A Son of the Rock

2007

As the seasons roll by The West Wing becomes all too obviously a fiction with not much regard for verisimilitude. The scriptwriters appear to be ticking all the boxes one by one. Even attempts at a rapprochement with Cuba!

The Gaza cliffhanger thing from season 5 is resolved quickly with Pres Bartlet solving the Israel/Palestine problem (if only) and Donna, of course, being OK. At one point we hear Josh Lyman saying, “wanker.” Do they know what it means? C J replacing Leo McGarry as Chief of Staff after his heart attack seemed unlikely. We also get an episode where magicians Penn and Teller “burn” a US flag in the White House and all hell breaks loose. [What is with this lot and their flag? They treat it like a sacred relic. It’s a symbol, nothing more. Certainly not an object worthy of veneration. It’s as if we were to reverence Buckingham Palace or something.]

On a trip to a summit in China the President’s multiple sclerosis rears its head as, for dramatic necessity, it had to at some time. He, of course, overcomes it all but the gradual degradation of his abilities is played on for the rest of the series.

The setting begins to shift to who is going to succeed him. Each second episode breaks off from the West Wing to focus on the election Primaries, both Democrat and Republican.

There was one episode where that irritating, and totally unconvincing, British ambassador appeared again in which the dynamic of US-UK relations was completely misrepresented. The rather touching idea was expressed that Britain would actually take military action somewhere (the RAF might bomb Iran no less!!!) without the say-so (or even acquiescence) of the US. It was as if they believed a UK government’s response to a “provocation” would go beyond words; that its resort of choice would be (as is theirs apparently) to force. In reality we wouldn’t let a soldier blow his nose without their approval. [And for the record, we didn’t send tanks on to the streets of Dublin after the IRA (by the way mostly US funded – where was the war on terror then?) carried out bombings in mainland Britain.]

As the seasons roll on The West Wing becomes more and more a case of USians reassuring themselves that, for all their problems, they are good and true. Even the Republican nominee for President (excellently played by Alan Alda) is a reasonable man and not an extreme right wing lunatic, though his “shines-his-own shoes” down-homeness was a bit overdone.

No cliffhanger as such this time except for some lingering stuff about a secret military space shuttle.