The West Wing

The new season of The West Wing started tonight with the big story line being who gets to be the next TV President - Alan Alda or Jimmy Smits with a lesser current story line of who was the White House leak on the existence of a military space shuttle.

First some general observations - whoever does the hair for the show should be fired. CJ Cregg (Allison Janney) is supposed to be a blonde, Oliver Babbish is supposed to have a goatee and what's up with Donna Moss's (Janel Moloney) new hairstyle? Is everybody getting a new look? What's next - Toby wearing a toupee?

The lighting on the show is still too dark. That's the one thing that really bothers me since John Wells took over from Aaron Sorkin. Just too damn dark. Its not artsy - its just dark.

Tonight's show opened with a flash forward three years to the opening of the Bartlett Presidential Library. I couldn't help but wonder why write a scene like that when many people would just look at it and say "where's Sam Seaborn?"

The big point of tonight's show was to get Congressman Santos and Leo McGarry on the same page. OK - boring but done. Let me take this opportunity to point out that the White House leak subplot is way too predictable. How obvious is it that Toby is the leak? His brother was an astronaut and of course he did everything he could to make sure the stranded astronauts were saved. While I'm on the subject - how lame is it that The West Wing is stealing plot elements from Armageddon?

I don't know who wins between Alan Alda (Arnold Vinick) and Jimmy Smits (Matthew Santos) but I do know that Donna Moss WILL come back into Josh Lyman's life in either a professional or personal capacity. I also know that what made the show great in the first place was snappy dialog and that's something that has been sorely missing since Sorkin left the show. Surely there's some screenwriters out there that can write good dialog - right?