The Great West Wing Rewatch: 5.18 "Access"

Joel: The West Wing is very much an ensemble show and has never really had a main character. It would make sense that a show about the West Wing would have the president be the main character, but that clearly isn’t the case with this show. It seems like Sam was initially intended to be the lead character, after all Rob Lowe got top billing in the opening credits, but it’s hard to argue that there was ever a time that he was the main character of the show. If anybody was the main character, most people would argue Josh for the first part, after all, we spend so much time with him that he’s the only one who’s assistant gets credited in the theme song. However, as the show goes on, CJ has become more and more a stand in for the viewer, often the one who’s having to figure out how complex policy and politics can be broken down to layman terms. She also seems to be the one that often has a scene in every subplot of an episode because they all have to go through the press room. In many ways CJ has become the main character of the show, something we’ll address toward the beginning of the next season as well, and it makes sense that this Access documentary episode would be about her.
What I really like about shooting this episode documentary style is how we get to see parts of the West Wing we usually don’t get to see. I’m not talking about different rooms, but parts of the rooms that we’re used to that we’ve never seen before. By this point in the show, it’s very clear where people are going to stand and where the cameras are going to be placed to get the shots. We’ve seen the same shots of the press room a hundred times by now. But now, with this documentary style, we're suddenly seeing angles of the room that show you a wall or a chair that you realize you've never seen in the five years that this show has been on. It’s just one episode but it makes the set feel more like a location.

Chris: This was an isolated episode seemingly contained within it's own parameters but it's a good change of pace. It is interesting the sense of unfamiliarity in rooms we've become so familiar with over the previous seasons but with the harsh bright lights and not the darker mood lighting we've grown accustomed to. If West Wing were to have a spin-off focused on CJ and her staff with minimal interactions with the rest of the West Wing staff, this would be how you would do it; just show the madness and have them explain it later. There was a couple issues I had that sort of took me out of the concept of the episodes and those were the camera's inclusion into the morning briefing in Leo's office and the conversation Leo had with CJ at the end of the episode, both of which seemed like conversations the media would never had direct access to. Sure, the premise sort of protected that idea saying that the footage would be shown after the Bartlet administration was out of office but I can't imagine Leo or the rest of the staff being okay with cameras being around for this situation.

A good president lies to the press...but you can't say you're lying to the press when the camera is rolling right in front of you.