Post by First Lady on Feb 13, 2004 0:14:45 GMT
'Wing' is different, and yet the same
By Roger Catlin
The Hartford Courant
February 12, 2004
After its milestone 100th episode last month, "The West Wing" remains among network TV's most literate dramas, but with a very different tone.
The stories seem more conventional, the philosophical and ethical discussions muted. Most noticeably, the witty dialogue's breakneck pace has been reined in.
Sometimes there's even silence. Scenes occasionally end with the usually chatty characters looking at one another as if thinking, "If Aaron Sorkin were still here, we'd have another witty line or two."
But "West Wing" creator Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme, principal director of the award-winning series, both left last spring, at the end of its fourth Emmy-winning season.
"Tommy and I wanted to take the show to its 100th episode," Sorkin writes in "The West Wing Seasons 3 & 4, The Shooting Scripts" (Newmarket, $29.95). "But for various reasons of no interest, it was not to be."
Taking over was John Wells, a writer and show-runner on "The West Wing," who also runs both "ER" and "Third Watch." The strong ensemble cast, which underwent its own jolt last year when Rob Lowe left and Joshua Malina joined, remained strong through the change, which the actors say was less pronounced than it seems.
"A lot of us talk sometimes about the new things that we have to deal with," says Janel Moloney (Donna Moss). "We think they're new, and then we'll say, 'No, no. Actually, we've done something like this three years ago.'
"I feel like the integrity and the voice is strikingly close to where we had been, much quicker than I ever expected."
Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman, deputy chief of staff) calls it "a hugely emotional and difficult thing to see Aar-on and Tommy go away. . . .
"All of us really wondered: Does the idea hold? And I think I speak for the cast that there was a tremendous sense of relief very early on this year that the idea does hold, the characters hold, and the quality of the scripts was going to be high, and that these were going to continue to be interesting stories to act out."
Just as he might in character as White House communications director Toby Ziegler, Richard Schiff interrupts, "I actually think it's kind of even better than that. I think Aaron Sorkin is a wonderful writer with a certain style of romantic lyricism. He created a very romantic world with 'The West Wing.'
"And time is running out on that kind of romantic honeymoon," Schiff says, "in the fictional White House in very much the same way that the real White House runs out on their honeymoon, usually a whole lot sooner. And Aaron presented on a silver platter . . . the shattering of that romanticism."
It shattered at the end of last season, when the president's daughter Zoe was kidnapped, Schiff says. "The reality of the White House as fictionally we know it was in a hundred million little pieces," he says. "And you have to move on from there and evolve from there."
Schiff says that's why White House chief of staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) now seems so gruff and unyielding, and why Toby and Josh seem to be always fighting.
"The big surprise is that Aaron stayed as long as he did," says Spencer, who won an Emmy last year for his role. Spencer recalls when a Washington insider told him, " 'In the real West Wing, we lose people every four or five months.' And it kind of put things in perspective for me."
He credits Wells for making "the transition as seamless as it was."
Wells says he lunches with Sorkin once a week and shares all of the scripts with him and Schlamme. "They both watch all the cuts, and we hear from them," Wells says. "It's just harder for Aaron just because it was such an emotional sort of individual activity."
By Roger Catlin
The Hartford Courant
February 12, 2004
After its milestone 100th episode last month, "The West Wing" remains among network TV's most literate dramas, but with a very different tone.
The stories seem more conventional, the philosophical and ethical discussions muted. Most noticeably, the witty dialogue's breakneck pace has been reined in.
Sometimes there's even silence. Scenes occasionally end with the usually chatty characters looking at one another as if thinking, "If Aaron Sorkin were still here, we'd have another witty line or two."
But "West Wing" creator Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme, principal director of the award-winning series, both left last spring, at the end of its fourth Emmy-winning season.
"Tommy and I wanted to take the show to its 100th episode," Sorkin writes in "The West Wing Seasons 3 & 4, The Shooting Scripts" (Newmarket, $29.95). "But for various reasons of no interest, it was not to be."
Taking over was John Wells, a writer and show-runner on "The West Wing," who also runs both "ER" and "Third Watch." The strong ensemble cast, which underwent its own jolt last year when Rob Lowe left and Joshua Malina joined, remained strong through the change, which the actors say was less pronounced than it seems.
"A lot of us talk sometimes about the new things that we have to deal with," says Janel Moloney (Donna Moss). "We think they're new, and then we'll say, 'No, no. Actually, we've done something like this three years ago.'
"I feel like the integrity and the voice is strikingly close to where we had been, much quicker than I ever expected."
Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman, deputy chief of staff) calls it "a hugely emotional and difficult thing to see Aar-on and Tommy go away. . . .
"All of us really wondered: Does the idea hold? And I think I speak for the cast that there was a tremendous sense of relief very early on this year that the idea does hold, the characters hold, and the quality of the scripts was going to be high, and that these were going to continue to be interesting stories to act out."
Just as he might in character as White House communications director Toby Ziegler, Richard Schiff interrupts, "I actually think it's kind of even better than that. I think Aaron Sorkin is a wonderful writer with a certain style of romantic lyricism. He created a very romantic world with 'The West Wing.'
"And time is running out on that kind of romantic honeymoon," Schiff says, "in the fictional White House in very much the same way that the real White House runs out on their honeymoon, usually a whole lot sooner. And Aaron presented on a silver platter . . . the shattering of that romanticism."
It shattered at the end of last season, when the president's daughter Zoe was kidnapped, Schiff says. "The reality of the White House as fictionally we know it was in a hundred million little pieces," he says. "And you have to move on from there and evolve from there."
Schiff says that's why White House chief of staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) now seems so gruff and unyielding, and why Toby and Josh seem to be always fighting.
"The big surprise is that Aaron stayed as long as he did," says Spencer, who won an Emmy last year for his role. Spencer recalls when a Washington insider told him, " 'In the real West Wing, we lose people every four or five months.' And it kind of put things in perspective for me."
He credits Wells for making "the transition as seamless as it was."
Wells says he lunches with Sorkin once a week and shares all of the scripts with him and Schlamme. "They both watch all the cuts, and we hear from them," Wells says. "It's just harder for Aaron just because it was such an emotional sort of individual activity."
