The Great West Wing Rewatch: 5.9 "Abu el Banat"

Joel: I like how rarely the Bartlet children are in the show. It would be very easy to make The West Wing a family drama where the family in question just happens to be a first family. I’m not saying that that version would be bad, in fact there is probably a good family drama to be made about the First Family. But I’m glad that for the purposes of this show, Bartlet is a President first and a father second. Still, it’s nice to every once in awhile bring in the whole family with all the potential chaos and see what happens. Christmas is a good moment to have that story in the show and it also helps out the writers. For the first few seasons of the show, the Sorkin years, the Christmas episode always seemed to be addressing something very dramatic, very heavy and emotional, and it’s a scary pair of shoes to fill when writing your first post-Sorkin Christmas episode. The family drama allows the writers to put something in there that would only make sense as a Christmas episode (when else would these five characters all be in the same room?) while letting the heavily story play out around the family Christmas.

Chris: Christmas episodes for most TV dramas tend to bring up questions about morality, I suppose it's the byproduct of having a holiday based on peace and giving and whatnot. Brought up in this Christmas episode is the question over assisted suicide and does the federal state have any say over the matter or will it remain a state-by-state ruling. And then included in that is the Attorney General using the matter as an opportunity throw his hat in the ring for running for office in the next election cycle which might force the president to weigh in on the issue. All of which is a hindrance to the president because it draws his attention from both more pressing issues as well as his family. However, given how much the family went through months prior with Zoe's kidnapping, you would think they would just be thankful that they're all together for the holidays instead of allowing feelings to get hurt just because the heads of the democrat party don't want a rookie running a suicidal campaign. It's one of those episodes that mirror society in the sense that general pettiness get in the way of seeing the big picture and focusing on what really matters.

A good president lets their grandkid waste electricity by cutting the lights on and off (and repeat) on a badly CGI-created giant Christmas tree.