We only caught bits of this when it aired, but have recently watched the first two seasons on DVD. Absolutely loved them and want to watch more.
However, I have it in the back of my head that people think the series went really crap at some point. When is this? What other seasons are worth watching? Is it a slow decline or a sudden switch? Etc, etc.
Obviously no spoilers please.
It turns to crap after the end of Season 4, when writer/producer/junkie Aaron Sorkin left (S4 itself is considered inferior to the first 3 seasons, but it’s still pretty good). That sucks, because S4 ends with a *massive * cliffhanger.
Season 5 is unwatchable. Season 6 starts off weak, but it picks up around the middle, and the end of S6 through S7 are much better, at times equal to the first three seasons in quality.
Do what I did - watch S1-4, watch the frst 3 eps of S5 to see the (crappy) resolution to the cliffhanger, then skip ahead to ep 10 or so of S6. Read some online recaps to fill in missing plot developments.
Difficult to remember specific series and episodes but my feeling is that series 5 was weaker than 1 - 4 and series 6 and 7 stretched credibility in places but remember that even at its weakest it was way better that 95% of other TV programmes!
ETA Beaten to it with a much more detailed post!
Thanks for the replies. I live in the middle of nowhere so can’t rent DVDs, and anyway if stuff is good we like to rewatch. But at least I can go ahead and order the next season in safe anticipation, and will keep your warnings in mind before going any further.
No Netflix?
(I gave up on West Wing after he started the 2001 season with an incredibly preachy explanation of 9/11.)
I don’t think they’d deliver to a small village in rural Greece.
I don’t even get mail to my house, I pick it up at the local cafe.
Granted that was a lousy episode, but you missed out on two really good seasons by quitting when you did.
:smack:
Excuse my Americano-centralism.
And VarlosZ – so be it. It’s not like I gave up immediately, but that ep served to sever my suspension of disbelief with the show, and I no longer enjoyed it, rather to my disappointment.
Then pirazi. (No worries)
And which season starts with the 9/11 episode (please, please no spoilers)?
In my opinion, it hit a precipitous decline when
Donna went to the Middle East for no apparent reason and got blowed up real good.
First few seasons are magnificent, though.
Three. But it isn’t even really part of the season’s continuity; nothing that happens there is ever referred to in future episodes. It’s basically an Afternoon Special Featuring the Stars of NBC’s West Wing. You may ignore it without consequence.
Ignoring it is good advice. It may well be the worst episode of the entire series, or at least in the bottom three.
It was enough to turn me off the show permanently. Yeah, I definitely recommend skipping it and proceding directly to Season Three.
Even when it started to get old it was still a step over the offerings of regular TV. Watch them all .
Well, 9/11 didn’t happen in the “West Wing” universe. If you mean the episode “Isaac and Ishmael”, I thought it gave a pretty good explanation of why things were so crappy in Afghanistan, at least. In any case, it’s not part of any “West Wing” storyline; the episode is isolated in a separate fictional annex to the regular fictional universe of the show.
After Sorkin left, everything about the show seemed depressed and muted. The characters couldn’t seem to stir themselves for anything more ambitious than damage control. Then for the last season of the show, they abruptly skipped a year in the timeline; I guess they knew by then they wouldn’t get an eight season.
Meant to add: for me, the show stopped being fun when President Bartlett decided to have a man murdered. He went from being a President I wished we had in real life, to a tragic character I wanted to see imprisoned, along with his Chief of Staff.Doesn’t mean it wasn’t still a good show; just darker.
Now I’m just all confused again! This is the Straight Dope, just give me the facts - when did it get crap?
What do you mean it’s subjective?!
Anyway, I will carry on with season 3.
Never. The West Wing never turned to crap. It had some middling-to-bad episodes, and quality probably generally trended downward after the first two or three seasons, but it never got bad enough to be crap.
The worst WW (including the 9/11 episode) was still better than the best King Of Queens, or all the good moments of CSI:Miami rolled into one, or any ‘reality’ TV ever.
If the whole series had never been better than even that 9/11 ep, it would still be a better show than “Prison Break” or “The Unit”.
Stick around for the whole run. Even if you don’t like it as much as when you started, you’ll still have plenty to love. In the last season Alan Alda was fantastic. Yes, Alan Alda.
thwartme
This is my take on it.
I still miss that show.
If I were you the OPs situation, I would find the complete set on Ebay. The extras are worth it.