The Great West Wing Rewatch: 7.7 "The Debate"

Joel: This debate episode is easily my favorite of the season and one of my top moments of the entire series. When first watching the third season, I had hoped for a full episode long debate between Bartlet and his opponent, and while we got several extended bits from the debate, it was really just a highlight reel to show Bartlet destroying his opponent. But now, four seasons later, we not only get the type of episode I was hoping to see for the debate, but this time around, the show went above and beyond what I could have hoped for.

The debate episode was not only shot like a real life presidential debate, but it was actually performed live in order to make it appear as much like the real thing as possible. The show was actually performed twice, once for the east coast broadcast and once for the west coast. The version that we watched was the west coast as I don’t believe the east coast version has ever been officially released. The gimmick is cool enough that the whole thing could have coasted on that, but the show goes beyond that and trusts only two of it’s main cast members (and two who have had some of the shortest runs on the show at that) to carry the entire episode talking about policy.

There is so much to unpack here as we get to watch Santos and Vinick really go at it in a way we haven’t really gotten to see the two opposing sides argue in the entire show up to this point. It feels like we’re getting a better representation of the differences between the two parties than you get in a real life debate. But what’s really impressive is the slight differences in these two. We’re supposed to know that Santos is the better debater, it’s been mentioned by multiple characters in previous episodes. But the same thing was said about Bartlet, and we never really got to see that beyond a few snippets here and there. In this case we get to see an unedited hour of these guys and the show just has to trust itself that Santos comes off as the better debater to the audience both in the show and in real life. It’s the ultimate leap of faith into showing instead of telling. And it comes off marvelously. Santos doesn’t wipe the floor with Vinick, both are able to hold their own on a national stage, but there are little things, the way that Vinick is easier to rattle, the way that he stumbles over his words just a little bit more. And the way that Santos is able to naturally turn toward the audience in a manner that Vinick can’t quite pull off. This episode is why you get an actor like Alan Alda if you’re going to have them try and pull of something like this and this episode alone is more than enough to make his Emmy win for this season feel deserved.  

Chris: Live television is terrifying to me, especially in a dramatic setting. Comedy can get back because if there's a flub, people can laugh it off and move on whereas the same in a drama and there's just an aura of awkward surrounding the remaining performance. And yet Smits and Alda pull this off and if there any mistakes, they're barely noticeable and not given any weight. When we decided to do this year of West Wing reviews, this episode was instantly mentally circled as one I was eager to hear Joel's reaction to it. The end result was an impressive one act stage play that just happened to have cameras broadcasting the performance to the world. One thing that I'm always reminded is Forrest Sawyer, the moderator, could've chilled a little bit with the scolding both the audience and candidates. I realize it was probably written for him to be that way but still felt like he was leaning a little heavy on it. How refreshing is it to watch a debate with actual policy content and not just fueling scandal?