Such a bittersweet victory for...
Such a bittersweet victory for
Jimmy Smits' Matt Santos on
The West Wing Sunday night, winning a nail-biter of a presidential race (it all came down to Nevada, a state in which he couldn't even remember campaigning) in the wake of running mate Leo McGarry's tragic death. Leo's obit made headlines before polls closed in the West, making matters even more tense and emotional. (And can I just say one more time how much I'd love to live in
West Wing's wish-fulfillment universe, where candidates take the high road and you can almost believe that voters went for whom they liked most instead of whom they hated least.)
This is a bittersweet moment for The West Wing itself in so many ways. In its final episodes, the show is better than it has been in some time, but relatively few are watching since NBC moved it to Sundays, where the network is pretty much an also-ran. That hurts.
The poignance of producing this underappreciated last hurrah has been immeasurably compounded by the unexpected loss of John Spencer, who played Leo with such authority and dignified wit. (According to a New York Times story, had Spencer not died, Alan Alda's Arnie Vinick would likely have won the election. With Spencer and Leo gone, producers thought that having Santos lose would have been too bitter a pill, and it's hard to argue.)
This Sunday's "Requiem" episode, in honor of Spencer/Leo, is sure to evoke genuine tears, not just among the cast but among still-loyal viewers, some of whom wish The West Wing could continue beyond the Bartlet-to-Santos transition.
Not me. It's so rare for a show to go out on a creative high — especially one that collapsed in recent years — that I almost look at the show's ratings free fall as a blessing in disguise. If the show were performing better, NBC in its desperate straits would have almost certainly tried to keep it going as The West Wing: The Santos Years. Which might not have been a disaster, but would likely have further diminished the legacy of a once-brilliant show.
