The West Wing

Here's this weeks thoughts, comments and observations on tonight's West Wing:

Finally! They finally revealed that Toby was the source of the leak. Finally! This has to be the worst kept secret ever and I for one am glad its finally revealed. The only bad thing is now we get stuck with the story line of Toby getting grilled and then fired. I'm more curious about whether Richard Schiff just gets dropped from the show like Rob Lowe than I am about the leak storyline.

Oh and - I told you so! I said it was Toby as soon as this became an issue. Anyway - back to tonight's show.

In the first fifteen minutes we had intelligent design, creationism and the death of the character who was supposed to be Arafat's body double plus Margaret getting grilled regarding the leak. That was ambitious by the writers but sometimes less is more and I think this was one of those times. The show originally became successful because witty dialogue was mixed with national events. Now we just seem to be getting muddled national events pulled from today's headlines (the people at Law & Order should sue).

The Palestinian "Chairman" dies and in all the discussion about what the Israelis will do nobody mentions the security wall? Curious. Its as if some people would like to believe the wall doesn't exist and hasn't been the best thing to happen to peace (for Israelis at least). I'm afraid both Vinick and the Israelis will start wearing black hats in the weeks to come. And how did the President and the Chairman get to be such good friends? Arafat was a murderous scumbag. Why make the fictional "Chairman" a friend of the President? I bet these writers wear Che shirts to work.

Did you notice that the first groups to complain after Santos said that God must be intelligent were the ACLU and NARAL? I can see the ACLU concerned because of separation of church and state issues but why NARAL? Are they saying you would have to be Godless to have an abortion? Oh and while we are talking about abortion - Santos comes off as a Catholic who goes to church every Sunday and yet he's Pro-Choice. Anyone have a problem with that?

Is it strange for me to say I'm sick of the leak storyline and yet be happy to be seeing more of Oliver Platt as White House Council Oliver Babish?

Another bad moon rising (as far as I'm concerned) is this new storyline about the assinations and what it has to do with UNOCAL. How much does anyone what to bet that the phrase "no blood for oil" gets uttered by someone on the show in the next six episodes?

If I were writing the show I'd do the following scenarios:

1. I'd take the Leo and Kristen Chenoweth "tension" to the next level and to the next level after that. My storyline here would end with Leo having a fatal heart attack after sex. Since the writers seem to be stealing ideas from other shows - I'd copy NYPD Blue and show someone's bare ass and that ass would belong to Kristen Chenoweth.

2. I'd have Jed Bartlett die. Yup - just kill him off. I'm sick of Martin Sheen and his dentures that don't seem to want to stay put. Bartlett's death would put Bob Russell in the oval office and it could lead to tons of interesting give and take as Josh deals with the new President through the campaign liaison - Donna Moss.

That's my West Wing thoughts for this week.

EDIT: Jamie at the Eye of Polyphemus has some more similar comments on last night's show