May 14, 2006

Musings on The West Wing

Although it's probably been three years since I last tuned into the so-called idiot box with any degree of excitement, it's still hard to discount the medium as a whole. Today's series finale of The West Wing reminds one of the sheer dramatic power of a well-scripted, well-directed, well-acted television program.

Amidst the mind-numbing expanse of reality television and the brain-cell-depleting idiocy of cable news talk shows, I've struggled in past years to justify even owning a television, let alone subscribing to cable for 120 channels of programming aimed at morons (i.e., most of America). A decided exception to this rule for years has been The West Wing, which despite it's idealized and often times unrealistic portrayal of the world, nevertheless, showed us all that television can be about something other than gratuitous sex and violence or old white men yapping about politics. It was a show entirely focused on dialogue: one that required attention and understanding and one that used words with more than four syllables. It championed intelligence while simultaneously rejecting the notion that to be a politician, one must also be an imbecile.

All entertainment is at its core a form of escape; a temporary fantasy one indulges in to escape the dullness of one's own hapless existence. For me, for the last seven years, West Wing served as this escape. After hearing buzz about the show in the summer leading to my junior year in high school, I watched the pilot and was instantly hooked. Through the past seven years, it has served me as a steadfast escape from a reality that often times left me disenchanted.

As one of the few shows that was unapologetically intellectual and refused to pander to the lowest common denominator, I will miss it. Hopefully next season's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip will be able to fill the void.