TVSquad

I have a feeling we'll see Toby, as well as many others, next week during the funeral.

Wow. Wow. Wow. This was a very fine episode. There was tension right up to the last minute, especially when Vinick won his home state. It was good to see that both candidates would have taken the high road if defeated and not contested the results.

The very last scene was the most touching as Josh sees a picture of Leo and says 'Thanks, Boss.' It was a great memorial to both the actor and the character.

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What tension??? The show is a Democratic Party production. There was never at any time any chance at all that the Republicans would win.

I used to vote Republican, but I'm not happy with the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton administration; still, all personal politics aside: If you were in suspense thinking that Santos might lose, then you probably also go to James Bond movies thinking that 007 just might actually die this time ...

This was never any way in hell that the show would go on even one more episode with the GOP in the White House and all the characters from the past few years out on the street. At any rate, they couldn't call it The West Wing any more. All the suspense in this whole race, especially tonight ("It all comes down to Nevada! Which way will it go!") was purely artificial.

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I figured Santos would win, but for me there was still tension as to how it would play out. Also, since this is the final season I would have believed it going to Vinick. The current cast would still be around for the trasition to a Vinick White House.

I thought Alan Alda did a remarkable job in tonight's episode. By the end of the episode, his facial expressions made me think he actually was relieved he would lose as it's been such a long, hard road for him. He is such a fine actor.

As for waiting until Election Day for Leo to die, I thought it was a good choice. It made the day bittersweet for everyone. It couldn't have been after, because they never could have filmed a Santos acceptance speech without Leo. And if it had been earlier, they might have had to replace Leo immediately which I don't think they wanted to do.

One of my favorite parts was how neither candidate wanted to challenge the results, especially when Vinick said that he would "take his marbles and go home" because too many politicians in recent years behave with the maturity of elementary school children.

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Gov. Baker, played by Ed O'Neil, is the most likely VP choice. Can you imagine Al Bundy one step away from th White House?

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Actually, Drudge is reporting this evening that before Spencer died, the show's writers were going to give Vinick the election because of his stance as a more moderate Republican. But apparantley, they didn't want viewers to see Santos lose his running mate and the election. The story says the information came from a New York Times piece running tomorrow.
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2ww.htm

I am partly skeptical of this based on the flash forward at the beginning of this season when Josh ran in and said "The president's here." It would have been less realistic that Vinick was approaching coming from Josh as the messenger, but I guess it would be do-able.

In my view, and heavily against my political leanings, I agree with a Santos victory, mostly because I was rooting for Josh. It was a great story of him coming from the Bartlet White House, working from the grassroots up and winning a national campaign. I think it's my sentimentality toward the old show when it was great. It would have ruined the final episodes for me to send off Bartlet and his staff members with none of them in the White House, which shows the difference between Hollywood and real-world politics I suppose.

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I think the VP will be Nancy McNally. They need to pick someone that's been involved with the show over the last 7 seasons, not just the last year. Also, they need to pick someone with significant national security expertise due to the Kazakhstan situation.

Also, there have been several noticeable mentions of her name in the past few episodes, including tonight, which to me suggests they're trying to remind us of her name so it doesn't come out of left field when they announce her in a few weeks.

Gov Baker? Psh, he hasn't been mentioned since last season and nobody but us die-hard fans remember who he is. Besides, can you imaginge a white house with a hispanic man and black woman? It's like a liberal dream, and totally fitting with the tone of the show since Day One.

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John Spencer was such a great actor, his loss ended any chance of this show continuing despite what any producer says.

I think a Vinick victory is far more realistic. A moderate Republican winning California after 8 years of a Democratic one? This ending was much less realisitc, but was anyone really in suspense?

There's a reason they call it the "Left Wing". The show is brilliantly written, but the liberals writing this would never let the realistic event happen.

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So The West Wing is unabashedly liberal. Big deal. Who would turn in to watch a dramatized verison of the incapable idiots running and ruining the country today? Is there any entertainment value in watching as the nation's leaders keep from increasing the minimum wage, reduce taxes for the rich to the point where they have to borrow trillions of dollars from nations like China, attack a country that was no threat to ours whiloe failing to find the person responsbiel for attacking ours, find ways to help their corporate friends by allowing more pollution then reducing and removing environmental safeguards, create a Medicare prescription plan designed to benefit the pharmaceutical companies while threating government actuaries to keep quiet when they realize the plan will cost three times what the administration says it will, and declassify information for no other reason than to discredit a political foe. I could go on but I think my point is made, as well as my political position.

For all of its sanctimonious claptrap pandering to the left, at its core The West Wing was populated by characters who were dedicated to serving the nation and not their party. The show had an optimistic outlook wherein they tried to do the best they could for as much of the nation as they could. Compare that to the attitude of the current White House occupants who serve only their corporate masters and I'll take the fiction any time. For all of the talk about "compassionate conservatism," we've yet to see much of it demonstrated. Instead they try to polarize the nation by ostracising gays, immigrants, pro-choicers and environmentalists.

As for Vinick, he is just about the only Republican that a Democrat could tolerate, which can probably only happen in fiction. In reality, there's no way Vinick would get the support of the Republican Party because he is far too liberal to get the support of either the evangelic base of the party or the large corporations.

So besides corporate CEOs and people who believe that the Earth in only 6,000 years old, who would watch that show?

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Joe,

Gov. Baker was Ed O'Neil. Unless he's had surgery I don't know about since Married With Children, he's still a white man, not a black woman. Anyway, read 'em and weep:

http://westwingnews.blogspot.com/2006/04/spoiler-about-vice-presidency-and-last.html

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Jamie: Joe was obivously talking about the name that he had floated, NSA Nancy McNally as his 'Dream Scenario.' I've liked McNally as the VP ever since the name was more recently floated after all of the mentions she's gotten recently.

My Dream VP would still be William Devane's SecState Louis Berryhill.

However, WestWingNewsBlog has always been a reliable source for my spoilers, and you seemed to have caught that sooner than me. I think that that individual would make a very good VP in the WestWing-Verse. The other person mentioned and position was a bit of a suprise for me, though I'd really like to see exactly how the trigger on that storyline gets pulled.

As for tonight? Haven't gotten home yet, so I'll chime in tomorrow sometime. As much as I'm looking forward to it, I'm really NOT looking forward to it.

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Jaime,

Joe was referring to Nancy McNally being a black woman, not Ed O'Neill.

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Ah, indeed. Sorry. I read his post too fast, apparently.

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Toby *will* be in next week's episode. The scenes from next week showed Leo's coffin being carried, and Toby was one of those carrying it (in addition to Bartlett, Josh, Santos, and one other unidentified person.)

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Elf, I really have to disagree with your 'people above the party' idea. It's demonstratably false. I've been watching The West Wing since day one, and I've seen many instances where the party comes first. This was a show about how politics and people mix, and politics wins every time. Quite often, the thought was 'It's better to have Democrats in charge, and whatever does that is good for the country.' That's fine, but it's also a very convenient excuse for screwing the little guy.

Let's look at a few times when the staff did just that:

The cop who broke the kid's leg as a result of a struggle. The cop wasn't honored at the white house because the kid was black, although the episode portrayed the cop as justified.

The family of the gay soldier. The family's visit to the white house was cancelled because the President didn't want to handle the gay issue. Turns out the family was less ashamed of the kid than the President.

The comedian who raised money for the President. Barlett laughed at a racial joke, but CJ released to the press that he didn't think the guy was funny.

Han the North Korean pianist. Barlett finally did tell the kid to do whatever he wanted, but really the kid was told to lean in and take one for the team.

The honorable Republican that Toby and Josh destroyed with a TV ad a few years before they could have used his help to fix social security.

There were more, but that's all I can think of right now. Let's move to entire groups:

The Indians in the lobby. Lucky for all, it turns out they just wanted to be listened to, not actually get anything of substance at all done.

Saudi women. Even Nancy said a military base was more important.

Environmentalists. Toby: "There is a degree to which I think we have to screw the environmental lobby."

Gays. Bartlett told the gay Hollywood mogul to butt out of politics.

The American public. How many times did Josh cite public opinion when it was in his favor, but ridicule the public when it wasn't? People are stupid except when they agree with Josh.

We also have just plain issues. How many of them were there that Josh, Toby or Leo didn't want to solve because the issue itself was good for Democrats on election day? I can think of social security, smoking and poverty.

The point is that the characters obviously weren't evil, but they obviously weren't altruists, either. A necessary evil is still evil, and very often they chose it. "For the sake of the Party" is no excuse.

Which is actually a big reason why I watched the show. The characters were intelligent, but flawed. A series where every issue got wrapped up perfectly just in time for a freeze-frame thumbs-up as the credits roll over to the CHiPs soundtrack would have bored us all. Quite a few episodes made me actually think about the problems, and the solutions posed. This is the mark of good television.

I like this blog because it stays away from the underlying politics and concentrates more on the characters. Bashing and prosletyzing are boring, I can get those anywhere. This is about a TV show. Let's keep it that way.

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My pick for Veep is CJ Craig.

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Anthony: I agree with your point, but not the way you made it:

The Cop WAS honored at the State of the Union. The story came out after the SotU, and CJ set him up on Capitol Beat's morning show to set the story straight.

In Take Out the Trash day, the story about the father (not both parents, by the way) calling POTUS out on being more ashamed of his son's homosexuality, the son was not a soldier, but a student.

In Han, the next conversation that Bartlett had with the pianist was telling him to do whatever he wanted, which, I think, Bartlett was going to do the whole time.

The Indians in the Lobby wanted something done, and just because the story didn't follow what happened after they had their meeting doesn't mean anything WAS done.

Lets remember how the Enviroment "got screwed" in the Drop In: The President admonished them for not taking a public stance on Eco-Terriorism.

20 Hours in LA: I have less of a point here, but that guy did was wrong (Inviting POTUS out, and then threatening to cancel the fundraiser over policy).

Lets also remember that Toby DID fix Social Security (in one day, one of the biggest reaches EVER on this show), that Josh DID fix the Government's case against Tobacco.... And I don't specifically remember the Poverty thing, but hey.

Again, I agree with your point. My dad and I fight about the politics of the show all the time, and my point always is that its about the story and the characters, politics be damned.

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And the Next Vice President is:

I believe that the next Vice President will be Arnold Vinick. Why do I say that? Well there were some scenes at the end that made it seem like they were hinting at Santos picking Vinick because he still wants some one that is older and more experienced with foreign policy that can help him with the Kazackstan thing going on. It maybe a long shot but I think Santos will pick Vinick because he likes him and he thinks that he has some really great ideas, and Santos could care less what the Democaratic elites in DC would think about his decision. And for the purposes of the show I think it is a fitting end, letting both characters go to the White house, and why not end on a bang like that! So what do you guys think?

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I've always thought that Toby took the fall for someone else. It occurs to me that it might have been Leo ... but circumstances made this an inappropriate storyline to pursue, after John Spencer's death. I hope we'll hear from Toby at the funeral, but think we might not, as he is so persona non grata.

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16-
Vinick will be Sec'y of State.

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Vinick has experience with defense issues and foreign policy. If anything, I'll bet he'd be Secretary of State.

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