Bye Bye Bartlet

Alas, The West Wing has reached the end of its seven year run. It was only a matter of time, but I'm quite sad to see it come this year. After a horrendous and meandering fifth season, West Wing had a nice recovery in its sixth. Once the writers made the (in retrospect) wise decision to skip a "year" and go straight to what they do best, campaign races, West Wing had a strong 2005.

It was hard at times to believe that a character such as Alan Alda's Arnie Vinick could exist, not to mention get the Republican nomination. He was the ideal Republican for any idealistic, leftist West Wing watcher...which is pretty much every West Wing watcher. Jimmy Smits has also been a bit too much of a golden boy without much of a personality.

But this seventh season has been reminiscent of the fantastic first few seasons, the Aaron Sorkin era. John Spencer's last few episodes are brilliant, and last night's show was the best in recent memory. While "Duck and Cover" was a not-so-veiled jab at what our President should be doing in a national emergency, the taut pacing and relentless drama seemed awfully realistic.

In one fell swoop, Tommy Schlamme and John Wells made the election a toss-up. Well-done, sirs. Now let's see how you handle John Spencer's untimely passing.

But back to the cancellation. Lisa DeMoraes, as always, has a great roundup of the announcement. At first I was angry, fuming that NBC would probably replace WW with another spinoff series from Dick Wolf. As Jared will attest, there are way too many procedural dramas on TV today. But then I remembered, 2006 will mark the first season of Sunday Night Football on NBC.

So naturally, West Wing would have had another change to another night at another time slot. Better it die a respectful death, than a slow and ugly one on Friday or Saturday night.

On one last note, if Rob Lowe is coming back to the show, he will (as I predicted) be the replacement candidate as Vice President. Unless he won't be. Then I'd be totally totally wrong.