I gave up on “The West Wing” a few years ago. After watching it religiously from the start, it just started getting tedious and boring and not as good a show. Now I’m rather surprised to hear that the recent episodes are really good.
When did this happen? How far back should I go to get mostly good episodes?
In my opinion, most of the current life in the series is based on the ongoing presidential race between Democratic candidate Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) and Republican candidate Arnie Vinnick (Alan Alda). Their campaigns are bringing new characters into the show. The producers have said that they have not yet decided which candidate is going to win the election. For the most part the campaign shows have been last season (which climaxed with Santos’ nomination at the Democratic National Convention) and the current one.
That said, the best episode of this season had nothing to do with these characters; last week’s episode was the climax of a plotline running back to last season and had a dramatic showdown between Toby and Bartlet.