Access

People are not dumb unless you treat them as dumb.

Two major things marred what was otherwise a fairly good episode of The West Wing tonight: the beginning and the end.

The beginning of the episode was unconventional in that there was no pre-teaser recap. They’ve become less and less relevant this season anyway as the extended storylines have been entirely dropped in the post-Sorkin reset to zero Wing era. Instead, the episode began with a still image indicating to the audience that yes, despite the PBS-style blurb they’re about to see, this really is going to be The West Wing. Are the producers (or executives) so concerned with fifteen seconds of mild confusion on the part of their viewers that they felt it necessary to pat the viewers on the head with such a condescending gesture? If so, why did they then choose to include the tape glitch and dead air just before the episode title, at the risk of confusing their obviously muddle-headed viewers even further? If the full title sequence hadn’t been included after the teaser it might be understandable, though still strictly unnecessary, but as broadcast it came across as yet another example of the new pandering attitude the series has taken.

The end of the episode was equally as galling, though from a different angle. Throughout the pseudo-documentary the audience was told repeatedly that the events shown occurred in the Bartlet administration’s second term, and that the current time is just after the term finished; in other words, the events depicted occurred about three years ago. Doing the math, this means that C.J. Cregg has only been out of the press secretary role for a year. Yet what’s the final line of the episode/documentary? A gratuitous reference to her still being the only woman to serve two terms as White House press secretary. Yup, that’s correct: the writer is highlighting the fact that in the single year that’s passed since Cregg et al left office, no other woman has spent eight years doing the same job. Unless time travel is possible in the Wing universe, it’s simply impossible, and no self-respecting documentarian would even think to write such a nonsensical line.

I’m willing to overlook minor things, like the fact that MSNBC is highlighted as the first network to have footage of the events–that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that sister company NBC broadcasts the show, could it?–because on the whole Access was one of the better episodes this season. That being said, it doesn’t raise my opinion of this season at all: I previously called it a total meltdown, and I stand by that estimation. All I can do is wonder how much better Aaron Sorkin’s version of this episode (and season) might have been, and hope that Warner Brothers, John Wells Productions and NBC get down on their collective knees to apologize to him for ruining the series and bring him back.