If you ask me what my favorite TV show of all time is, I will probably answer The West Wing. As someone who studied political science, I’ve always had an interest in government in politics, and Aaron Sorkin’s fairytale, inspired by his movie The American President, about a government of brilliant people trying to do good is just my kind of show. Having said that, I have a confession to make: I’ve never actually seen the whole series.
When I say The West Wing is my favorite TV show, I’m referring exclusively to the first four seasons of the show, the one in which Aaron Sorkin was the writer and showrunner. At the end of the fourth season, Rob Lowe left the show, but more importantly, Aaron Sorkin stopped writing it. I held on for as long as I could, but ultimately I too left The West Wing, largely because of one episode that infuriated me at the time, and it turns out it still does.
I Stopped Watching The West Wing 20 Years Ago And Never Went Back
Recently, I decided to do a full rewatch of The West Wing. Or in my case, a full rewatch of most of The West Wing, and a first-time watch for the portion of the show I never actually saw.
I watched the first four glorious seasons and reveled in The West Wing cast's incredible chemistry. I loved episodes like “Let Bartlet Be Barlet” and “Game On.” I still watch two of my favorite episodes, “Shibboleth” and “The Indians in the Lobby,” every Thanksgiving, but watching them in context again was quite special.
And then Season 5 began. If you had asked me when I stopped watching the show, I would have said it was at some point during the first non-Sorkin season. It's a slog. The music of Sorkin’s dialogue is clearly out of tune. The romance of the show had been replaced with bog standard serialized drama.
It turns out I watched more of The West Wing the first time around than even I thought. It was when Season 6 began, and started out exactly like Season 5 that I gave up, but it was the second episode of the season that broke it all for me.
The Birnam Wood Is The Worst West Wing Episode
The end of Season 5 of The West Wing and the beginning of Season 6 all deal with the president and his administration attempting the herculean task of achieving peace in the Middle East. It’s a storyline that, considering the literal war happening as I’m watching the episodes, has certainly not aged all that well.
The president hosts a summit at Camp David to try and get the two sides to come to some sort of agreement. He is focused on making it happen, but the rest of his staff is far from sure there will be a success, and Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) is trying to talk the president (Martin Sheen) off the ledge. Season 6, Episode 2, titled “The Birnam Wood” brings the fight to a head.
These two have certainly disagreed before. There have been arguments between the men who have been friends for decades, but there’s an anger between them here that is uncomfortable as a fan who cares about both characters.
Leo offers to resign if the president is no longer interested in his council, and the president, angry at the offer, accepts it. To make matters worse, the episode ends with Leo having a heart attack alone in the woods, with nobody seemingly aware it has happened.
20 years later, I know that Leo doesn’t die, but at the time I certainly wasn't so sure. Even if he did, it was clear the relationship here would never be the same again. Character dynamics changing is part of any story, but a story in which these two are not friends was simply not a story I was interested in finishing.
The West Wing Does Get Better
I had always been told the show got better (though never as good as the early years) following the rough Season 5. Still, I had real trouble pressing play on the next episode of The West Wing.
It does get better almost immediately, and while the ramifications of the terrible Season 5 and early Season 6 are still here, and character relationships are a mess, it settles into being a good version of a different sort of show.
There are some great West Wing episodes, certainly more good than bad, even with almost all of Season 5 being so rough. And there's fun to be had in the later seasons. There are a lot of returning characters that appeared early in The West Wing and then disappeared, and seeing them again is like coming home.
As I write this I haven’t quite finished my complete viewing of The West Wing yet. I’ll likely finish Season 6 shortly after writing this, and will then finish up the show in the coming days. But because the show is now better, I’m confident that the place I stopped before is literally the worst episode of the show.
