The Great West Wing Rewatch: 1.1 Pilot

It a show that's fun to rewatch and a cast that has a certain magic to them when they're all together. If you haven't seen it, you seriously need to stop whatever you're doing and catch West Wing on Netflix because it's a special show. But the one thing most of us can agree on is that we wish, regardless of your political affiliation, that there was a real-life President Bartlett in office. And with the 2016 Presidential Election exactly a year away, we here at IBA want to find out what exactly makes a great president, using Bartlett as a template. Be sure to join along with us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next year as we review every episode of Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing, ending just days before we select the next real president on November 8th, 2016.

Joel: Pilots are an interesting thing to watch. Very rarely does a show turn out exactly as it was envisioned initially. Sometimes, (such is the case here) what a show eventually becomes far exceeds what the pilot suggests. And make no mistake, The West Wing has an amazing pilot, so it’s exciting to know we're nowhere close to the high point of the show in terms of quality. What’s really interesting to note about the first episode is how little President Bartlett is in it. Initially that’s how the entire show was supposed to be. The show was supposed to be centered around the staff of The White House with the President appearing only once an episode, or maybe not at all for several episodes. That changed obviously, and for the better. Maybe it was landing Martin Sheen as part of the cast and realizing that he needed to appear a lot more than a handful of times each season. Maybe it was realizing that the struggles of the presidency were some of the most interesting things to happen in the White House, and intentionally trying to write around those struggles so they never appeared would not only be difficult, it would lead to a worse show. The pilot is smart, witty, fast paced, all things that would go on to define the show, so while the absence of the president for much of the episode does not reflect the rest of the series, much of what makes The West Wing what it is already existed from the very beginning. It’s a good feeling to get to the end of the pilot and know that there are 155 more episodes waiting to be watched.

Chris: I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve watched through the entire run of West Wing, there’s something invigorating about watching super-intelligent characters engaging with each other on just about every political subject one could imagine. Of course, I say they’re super-intelligent but that doesn’t make them immune to dumb mistakes and in the first episode, we see several examples of that. President Bartlett’s rage will be a common theme and, even though he’s the smartest man in every room, his anger leads him to crash a bicycle into a tree, refuse help from a member of his security detail and fall over again. We begin the episode with Josh already screwing up before the show even begins, trying to appeal to the audience’s amusement rather than being diplomatic. And, of course, the biggest mistake of everyone else, Sam has a wonderful night with an attractive woman only to learn the next day that she’s working at an escort service to help with law school. Watching these characters climb out of their own holes is honestly part of the fun of this show. There’s something invigorating with the end of the episode when President Bartlett appears for the first time, whips out his intelligence and authority and lays it out on the floor for everyone to stare in amazement while those that are on the receiving end defecate themselves.

This episode’s “oh hey, I know that person from something else” guest star: Lisa Edelstein

Quality that makes a good president: Don’t be afraid to intellectually slap the taste out of the mouths of people that let the crazies continue to speak for the majority of an organization.