The West Wing

About the series

Contains story spoilers.

The West Wing places its ensemble in the offices surrounding President Josiah Bartlet, where an awkward press problem can give way to a question of war or law. Aaron Sorkin created the series, which began in 1999. Martin Sheen’s Bartlet shares the centre with Chief of Staff Leo McGarry, press secretary C.J. Cregg, deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman and communications officials Sam Seaborn and Toby Ziegler. Their different responsibilities make government a shared undertaking: a decision must survive policy arguments, legislative bargaining and public explanation. Professional loyalty holds this group together, but family obligations, old mistakes and disagreements follow each person into the office.

The premiere introduces that pressure through a bicycle accident and a televised argument. Bartlet crashes into a tree, while Josh’s insult to a religious activist threatens his job. Sam has unwittingly spent the night with a call girl and then confides in a woman who turns out to be Leo’s daughter. The president finally enters the meeting intended to repair Josh’s mistake and reveals his own anger: extremists have sent his granddaughter a doll with a knife in its throat after she expressed a pro-choice view. He demands that the religious representatives condemn the threat before returning to the White House. Josh keeps his job, but the resolution comes through the president challenging the people his staff expected to appease.

A Proportional Response gives Bartlet a choice whose scale cannot be managed through an apology. A plane carrying a man he had recently befriended is destroyed by Syria, and military advisers propose limited strikes. Bartlet initially rejects the restraint and demands something more devastating. Confronted with a plan that would kill thousands of civilians at an airport, he returns to the original response. Alongside that decision, Josh interviews Charlie Young, who came looking for messenger work and is instead offered a position as the president’s personal aide. Charlie accepts before Bartlet addresses the country. The office brings a new young employee into its daily life while its occupant learns what his anger could mean for people far outside it.

In Five Votes Down, the president celebrates a gun-control measure just as his staff discover that its passage is uncertain. Josh recovers votes through threats and a promised photograph with Bartlet, but the remaining holdout requires Vice President Hoynes’s influence. Leo reluctantly asks for help; Hoynes obtains the vote and manoeuvres to receive the public credit. The bill passes, leaving the administration with a political victory that feels humiliating. Leo’s private evening is worse. He has forgotten his wedding anniversary, and the dinner he plans to repair the damage comes too late: his wife is leaving. Hoynes recognizes his distress and invites him to a discreet Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The person Leo resisted consulting becomes both a rival and a source of support.

In Excelsis Deo starts with a police call about a dead homeless man wearing a coat Toby donated. A business card left in its pocket identifies Toby, drawing him into the discovery that the man was a decorated Korean War veteran. Toby finds his brother, who is also homeless, and uses White House influence to arrange a military funeral at Arlington. Bartlet worries about the precedent, while Toby hopes that other neglected veterans might receive similar help. Mrs. Landingham accompanies him after telling Charlie about the twin sons she lost in Vietnam. Their small gathering gives the anonymous death a family and a ceremony, bringing the office’s arguments about public service into direct contact with someone it had failed to reach.

Let Bartlet Be Bartlet exposes a different failure: an administration so careful about surviving that it has stopped achieving much. A critical memorandum reaches reporters, and its author turns out to be Mandy, who wrote it while working for a political opponent. Meetings on military service and election oversight lead nowhere. The staff see their falling approval numbers beside the compromises that were supposed to protect them. Leo confronts Bartlet about his caution and asks him to give the team room to pursue the convictions that brought them there. They commit to a bolder agenda. The change is a decision about how to govern, with no guarantee that Congress or public opinion will reward it.

Noël follows Josh’s behaviour after he was wounded in the Rosslyn shooting. He shouts at Bartlet, panics during a Christmas concert and injures his hand by striking a window, then insists it was an ordinary accident. Therapist Stanley Keyworth works through his account, connecting music at the White House with the emergency sirens Josh associates with the attack. Josh fears that acknowledging his trauma will cost him his job; Leo assures him that he will remain supported. Elsewhere, C.J. investigates a visitor’s distress over a painting and discovers that it was taken from her family under the Vichy regime. Returning it makes the holiday story another encounter with damage that survives long after the immediate event.

Two Cathedrals brings the second season to a crisis of grief and public trust. Bartlet must disclose that he concealed his multiple sclerosis while preparing for Mrs. Landingham’s funeral after her death in a car accident. Memories show her encouraging him as a schoolboy to challenge injustice, even when confronting his father was frightening. Alone after the funeral, Bartlet rails at God and declares that he will not seek another term. Back in his office, an imagined encounter with Mrs. Landingham turns him toward the question of whether difficulty alone should make him quit. At the press conference, he bypasses the safe first question his staff arranged and faces the re-election question directly. His familiar smile and hands in his pockets signal that he intends to run.