moments of the soul…except when they seem to have no need for such moments (as in Bingo Bob Russell, who seems to live for the superficiality of the game).
Then you close it all off with a beautiful, quiet final act, and the only substantial discussion between two characters about the real issues of the campaign. In a quiet corner of a closed hotel restaurant, you reveal the empty core of campaigning, and the difference between those who live for politics, and those who live to serve the people.
And a special mention to the great god of television, Alan Alada. I want him to be President! I don’t care if he’s Republican — he’s the first Republican since Abraham Lincoln I can respect and adore! He also proves (as if it were needed), that he is deserving of being the only man to ever win three Emmy awards for acting, writing AND directing (which he accomplished during his 11-year stint on MASH). He owned the screen tonight — he filled it with his quiet, titanic presence in a way few people (one of them being Martin Sheen) can.
It was a good night of television.
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