TV Milestones Series Editors Barry Keith Grant Jeannette Sloniowski Brock University Brock University TV Milestones is part of the Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series A complete listing of the books in this series can be found online at wsupress.wayne.edu General Editor Barry Keith Grant Brock University Advisory Editors Robert J. Burgoyne Frances Gateward University of St. Andrews California State University, Northridge Caren J. Deming Tom Gunning University of Arizona University of Chicago Patricia B. Erens Thomas Leitch School of the Art Institute of Chicago University of Delaware Peter X. Feng Walter Metz University of Delaware Southern Illinois University Lucy Fischer University of Pittsburgh 00 McCabe FM.indd 2 9/12/12 9:21 AM THE WEST WING Janet McCabe TV MILESTONES SERIES Wayne State University Press Detroit © 2013 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission. Manufactured in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McCabe, Janet. The west wing / Janet McCabe. p. cm. — (TV milestones) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8143-3436-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8143-3809-4 (ebook) 1. West Wing (Television program) I. Title. PN1992.77.W44M44 2012 791.45’72—dc23 2012018533 00 McCabe FM.indd 4 9/12/12 9:21 AM CONTENTS ACKNoWLEDGMENTS VII v Introduction: Politics of Quality U.S. TV: All the President’s Men . . . and a Few Good Women 1 1. Politics of Quality Primetime TV: Network Politics and Broadcasting Context 9 2. Politics of Storytelling and the TV Auteur: Authorship, Performance, and Narrative 31 3. Politics of the Televisual Form: Aesthetics and Sounds of Power 59 4. “Modern History Is Another Name for Television”: Representing Historical Relevancy and Cultural Memory 85 Conclusion: “We Had It Good There for a While”: The West Wing Legacy 115 NoTES 119 WoRKS CITED 121 INDEX 129 00 McCabe FM.indd 5 9/12/12 9:21 AM aCkNOWLEdGMENTS I would like to thank The British Academy, for supporting this vii project with a Small Grant Award. Those who have read and provided helpful criticism of this book in manuscript form have been essential to its thinking and rethinking. I am particularly indebted to Kim Akass, Stacey Ab- bott, and Deborah Jermyn for advice and encouragement in the initial stages. In addition, Michele Hilmes and Philippa Brews- ter offered invaluable comments on sections of this work. I am grateful to Stefania Carini and Joana Amaral Cardoso. I also extend my deepest gratitude to Eli Attie, Dermot Horan, head of acquisitions and scheduling at RTÉ, and Francesca Gi- nocchi, communications director at NBC Universal Global Net- works Italia, for giving generously of time and answering my questions with patience and clarity. This book has benefited immeasurably from their input, for which I am truly indebted. I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the readers of the manuscript and editors of the TV Milestones Series, Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski, for encour- aging me to clarify my ideas, as well as streamlining the prose and improving the work. In addition, Annie Martin, acquisi- tions editor at Wayne State University Press, has shepherded 00 McCabe FM.indd 7 9/12/12 9:21 AM s me with unfailing support and become a good friend along the nt me way, as well as Jennifer Backer for her sterling efforts in prepar- g d ing the final manuscript. e wl As usual, I owe a colossal debt to Mike Allen, for his wise o n k counsel and help with the images while I furrowed my brow. I c A also thank him and Olivia for giving me enough space to write this book. viii 00 McCabe FM.indd 8 9/12/12 9:21 AM Introduction Politics of Quality U.S. TV All the President’s Men . . . and a Few Good Women NBC had high hopes for its brand-new behind-the-scenes 111 ensemble drama about Washington politics. Premiering on 22 September 1999, The West Wing was the most eagerly anticipated U.S. network show of the fall season (competing alongside forty-two other freshman series). The show certainly had pedigree. Its cast featured Martin Sheen and former Brat Pack movie star Rob Lowe, its subject matter was ambitious and germane, and its production team included John Wells, executive producer of ER (1994–2009), and Aaron Sorkin, creator of the short-lived but critically acclaimed Sports Night (ABC, 1998–2000) and author of A Few Good Men, for which he had received an Oscar nomination. Four years earlier, Sorkin had scripted the romantic-com- edy The American President (Rob Reiner, 1995), about widowed president Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) falling in love with lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening). As the story goes, Sorkin wrote more than 385 pages for the 120-page screenplay and refused to discard the surplus (Rayner 2005). The following year his agent arranged for him to meet with Wells. “I knew . . . the moment I sat down . . . he was expect- ing me to pitch something,” recalls Sorkin. “So it suddenly oc- 01 McCabe text.indd 1 9/12/12 9:22 AM n curred to me: what about senior staffers at the White House?” o cti (Weinraub 1999a, 4). With the “little shards of leftover stories” u d o from The American President Sorkin wrote the TV pilot of The Intr West Wing. A month after delivery, in January 1998, the Monica Le- winsky scandal broke. NBC held back the project, sensitive to the political mood and suspecting that viewers had little ap- petite for a show about Washington politics (Hoffmann 2000). Salacious revelations and an impeachment hearing made the network cautious about the viability of a White House drama at a time of so much political rancor; as Wells explains: “[NBC] said they couldn’t take it to the advertisers in that climate” (Gra- ham 1999). Sorkin, in the meantime, went to work on Sports Night, about an ESPN-style network. But with charges against 2 President Bill Clinton dropped in February 1999 and a regime change at NBC, “the unthinkable happened,” writes Sorkin. “Somebody forgot to tell Scott [Sassa, president of NBC West Coast] and Garth [Ancier, president of NBC Entertainment] you can’t do a show about Washington and politics” (2003a, 6). At the show’s core is a team of dedicated senior staffers: shrewd beltway veteran and chief of staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer); deputy communications director Sam Seaborn (Lowe) (replaced in Season Four by the equally talented Will Bailey [Joshua Malina]); press secretary Claudia Jean “C. J.” Cregg (Allison Janney); communications director and conscience of the administration Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff); deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford); and personal aide to the president Charlie Young (Dulé Hill). Donnatella “Donna” Moss (Janel Moloney), Josh’s able assistant, replaced political consultant Madeleine “Mandy” Hampton, PhD (Moira Kelly) as a series regular in Season Two. Originally intended to be a peripheral figure, President Jo- siah “Jed” Bartlet (Sheen)—the intellectually formidable former New Hampshire governor and liberal Democrat, Nobel Prize– winning economist, and descendant of a Declaration of Inde- 01 McCabe text.indd 2 9/12/12 9:22 AM In tro d u c tio n 3 The Bartlet team pendence signer—proved so popular that he soon moved cen- ter stage. Recurring characters like First Lady Abigail “Abbey” Bartlet (Stockard Channing) and younger daughter Zoey Bartlet (Elisabeth Moss) as well as vice presidents John Hoynes (Tim Matheson) and later Robert “Bingo Bob” Russell (Gary Cole) joined the cast of a series about a fictional Democratic White House charged by highly principled but flawed individuals striving to govern honorably. The West Wing began in the closing years of the Clinton administration (1993–2001), a post-Lewinsky era of politi- cal scandal and partisan vitriol. Aspiring to turn around the deep cynicism pervading American political life, the series “went for nobility and for politics with a purpose” (Bianculli 2000). It combined the representation of the quotidian with high-minded governance and debated weighty political ques- tions alongside stories of its all-too-fallible characters. Its visual pace was kinetic, its dialogue smart and witty. Only a Steadi- 01 McCabe text.indd 3 9/12/12 9:22 AM