The final episode of The West Wing ran tonight. Unfortunately, I felt like this last hour wasn't all that good, in the grand scheme of things.I came to the show late, during the fifth season really. I was watching episodes on DVD, and later in reruns on cable -- basically, I was getting at least one new episode every weekday for months until I had seen them all. So I didn't really go through the same disappointment the long-term fans did when the show dipped in quality near the middle of its run. Certainly I did see that drop in quality -- even before Aaron Sorkin actually left at the end of year four. I recognize that the first two years were the best for the show, and that these last two years were a somewhat surprising resurgence of quality. I just never had the experience of feeling the show had become that bad, as many of the fans felt around year five.
Maybe that all plays into me being a little underwhelmed by this final episode. This was a "disappointment" I was around for. Last week's CJ-centered installment was a much, much stronger hour to me. It had more of the hallmarks that attracted me to the show in the first place -- strong character interactions, snappy dialogue, people in political positions doing noble things (things we wish would happen in real life). This week... none of that, really. It felt like the parade had somehow already gone through, and we were watching the sweeping up of the stray bits afterwards.
Bartlet played a bit more of the "obsolescence" beat we've seen him cover in past episodes. We get purely mechanical accounts of what characters are moving on to from this point forward. Very little real meat. They couldn't even actually manage to include every cast member in the episode -- despite all the talk about Toby, he did not actually appear on screen. A bit of a slap in the face to Richard Schiff, if you ask me.
But I'll remember the show for what it was at its best, regardless of a somewhat lackluster finale. This was truly one of the greats.
2 comments:
I hadn't watched the show much in recent years. As someone who had been with the show for awhile, I found the fifth season almost unwatchable. I caught bits and pieces of the fifth and this season, and as such was sort of caught up on everything that had gone on.
Anyway, I was nearly as disappointed with the final episode as you were. Granted, it was more of an epilogue and less of a full episode, but it gave closure to most of the characters (the complete lack of appearance by Richard Schiff was a big whiff, though). I thought it a fine way to wrap the series up. What really got me was them showing the first episode before it and remembering just how great the series used to be. Oh well.
I was waiting for someone to mention the pilot. I find the pilot a bit hokey and overreaching. The show immediately improved in tone and style afterwards, but the pilot at best is cute.
As the last few episodes have shown old background characters, I can't help but wonder why Martin Sheen's family friend Moira Kelly was nowhere to be found. Sure, her character is barely memorable, but they brought almost everyone else back in some capacity, even for an unspoken bit during Leo's funeral.
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