NYT: "West Wing": Facing Struggle to Survive? ("out of synch"?)

[DeepModem Mom]

'West Wing': Is It Facing a Struggle to Survive?
By BERNARD WEINRAUB

Published: August 12, 2004


LOS ANGELES, Aug. 11 - "The West Wing," the award-winning NBC drama series about a fictional White House, is struggling to revive its ratings and its creative dynamism in the coming season after two faltering years. But it may be too late.

With the nation focused on presidential politics, the creators of "The West Wing" are plainly trying to tap into real events to restore the series, which enters its sixth season on Oct. 20 in its usual slot at 9 p.m. Wednesdays. But the show, which has won four consecutive Emmy Awards as the outstanding drama series and was nominated for 12 Emmys this year despite its critical and audience slide, seems to be teetering on the edge of cancellation next season unless ratings pick up.

Once lavishly praised for its serious content - some critics said too serious - and its exploration of the tensions and compromises in a liberal White House, "The West Wing" was a Top 10 show with 17.1 million viewers in 2001-2. The next year the audience dropped to 13.4 million, partly because of rivalry from reality shows like "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" on ABC. (The slide in the 18-to-49 demographic was especially severe.) Last year the total viewer average fell to 11.7 million. But critics said the series had also lost its way - its plots and characters had sometimes turned far-fetched....

***

(Kevin Reilly, president of NBC Entertainment) said in an interview that the presidential election would have an impact on "The West Wing," and would "certainly set story lines in motion." He said the series would involve presidential politics and that the evolving characters in the show would reflect more than the traditional liberal viewpoints of the Bartlet White House. He said he hoped the series would be picked up after next season, depending not only on the ratings but also on its creative direction. Among the reasons offered for the show's ratings decline, Mr. Reilly said, was that "The West Wing" may have seemed out of sync at times with the real West Wing and the conservatism in the nation.

"Did the show reflect the real-life shift in the winds?" Mr. Reilly asked. "That's debatable."

To reflect the realities of the nation's politics, the show's producers brought in Kenneth M. Duberstein, once chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, as a consultant....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/12/arts/television/12wing.html

[saracat]

1. And that will finish the show for me!

[Hekate]

2. I thought of Jeb Bartlett as my "real president" the first 2 years

I'm sure a lot of heartsick liberals felt the same way.

But the story lines did start to go downhill when Sorkin left the show, and although I still watch it, it's just not the same. I doubt the addition of a seriously conservative writer or consultant will do much for it.

It was good while it lasted.

Hekate

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

3. It became plot-driven instead of character-driven

When you have a great writer like Aaron Sorkin, you can have two characters doing nothing more than sitting at a table and create compelling drama. The new creative staff doesn't have that ability, so they keep using more and more outlandish plot devices to drive interest, and it's driving away the core audience.

[onehandle]

4. No Sorkin = No Good. Sorry, Mr. Sheen. nt

[smada]

5. who knew

it was Rob Lowe driving the ratings?

[Justice]

6. Show Was Never On

The show kept getting pre-empted, and re-runs were never shown. I believe it was a deliberate attempt to knock show off pace.

[alarimer]

8. I know

I missed a lot during the regular season; now they are shown on Bravo and some other station at nigth. Still the earlier showa were better; I don't miss Rob Lowe that much; I think the new guy is pretty good. I actually liked that conservative lawyer they hired- I thought she was a good character and a nice contrast. I thought the dialogue was always its strongest part- very snappy. They have turned to stunts to get ratings like Zoe's kidnapping and other plot lines. It is a good show and I will miss it if they cancel it.

[LizW]

7. They don't get it

I loved that show when the characters were struggling for good. They were conflicted, they were imperfect, but they ultimately knew the right thing and did it. The season finale when Bartlet is put on the spot about whether he will run again (the "Brothers in Arms" scene) is the single best episode of television drama I have ever seen in my life.

The soul of that show was the idea that there could be a President who was the real thing. And no one could write that White House like Aaron Sorkin.

This year when they had Bartlet say, "You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose," it was finally over for me. If I want to see venal politicians with their fingers in the wind trying to stay in office at any cost, I'll just watch real life, thanks.

[kodi]

21. agreement on the brothers in arms episode. best hour ever on tv

the writing has gone downhill, but i am watching WW right now on bravo.

btw: my great uncle was the ironwright artisan who made the iron doors at the national cathedral in 1937, and that was a thrill to see them on that show.

[alarimer]

9. I don't think the American public is conservative.

I just read Robert Reich's book Reason and he makes the case that the Americanpublic is actually closer to the Democrats that the current makeup of the Republican party, according to some surveys that are included in the appendix of the book. I think the West Wing has had to compete with crappy reality shows and about 100 versons of CSI and Law and Order (why are there so many anyway???)

[underpants]

10. No, it is out of Sorkin

That is the difference.

[Shadder]

11. I agree

You bring him back, the show would be just fine.

[SoCalDem]

12. I am probably the only person in the US who has NEVER seen

a single episode of the show..BUT of course I will offer my opinion anyway :evilgrin:..


During the Clinton years, there was a media-savvy bunch of people in the WH who actually seemed to like the idea of a "TV representation" of "their" administration..

The gang that is in now, is so scary, and so evil, that keeping the show the way "it used to be" would be poignantly dangerous.. People might actually THINK of all they had lost...

To change it into a sinister knockoff of what we really have, would scare too many people, and the ones who liked it the way it was, would tune out for sure..

It's just time for the show to "retire"..

Lots of shows hang on too long.. One of my favorites NYPD Blue is having the same "issues". It was so good for so long, and now it's getting threadbare..and it also suffers from prolonged and regular pre-emptions.. Nothing pisses me off more than to tune in around week 4 of a NEW SEASON, and find out that it's a freaking RE-RUN.. Of course during the summer when I WANT re-runs to catch the ones I missed...they take it completely off and never air re-runs..

and they wonder why people have quit watching network TV:grr:

[Shopaholic]

13. Sorkin was the driving force behind that show

and once he was gone. . . so was the show. It bears little resemblance to the greatness it once was.

[mondo joe]

14. It ended for when Sorkin left.

Why bother any more?

[robcon]

15. "It's the dialog, stupid"

The Sorkin dialogs, so evident on the reruns on cable, is absent now, and the show suffers. The decline in ratings has absolutely nothing to do with ideology, and everything to do with entertainment value, IMO.

[Surf Cowboy]

16. I was watching the debate episode on Bravo last night

and I was struck with how similar the situation was to the actual election. You had the Texas dumbass Governor giving 10-word soundbite answers, and the WW staff trying to figure out how to handle it.

The best line out of the whole show was that "nuance is not a vice." It's a complex and complicated world, and the U.S. needs a leader able to understand and manage all the complexity.

For Christ's sake, football is a relatively simple game, but even it is full of nuance. We all know that running the U.S. is more complicated than coaching a football team, but jackass W and his boys are trying to convince the world that there's no room for nuance.

Kerry's new slogan should be: NUANCE IS NOT A VICE-IT'S A COMPLEX WORLD OUT THERE--JUST ASK W.

[grasswire]

17. completely in the dark, they are

Look at this:

"Among the reasons offered for the show's ratings decline, Mr. Reilly said, was that "The West Wing" may have seemed out of sync at times with the real West Wing and the conservatism in the nation.

"Did the show reflect the real-life shift in the winds?" Mr. Reilly asked. "That's debatable."


The guy admits pandering to the thuggery of the right. Which obviously hasn't worked.

My beef: no continuity in the story line and little character development. Each episode was plopped down with little regard to building the story.

[DeepModem Mom]

19. Someone in my family is studying TV -- NBC's Jeff Zucker...

it's said, will go down as the worst head of programming in the history of television. Since he came to the helm at NBC, after producing the "Today" show, NBC has tanked bigtime. Remember how NBC used to top the ratings? Remember "must-see TV"? It's all gone.

And then there's what G.E. has done to NBC News, and what G.E. Russert has done to the hallowed anchor chair of "Meet the Press." And it's said that Brokaw was even quicker to suck up to G.E. than Russert, Jack Welch's protege, who may be the only on-air "journalist" who also holds a big-bucks corporate job (Senior Vice-President, NBC News).

[TahitiNut]

22. I detest soap operas.

I regard serialized television programs as predatory and refuse to be coerced into slavishly coming back for another 'hit' on such artifice. One of the reasons I like West Wing is the standalone nature of each episode, to the degree they are. When they played "tune in next week/season to find out what happens," I avoided them.

That said, 'West Wing' has the best production values on television. It's not cheap to stage such a program, and the result is worth it. The reason 'reality' programs are being pushed by the PTB is that they're the cheapest programs (TV "junk food") yet found. That makes the profits higher, even for low-rated shows. That's also why quiz shows became popular (in the TV industry) - they're an order of magnitude cheaper than paying skilled and talented actors, writers, and directors what they're worth.

There's more dollars-per-second invested in producing virtually any commercial than in the programming. Merv Griffen made his millions by cheapening the product.

"Cheap" shows on TV is like any industry looking for a way to cut labor costs: hire the unskilled and underpaid and multiply the profits for the indolent owners. Both labor and the consumer are cheated by such practices.

[Aristus]

18. Aaron Sorkin is one of the best writers in television history.

But let's not forget Tommy Schlamme's direction, either. His scenes were fasted paced without seeming rushed, the photography was lush, instead of murky like it is now, and the whole show had a fresh feeling. Even re-runs of the older episodes still feel like new. I miss Sorkin and Schlamme. They WERE the West Wing. :(

[Bandit]

20. They started doing right wing garbage last year and I stopped watching

It used to be my favorite show. No more. They spoiled it by making it right wing and even the right wingers won't watch it. They screwed themselves and I'm sorry because it was a damn good show at the beginning.