The World Wants "The West Wing"
First get the cast back together -- then unify the country
We’re going to need stories to help us process what the Trump presidency meant to our country, which is as good an argument as any for a West Wing reboot. Jack Hughes counts the coincidences and draws the parallels in his latest contribution for The Experiment.
by Jack Hughes
Last year the original ensemble cast of the iconic television drama The West Wing staged a special reunion performance on HBO Max in support of When We All Vote. It was the second time they’d reunited in character to film an ostensibly non-partisan public service message about the electoral system and they’re now writing a book – butit’s not enough. President Biden must draft and direct them to revive the series.
The West Wing continues to have a special place in our collective cultural zeitgeist. It premiered in the final years of Bill Clinton’s pre-9/11 post-Cold War presidency and ended in the final years of George W. Bush’s post-9/11 pre-recession presidency. During its award-winning run, it turned the dry day-to-day minutia of governing into a dramatic narrative that was entertaining, educational, insightful, and, yes, inspiring.
The final season of The West Wing aired fifteen years ago with President Josiah ‘Jed’ Bartlet riding off into the sunset aboard Air Force One as the newly inaugurated President Matt Santos held his first Oval Office meeting. More than enough time has passed, then, for us to demand the popular show be renewed. It’s an especially timely request given that in the series’ alternate reality 2022 is a presidential election year.
After the divisive ‘dumpster fire’ that was the actual 2020 U.S. presidential election, all of us – Americans and non-Americans alike – are desperate for a political palate cleanser. What more cathartic antidote could there be for our current antagonisms than a return visit to that idealized White House just in time to witness an uplifting campaign between upstanding candidates who disagree without being disagreeable?
The show’s final seasons showcased a fictional 2006 election between characters who bore a striking resemblance to the candidates who would ultimately contest the actual 2008 election. Jimmy Smits’ Democrat Matt Santos was a pre-Barack Obama with his campaign of hope just as Alan Alda’s Republican Senator Arnold Vinick was a moderate, mature maverick from a Sunbelt State in the mold of John McCain.
The Santos-Vinick election didn’t expunge the policy differences that exist between liberals and conservatives, it explored and explained them. When the election came down to one state, Nevada, the closeness of the result convinced Santos to reach across the divide and make Vinick Secretary of State. Real life didn’t go that far but McCain did vote to save Obamacare and Obama did eulogize McCain at his funeral.
The West Wing always had excellent elections. Before Santos-Vinick there was the near prophetic 2002 campaign pitting an intellectual incumbent Jed Bartlett against a ‘fortune cookie’ conservative Governor Robert Ritchie of Florida – almost an amalgam of Governors/Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. (Ritchie was played by James Brolin who got an Emmy nod in 2003 for portraying Reagan.)
What might a West Wing election in 2022 look like? Well, there is one unrealized storyline that would be a fan-fiction dream; one that, fittingly, comes from the same episode restaged for the HBO Max special – the third season’s ‘Hartfield’s Landing.’ Its plot contains a poignant scene in which Martin Sheen’s President Bartlett turns to Rob Lowe’s character and says – “Sam, you’re going to run for president one day.”
The ‘Sam’ in question is, of course, Sam Seaborn. At the time of the episode, he was Deputy White House Communications Director, but he would later run for Congress (unsuccessfully) before returning as Deputy Chief of Staff to President Matt Santos. Today Seaborn would be a 56-year-old lawyer from California, which is noteworthy because today Vice President Kamala Harris is a 56-year-old lawyer from California.
How did Sam spend the last fifteen fictional years?
How did Sam spend the last fifteen fictional years? He might’ve become California’s Attorney General, then Senator, then Vice President. We know it’s possible because Harris did all that in just ten years – so it wouldn’t strain credulity for a revived show to feature a Vice President Seaborn running to succeed an octogenarian Democratic president (maybe James Cromwell’s fictional West Wing President D. W. Newman.)
If Sam were the Democratic nominee, and where the U.S. is now moving inexorably closer to electing a woman president, West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin would likely pit him against a female Republican. Bill Clinton once suggested (awkwardly given Hillary’s known ambitions) the first woman president might be a conservative like Margaret Thatcher – and many Republicans think that a Thatcher heiress now exists.
To that end, if I were in charge of casting The West Wing reboot, I’d strongly urge the powers-that-be to get Gillian Anderson for the role. Anderson, of course, just won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher on Netflix’s The Crown. (While her taking home the award wasn’t unexpected, she was excellent as the Iron Lady, many viewers were apparently shocked to learn she is actually an American.)
Now, I know some critics say the show’s cast and crew have a liberal bias (dubbing it The Left Wing). It’s true some Republican characters appeared as villains-of-the-week, but most of the conservatives benefited from more nuanced portrayals such as Alda’s Arnie Vinick, Emily Procter’s Ainsley Hayes, John Goodman’s Glen Walken, Matthew Perry’s Joe Quincy, and William Fichtner’s Justice Christopher Mulready.
It’s even been suggested the Republican, Vinick, might’ve won The West Wing’s 2006 election but for the passing of cast member John Spencer, who played Bartlett’s Chief of Staff and Santos’ running mate Leo McGarry. (After he lost Vinick insisted to his staff he wasn’t too old to run again – “70 is the new 60!” – but the idea was so fanciful at the time that it was said to be too far-fetched for even a fictional candidate.)
No, the main obstacle won’t be ideological conflicts but scheduling conflicts – which is why I said from the outset the cast will need to be drafted into public service. Rob Lowe, for example, has played many roles since The West Wing, most notably on Parks & Recreation and the criminally underappreciated The Grinder– which is, in my studied opinion, the single greatest single-season television series ever produced.
Lowe and the other actors who comprised the original cast will be in high demand and will surely be contractually committed to other projects. Biden must relieve them of their other obligations so they can return to The West Wing and restore our faith in government. They’re the only cast of an early 2000s network television drama who can. Not the cast of Law & Order nor of ER (even with George Clooney).
Perhaps needless to say, I’m being somewhat facetious here. I don’t mean to suggest that merely putting The West Wing back on the air would solve the full spectrum of the world’s problems – as much as I’d love for it to be true. But there’s something in what Bradley Whitford (The West Wing’s Josh Lyman) said when he introduced the When We All Votespecial which perfectly captures the spirit that I have in mind:
“We understand some people don’t fully appreciate the benefit of unsolicited advice from actors, we do know that. And if HBO Max was willing to point a camera at the ten smartest people in America, we’d gladly clear the stage for them. But the camera is pointed at us, and we feel at a time like this the risk of appearing obnoxious is too small a reason to stay quiet if we can get even one new voter to vote.” What’s next?
Jack Hughes is a communications consultant based in Canada. His previous contributions to The Experiment include “Same of Thrones,” “Tippecanoe and Agnew Anew,” “Harris / Shuri 2020,” “What Would Nixon Do?” “Firth and Firthiness,” and “The Ballot of Bill McKay,” among others. His inexplicably extensive writings on Dan Quayle are “The Unusual Suspect,” “The Unusual Suspect II,” “The GOPfather” and “Porqua, CoQau?” His most recent contribution was “Bidenfeld.” Connect with him on LinkedIn here.
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