The Deeper Pool

 

As frequent readers of this column know, I don’t have a lot good to say about television, and I watch very little primetime. But there is a program that is brighter and more engaging than most anything one would find on the idiot box and it is worth special note. The West Wing starts by alienating a mess of potential viewers with its politics, which are clearly left of center, and look more so because the real Democrats are too wussy to represent anything significant.

Another chunk of the audience has gotta be lost in the dialogue about the world politik and domestic politics. Much of it revolves around contemporary issues and events. For most people who aren’t up on the news, it’s gotta be like hearing a foreign language, but I guess a lot of folks are willing to sit through the alien parts because they so much like the rest of the program.

It wouldn’t be primetime if it was all just geopolitics and this isn’t. There is illumination on relationships, both personal and professional, and there is a considerable sprinkling of heavy -- in a good sense -- intellectualism. The president, Martin Sheen, was trained as an economist; he spouts poetry and loves Chopin.

A lot of people won’t watch or object to the show because of Sheen’s off-screen leftie politics. It’s too bad, because Sheen is given some wonderful things to say. For instance, that there are moral absolutes, that it's not okay to blithely assassinate people who commit atrocities, which is something his character, the president, ordered done last season.

In a recent episode, a North Korean pianist wants to defect, but doing so would jeopardize nuclear talks with Pyongyang. Sheen recounts that the pianist told him of the word "Han" -- it was the title of the episode -- which means pain so deep no tears will come, but still there’s hope. That’s not only good stuff idea-wise, but it was delivered well, without excess.

The producers of The West Wing are undoubtedly being pressured to go more mainstream -- that is, more sex-‘n-violence and less thinking stuff-- and they are succumbing a bit. They’ve got a real challenge in writing an hour-long serial dramatic program that takes life from life, and speaks over the head of the majority of viewers. Maybe one reason it has survived so long is the fine balancing act performed by the show’s writers. They must presume that the pool of viewers out there who like to be challenged is still deep enough to whet their whistle.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

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